Rating: 
Summary: I was SUPPOSED to like this movie.
Review: The title of this review expresses both my expectations for this movie and the expectations of many people who I know. In the end, I am shocked because I definitely did NOT like it. I'd like to share my experience so that you can better judge whether this movie is for you, not because I wish to demean it.I love martial arts. I usually like martial arts films, especially in the rare instances where you can use fighting effectively without completely sacrificing plot...Heck, even an attempt at plot. (Now THAT's a parody of the genre - something this movie was hailed as by some but failed to live up to.) Thus, when several people who know me and my martial preoccupation recommended this movie very highly, it began to sound like a sure hit. Indeed, it has all the makings of such a hit, employing many an action and/or kung fu cliché as it winds its way along. Alright, I'm going to start with the good, because I don't want it to seem that I'm laying into this movie without having thought about it. 1. Quentin Tarentino clearly has a good handle on what makes film visually interesting. He employs anime-styled animation, black and white, and uses color contrast to maintain variety and keep things appealing to the eye. (Note the yellow or white on red contrast in this film used repeatedly.) This helps keep your eyes on the screen for the most part. 2. The sound quality is excellent, especially the choice in music. Because the movie is nearly constantly in motion, the music appropriately beats along with an up-tempo rhythm and serves the movie well. You may want to get up and bust out the glo-sticks, or you may just tap your foot subconsciously. Either way, I thought the use of sounds also drove the movie. 3. There's at least an attempt to justify the violence. Now, my complaints. 1. There is simply too much gory violence for my taste, and the justification for it is weak. I don't care if it's only bad people being killed. I don't care if it's bad people killing bad people. That aspect of the film didn't interest me and actually verged on bothering me. The violence wasn't a fake, disconnected kind, and being dragged through 90-some murders isn't fun. 2. Uma Thurman's acting felt bland, and Lucy Liu wasn't convincing. Ultimately, the dialogue struck me as very poor, I guess. It serves to move the viewer from one bloody encounter to the next and lend fragments of insight as to why everyone's fighting, but aside from that it's often unnatural sounding and uninteresting. If I bought Ms. Thurman or Ms. Liu as "tough", (a failing more of the script than their acting) maybe that wouldn't have been the case. Perhaps then this movie might have transcended to "cool" status, but as such it's relegated to "I Bought This Without Renting It?" purgatory. 3. A sword? On a plane? Yeah...Right... 4. The choreography is simply nothing special, and that's coming from someone who likes martial arts. If you don't like wire work, this isn't your movie certainly, because in typical Woo Ping fashion, it's abundant here. Also, there are the typical high-arcing sword swings which are clearly intended to make clanging sword sounds for the camera rather than to injure an opponent. Perhaps this complaint ultimately stems from not being able to relate to any of the characters, but I couldn't suspend my disbelief and found the action boring as a result. The above are really only building to this conclusion: It's sad to me that of all the things Tarantino chose to emphasize about martial arts, he chose to merely show it as violent. And, ultimately what I got from this movie reflected just that - empty violence. I couldn't buy the justification for it, and as such it mostly offended me. Your miles may vary. As I tried to say, the visual and audio presentation of this movie make it quite "watchable" - an accomplishment of its own. If you like other Tarantino films, you'll likely enjoy this, especially if martial arts or yakuza films also interest you. I can only say that the violence may also be a significant turn-off for others, and if you can't get past that, you'll likely start to look for flaws as I did above and enjoy it less. I mean, other than violence, very little else happens in this movie, so just know what you're getting into and make your own choice.
Rating: 
Summary: Full DVD Not Here
Review: The full unedited movie was released on DVD in Japan not here. jbox.com is a good place to buy it if you have a region free player. Movie 5 stars
DVD 4 stars
Rating:
Summary: Resolidifying Tarantino's Empire
Review: Kill Bill vol. 1 is probably the perfect 4th film by trash-guru Tarantino after a shoddy attempt with Jackie Brown. While some thought he was out of Hollywood forever, the immense creativity and breakneck speed of this film is a breath of fresh air. There is more than enough blood and guts to satisfy pure action fans, well choreographed fight scenes for "martial art film" fans, and excellent storylines for fans of his particular scripting craft. It's also the most artistic mainstream release since Natural Born Killers. I'll give this DVD 4 stars just for the lack of extras - just wait for the collector's edition - and that the final battle scene with Iishi is way too anti-climactic to be included dead last in this rollercoaster of a movie.
Rating: 
Summary: omg,whats happened to american taste?
Review: I cant believe it takes films like this to entertain americans today..everything else is considered slow-moving and boring.Please,pass this one up.
Rating:
Summary: A complete waste of 20 bucks!
Review: I loved Tarantino movies like "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction" so I paid 20 bucks for the DVD thinking this movie would be great too. WRONG!! This movie is so bad that I had to turn it off after about 45 minutes. Probably only the 3rd or 4th time I've had to do that in my life, so that's pretty bad. It is very slow-moving and boring, and it constantly strays away from the point. You have to sit through about 15 minutes of cartoon-fighting which I thought was retarded. If I wanted to watch cartoons I'd borrow my nephew's DVDs. There wasn't nearly as much fighting or violence as in his other movies (at least in the first half) but of what violence it did have sucked. And the parts where he tried to make it funny were not at all funny. They were stupid. I can't believe this movie sucked so bad! What a huge disppointment. Don't waste your money - it sucks!
Rating: 
Summary: Black comedy, but the hype got me down
Review: Not much to say about this flick. A neighbor recommended it, said he thinks Tarrantino is a genius. It had me laughing at a few spots; it's a caricature of the bad kung fu flicks of a few years ago. Blood all over; the main character taking on a crowd the size of my wife's family and wiping them all out. As I found those movies to be ghastly, any parody thereof can make me laugh. Then I watched the DVD's special features, especially the "making of" portion. When Uma Thurman starts making the film sound like a feminist spectacle, and I don't know the name of the black actress starts doing the same, well, that's akin to anti-porn activists calling "The Lion King" "subtle pornography." (They really did call it that!) C'mon, Uma, it's a black comedy, and kind of a dumb one at that. Don't make it look like you've read some Schopenhauer and are trying to put a philosophical depth into the script. To the folks in Hollywood: okay, continue to make flicks. They keep us entertained. But stop trying to make them into something they aren't.
Rating:
Summary: Really 3 1/2 stars: Too obsessed with cinematic trivia
Review: Writer-director Quentin Tarantino indulges his love for revenge flicks and martial arts movies in the story of a former member of an assassination squad (Uma Thurman) who seeks revenge against her former teammates (Viveca Fox and Lucy Liu) after they wipe out the members of her wedding party. The result is highly watchable, but somehow sterile and unsatisfying. Tarentino's films have always been more about style and homage than substance, but with "Kill Bill" he threatens to tip over into self-parody. Has he been reading too many worshipful articles about himself? His films have always been exercises in hip and cool, but this one seems especially self-consciously so. The characterization of previous films is gone, replaced by iconic cartoon cutouts that are motivated by the demands of stereotype. His dialogue is always cited as a strength, full of quirky details and impassioned defenses of odd world views. In KB, however, the dialogue is simply terrible. The actors are given ridiculous things to say, full of posturing and bluster and stilted syntax. None of the profanity sounds organic or natural; each F-word seems as carefully arranged and artificial as a flower arrangement. What does work is the action, which comprises the majority of the film. Tarentino may be all about style, but he is a master of style. So for me, watching this film was a schizophrenic experience. I would be caught up in it, then jarred out of it again by a particularly bad piece of dialogue or gimmicky technique whose only reason for being there is that someone did the same thing in a 60s kung-fu movie.
Rating:
Summary: Fun movie, but wished for better DVD
Review: The movie is a joyride of pure action-packed wonderment, with blood on-screen measured in gallons per second. Uma Thurman has never looked better, as does most of the rest of the cast. Beautifully shot and lit. This DVD kind of falls through, however; the quality of sound and video is just fine, but there's essentially nil for extras. Trailers for other Tarantino films, and some very throwaway videos for the musical group playing at the beginning of the hotel scene. With all the extras on Reservoir Dogs, I expect more of Tarantino. Wait for a special edition of the film, hopefully containing both volumes packaged together. If you liked the first one, you'll probably dig the second... though a three-hour long cut with the two movies together would be ideal. Can that come out on DVD, Mr. Tarantino?
Rating:
Summary: Abysmal
Review: I enjoyed Reservoir Dogs, and was hoping this movie was of the same calibre. Unfortunately, this movie was not nearly as clever, interesting, or rich in plot as Reservoir Dogs. In fact, if you took out the gratuitous violence, and replaced the overdone and unrealistic fighting scenes with something that resembles a plot, it would still just barely qualify as a movie.
Rating:
Summary: Does not live up to the hype
Review: If there is any word to describe my reaction to Kill Bill Vol. 1, it is this: Underwhelmed. Oh, there was plenty to like. Superb cinematography, really nice character and set design, and some very stylish sequences ... ... but ultimately I was left shrugging my shoulders and saying, "yeah, it was alright." Following this film, I won't make any great effort to see Vol. 2, though I'll watch it if it comes my way. There was a lot of style and gloss and swagger, which is fine, but it was empty style and gloss and swagger. I didn't much care about the story or characters, I didn't find the humor funny, and I never felt drawn into the story or interested to see what happens next. About 45 minutes in I just wanted to see the bloodbath at the end everybody was talking about and be done with it. (Take note, I am not a fan of many of the genres Tarantino was referencing in Kill Bill, so things that would make a fan of Sunday Matinee Kung Fu smile would not do much for me). Still, there were some camera shots that were just fantastic - the car and motorcycles racing through Japan, the long single-shot sequence, the pan over the slaughtered wedding party, among others - and the score and soundtrack was flawless in every way, probably the best yet in a Tarantino film. The action sequences were well choreographed, and the special effects were delightfully campish. Yet in the end I felt a bit empty. Unlike my first viewings of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, when I knew I had just watched something special, Kill Bill Vol. 1 struck me as just ... good. And the hype claims much more than "good." Certainly an argument can be made that Vol. I was just the first half of the film, and hence is incomplete. The second half may well put the first in perspective. But this review focuses solely on Vol. I as a standalone film, and as a standalone film, it did not work for me. The film's merits aside, the quality of the DVD was outstanding, with a crisp picture and excellent sound. Techphiles will not be disappointed with the presentation in any way. The extras are sparse, but what is here is solid enough to tide Kill Bill fans over until the Special Edition is released. If you already know you like this movie, purchasing this is a no-brainer - great DVD presentation, good picture, and, well, it's Kill Bill. If you're unsure if you will like this, a rental is recommended before plunking down the cash on a purchase, because for this viewer, the reality did not live up to the hype.
| 
