Main Cast: Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Daryl Hannah, Julie Dreyfus, David Carradine, Michael Madsen
Release Year: 2003
Country: US
Run Time: 107 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
Perhaps the most highly anticipated film of 2003, Kill Bill Vol. 1 marked the return of renowned filmmaker Quentin Tarantino after a six-year hiatus. Re-teaming the director with Uma Thurman for the first time since 1994's Pulp Fiction, the film was originally the first half of what was to be a three-hour-plus movie before being split into two films. Thurman stars as The Bride, one-fifth of a team of assassins called DiVAS. When The Bride opts to leave the outfit for a life of marital bliss, it doesn't sit well with her boss, Bill (David Carradine), so he has her former cohorts, played by Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Daryl Hannah, and Michael Madsen, show up at the nuptials, leaving behind a blood bath. Miraculously, The Bride survives a bullet to the head and, four years later, she sets out for revenge against her four assassins and their employer. The story is concluded in Kill Bill Vol. 2, released six months later. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
Review
Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 is the work of a master filmmaker falling in love with directing all over again. After a layoff of six years, Tarantino pulls out all the stops to serve up an entertaining shot of action cinema. The film has momentum and an infectious sense of over-the-top fun that manifests itself in the various styles Tarantino employs. The anime section is brilliantly conceived and, quite frankly, live actors performing the story would have probably kept the film from getting an R rating. The same is true of the decision to film in black-and-white during the final battle. Had the splattering blood and flying limbs been presented in color, the ratings board would probably have balked. However, by choosing to shoot the sequence in black-and-white, Tarantino gets around that problem and forces the viewer to concentrate more on the choreography and the editing than the bloodshed. Judging this film is dicey, as it truly is nothing more than the first-half of a movie that was always intended to be a three-hour extravaganza. Kill Bill Vol. 2 hit theaters the following year and answered the question as to whether Vol. 1 was an emotionally empty exercise in (admittedly highly entertaining) style(s), or the first half of an epic that contained hidden depths of character and nuance. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
Dan Bradford - Art Director, Production I.G. - Animator, Dede Nickerson - Associate Producer, Koko Maeda - Associate Producer, Johanna Ray - Casting, Kumiko Ogawa - Costume Designer, Catherine Marie Thomas - Costume Designer, William Paul Clark - First Assistant Director, Zhang Jinzhen - First Assistant Director, Quentin Tarantino - Director, Sally Menke - Editor, Bob Weinstein - Executive Producer, Harvey Weinstein - Executive Producer, E. Bennett Walsh - Executive Producer, Erica Steinberg - Executive Producer, Sonny Chiba - Fights Choreographer, Yuen Woo Ping - Fights Choreographer, RZA - Composer (Music Score), Lars Ulrich - Composer (Music Score), Yuen Woo Ping - Martial Arts Instructor/Coordinator, K.N.B. EFX Group - Makeup Special Effects, David Wasco - Production Designer, Yohei Taneda - Production Designer, Robert Richardson - Cinematographer, Lawrence Bender - Producer, Quentin Tarantino - Producer, Mary Finn - Set Designer, Peter Davidson - Set Designer, Tommy Tom - Special Effects, Tam Kia Kwan - Special Effects, Leung Wai Kit - Special Effects, Jaco Wong Hin Leung - Special Effects, Mark Ulano - Sound/Sound Designer, Zoe Bell - Stunts, Keith Adams - Stunts Coordinator, Quentin Tarantino - Screenwriter, Centro Digital Pictures - Visual Effects, Sandy Reynolds-Wasco - Set Decorator
