Kill Bill (All Vols.) (2003)

22 February 2020

Netflix had Kill Bill volumes 1 and 2 until the end of February, and it was a long time since I've seen it - so I thought I'd take the time during a long flight and rewatch it. It's surreal this is only Quentin Tarantino's fourth film (after Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and Jackie Brown respectively), and even more surreal that all his films over the years have fallen under such high regard.

Watching this again, I realized as a film it (and many Tarantino films) falls into the style of westerns at heart - at least to me. David Carradine and Michael Madsen stand out as cowboys (assassins are the modern cowboy in a sense). And especially with some of the Mifune samurai films that made it to the states, they feel like westerns - just with more honorifics and melee combat with swords over guns (though in general I also usually bundle gangster films and westerns together).

Tarantino seems to make the modern western in other ways: wide open films pulling in an entire outloor landscape with theatric flair call back to when the Utah scenery bled into John Ford classics; his minimalist stand-offs call back to Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns. You could call out the western tones in Kill Bill, Django: Unchained, Hateful Eight, and Once Upon A Time... In Hollywood (as DiCaprio's western alter ego). I hadn't really paid as much attention to it in his earlier films, and maybe I should have.

Anyways: Kill Bill is a revenge story of The Bride (Uma Thurman) getting nearly executed, and coming back for her would-be assassins, led by Bill (David Carradine). Action-packed and busting with pulp, it made itself a. Personally I like Part 1 more than 2 (it was paced better), but since I went through them consecutively I'll also rate the 2 parts as a whole. Part 1 was more action-packed, with the straight up fighting and not as much story. Part 2 was more strategic, less about the fighting and more about building up the story: what is this relationship with Bill;what's the backstory of The Bride; is she going to Kill Bill?

There have been murmurings of a Kill Bill part 3 (you can see a few loose ends that be easily extended with a third part), though I can see it's only necessary if Tarantino thinks there's a story to tell. But it is currently hoped for in 2022.

Part 1 I'd give an 9/10 (up from 11 years ago); part 2 a 7/10 (also up from 11 years ago). As a whole is give it an 8/10. As a whole the story offers solid, memorable characters with an action packed plot as The Bride goes after Bill. 8/10

17 January 2009

(Volume 2) 6/10

01 January 2009

(Volume 1) 8/10