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A REVIEW BY BOB SINCLAR 10/11/2003
As I whistle the so beautiful ending theme from Kill Bill, I now realize that it is about time that I got back to writing my movie reviews and comments and more generally my pointers to the little movie-world people. Cause after a little bit of improvement and some interesting films, a great come back from Eddy Murphy in I Spy, the refreshing Johnatan Demme’s French film, I tend to realize that filmmakers, especially the summer-season kind are losing it again and taking their success for granted. I would cite as example the intriguishly spectacular stupidity of Matrix big finale’s dialogue, or the horrible come back from Parkinson’s disease spokes-director Michael Bay (Bad Boys 2 you won’t throw up because of the gore but because of the shaky cam™ baybruckeimercorp copyright 1900-2050). Thank god (the actual one not the one living in Washington) I’m still there to catch them all off guard and gently make fun of them until they realize it’s a sin to waste a perfectly good film stock. Plus Roland Emmerich is coming back to bum us all out next summer so I must be in my best shape to welcome him back (sadistic laughs). I never got to congratulate him for the effort he made to rectify his work after the Patriot… taking some vacation was a good career choice.
Anyway I won’t have to use my cynical critic writing mode today because what motivates me to write this is actual love. And these days where you get to wonder where is the love I could actually grasp a taste of it watching and losing myself in the “fantasy” highly-inspired comic book-flavored universe of kill bill.
Now I take this opportunity to place my favourite Bruce Campbell’s impression from Evil Dead 2 cult hand cutting with a chainsaw scene:
-- “That’s right” Kill Bill volume 1 is what you could call a genius sample of the purest form of filmmaking you get to see these days. And not only is it beautiful to watch and to listen to, it has given me back the passion to write and tell you all about the luv I got for films in general and this one film in particular, and why this will remain as a landmark in the cinema world for times to come. Just as his other films you can already clearly see why this is timeless and not just another trendy but forgettable film.
Ok so will now try to somehow organize my critic and this is already bound to be difficult as I have not written in quite a fucking long time, especially something that both made sense and was in readable english. I would use the little movie critic’s trick that consists of doing the following; when you have nothing quite relevant to say (often in this business), You use the copy/paste trick from an old review then change the words around to match the film you wanna talk about and finish up with a few pre-formatted formulas to fit on movie posters with your name below and most importantly, your brand. It goes like this “the funniest movie of the week” WSFCK TV below. It’s pointless, doesn’t give a freaking clue to the spectator but it is efficient on posters. Talking about that I have a “brilliant” 4 stars comment to sell for 5Gs on any Kill Bill poster. But (if you remember the beginning of my point) Kill Bill is such an achievement that it deserves a hard work from my end just out of respect for Mr. Tarantino.
First of all let’s summarize the story. It’s a revenge story. And revenge is always sweet when in a movie theater. That said there’s nothing much more to add to the story. Well actually, it’s about this beautiful pregnant tall and, yes, aging a bit woman (The few micro wrinkles look charming on Uma Thurman though) that is called the bride code named Black Mamba and also something else but that’s one of the mysteries of Volume 1. Ok so you’re gonna ask me But why in the NAME OF GOD is she called that way? To what I would replicate well because she’s getting married my friend and settle down please we didn’t raise the space monkeys together. So, she used to belong to a crime gang and her former boss, Bill (Kung Fu’s David Carradine) very fortunately for the spectator decides to put an end to her life but not just any way. He does it the professionally orchestrated carnage-at-her-weddi ng way. Left for dead by 5 sexy dressed assaillants/ex-assoc iates, the Bride miraculously survives with a bullet in her head and wakes up after 4 years of coma with an instant thirst for a spectacular revenge and a metal plate welded on her head. This is a pretty standard-issue revenge story when you read about it like that, but just perfect for the greatest homage the samourai/western genre could ever get. In his quest for perfection Quentin Tarantino manages to keep a few surprises and interrogation points here and there, enough to keep us involved at all time with this apparently simple story. We don’t quite know what motivates the wedding slaughter and maybe we’ll never know but that’s not necessary to the film at this point. Actually little is necessary to make this work as we are so instantly sucked inside another dimension, the movie world dimension which makes us totally forget about our surroundings and breathe and live in perfect harmony with each new scene. This is by the way what every movie should aim to create… a total immersion away from the real world and only a few succeed as well as Kill Bill. We follow Uma Thurman with extreme attention throughout her quest and I can tell you right away, the slower the plot unfolds the better for the audience. We definitely don’t want to be rushed through the story but instead just hang around and take the time pay attention and enjoy every little detail, every little dialogue, every little smile, every shot and it’s accompanying music that blend so well together you’d think there were never meant to exist without each other. The whole mixture of all these tiny perfectionists elements make for quite a chef d’oeuvre. Although the oeuvre from Quentin Tarantino is still quite small and composed mostly of chefs, his eye and his hear and the way they work together have clearly been upgraded to a version 2.0 for Kill Bill.
So by now, because the difficult exercise of making too many compliments at the same time got me lost, I think I will just try and make a quick little attempt at structuring the end of my review, the Tarantino-way, with chapters..
The acting… The fact that Tarantino writes and direct his actors so well is enhanced by the fact that he probably had each actor well in mind when he wrote the script. Just as the fact he had the music in mind when he imagined the different camera shots hence, the characters and story come to life as a very coherent ensemble or if I may, a perfect whole. Quentin Tarantino also has taken for habit the need to bring back into the spotlight actors that had their moment of glory during an era when a specific movie genre was king. In kill bill volume 1 we get to discover a wonderful cast of unjustly somewhat forgotten stars such as the super cool Vivicia A. Fox previously seen in the must-own-on-DVD Booty Call, the missed Daryl Hannah, or plain simple legends such as David Carradine or should I say David Carradine’s hand (we don’t quite see him in volume 1 but his hand still acts just great) and the even more charismatic Sonny Chiba. Seeing them in action making the best use of all their talent you’d just think that the parts were written for every single one of them. But I already said that. Lucy Liu shows some unexpected new aspects of her acting capabilities in her professionally crual triad chief role. The subtle palette of expressions on her face is very surprising and highly enjoyable. In fact one beautiful moment of the film happens when you discover Lucy Liu’s face so dead cold serious almost scary during a triad AA meeting suddenly broken by a so sweet and spontaneous smile (who was she smiling at?) that is so huh…spontaneous that it feels as if it wasn’t done on purpose. The other thing that did strike me at the time was the look in her eyes when she discovers for the first time that, ---beep---, the bride, is actually alive. You’d think such tiny eyes wouldn’t be capable of reflecting any strong expression… that’s wrong! She goes from surprise to defiance to respect with great power and expertise… nice acting there Madam. I didn’t realize she could do this. In the end you get to see a nice brochette of crazy ass named character each coming with his/her own selection of quick witted lines and long Tarantin-esque monologues that makes for a pure movie delight. Carradine (‘s hand) monologue on the telephone with Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) will be remembered for sure.
But the most impressive and enjoyable person in all this perfection is certainly Uma Thurman who’s incredible work learning martial arts left me as speechless as on the ass. That added to her radiant charm in every single shot and her nice feet (for such a tall woman) is enough to bring definitely Uma in the “I played a legendary cool role and I’ll always be remembered for it” club. That’s just lovely because she deserved it and we didn’t get to see enough of her in Pulp fiction for that to happen. And believe me that is way past beyond the “I am an FDA-approved Oscar™ actor” status.
In an anthology fight scene at a Japanese night club Uma swirls and spins around the screen, plays tightrope walker on a stairs handrail and does an impressive jump landing on her feet and on a table using perfectly the space and her katana as she slashes limbs and heads to find her way towards super vilain number 2… aaargh long sentence I’m out of breath too just writing it. Quite impressive especially when you know she didn’t have a hundred cables blue screens and computers animating her dislocated body every which way, in the new trendy pull the strings fake martial arts kind you get to see in the Charlie’s Angels type films lately. I just want to give here a special mention to her stunt double who in that scene performs a few amazing tricks flying through a paper wall and grabbing in extremis with one hand the same exact handrail I mentioned before in this long sentence. Along with the athletic performance, Uma easily demonstrates once again a marvellous acting talent at all times and specifically in the very first opening scene, during a chilling and moving waking up from coma scene and finally during this whole memorable “Man from Okinawa” sequence (one of the best of this first film) where her fresh spontaneity transforming into a cold determination is opposed to the cool untouchable power of Hattori Hanza (Sonny Chiba). This makes miracles and will give you the chills for 5 minutes and make you fall in love with her by the time this superb music fills up the theatre to end this dream like sequence.
The violence is just one of the elements that make Kill Bill work so well. There is just one thing to say about it. The bride’s revenge just wouldn’t have any impact if the heads and limbs weren’t flying all over the place. It’s like smoking light cigarettes… what’s the point? you got to smoke twice as much anyway until to get the same effect. Imagine seeing Saving Private Ryan without any gore and graphic violence… No one would leave the theater understanding clearly the courage of these soldiers.
Now I’m not gonna teach anything to anyone if I tell you that Quentin Tarantino is the most talented director of his generation. I suppose he has a true love for his art and a highly extensive knowledge of his subject. Being a moving film encyclopedia helps him a lot in his work. He knows how to be original while keeping a pure special effects free directing style using interesting shots that all have their importance. It’s images and music that tell the story and not a story that is being filmed. Each shot has a purpose and none is gratuitous or for show off. Trans travs show off shots that don’t help the emotion as seen in Road to Perdition are overrated by now. Try to prove you’re great directors some other way people. We all know this trick. Anyway Tarantino has learned to film fight scenes and to control space perfectly. The well edited first fight scene between Vivicia A. Fox and Uma Thurman is a perfect example of this. The editing gives so much impact to each punch it reminded me of the hardest hitting james bond ever (because of perfect editing), George Lazenby in In her Majesty’s secret service or more recently Michael Biehn in the unknown Timebomb. From nervously edited fight scenes to an excellent slow-mo shot as Uma escapes the hospital and also to the relaxing shot-sequence circling in a Japanese night club and following characters as the tension raises, Quentin Tarantino uses a complete range of sublte camera angles and pure/traditional filming techniques for the greatest homage to samourai and western movies that could ever be made. One sure thing is that you wont leave the theatre with a headache but instead with sparkling eyes from seing so many beautiful images and even a nice bonus treat, a manga sequence directed by the guys who created the excellent Ghost in the shell.
Let’s talk about the “homages” and references to previous movies. There are many of those spread out in Kill Bill but their presence is so well melted in “the whole” they just contribute in creating a new perfectly coherent ensemble and not just patched up sequences of stupid ass copycat sequences as we’ve seen in the past… one example comes to mind (always the same but it deserves it)… Swingers. Let me cite a few references I noticed (the most obvious ones)… the ending music theme first which is a mix between the beautiful melody of The Killer and an Ennio Morricone music. The costume which, wore by Bruce Lee in The game of death, got stained by a cool 1 yard long foot print of Kareem Abdul Jabar (the hut?) in a cult sequence. Except Uma has got some kick ass (their actual purpose in the film) yellow ascics shoes. They probably didn’t make the children size back then to fit Bruce Lee’s feet. Finally you get to see 1 copycat shot but it’s a rather cool one and it involves a villain’s black limo surrounded by a bunch of black Yamaha Fazer motorcycles… seems this scene was shot in the exact same location as the one from John Woo’s Hard Boiled. I accept donations from Ascics and Yamaha by the way. Contact me at tom@theshocktreatmen t.com thank you.
The moral of this review is that you don’t need crazy means to be outrageously creative and often the simplest things treated with true love for the cinema art and a bit of almost sick perfectionism (see the movie twice to notice all the tiny details such as the cereal brand) can easily surpass any computer generated boring and soulless flick. John Woo might need to meditate on that as well and go back to the roots. Kill Bill took my breath away and gave me the chills every 15 minutes. I can’t wait to dive back into this wonderful movie-perfect universe. And while I wait, Kill Bill being a Miramax/Disney production I hope to find the corresponding merchandising products in my nearby Toy’s r’ us store soon. Enough of blue Nemo fluffy-toys I want my yellow Uma-Barbie doll!!!
© 2003 Tom H
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