Home :: DVD :: Action & Adventure :: Martial Arts  

Animal Action
Blackmail, Murder & Mayhem
Blaxploitation
Classics
Comic Action
Crime
Cult Classics
Disaster Films
Espionage
Futuristic
General
Hong Kong Action
Jungle Action
Kids & Teens
Martial Arts

Military & War
Romantic Adventure
Science Fiction
Sea Adventure
Series & Sequels
Superheroes
Swashbucklers
Television
Thrillers
Kill Bill - Vol. 1

Kill Bill - Vol. 1

List Price: $29.99
Your Price: $19.49
Product Info Reviews

<< 1 .. 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 .. 80 >>

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Work of art from garbage
Review: Quentin Tarantino is by far the biggest showman in Hollywood today. It seems that through each of his movies he keeps telling his audience:" Look how smart and knowledgable I am. Aint I cool?" Kill Bill is one gigantic exercise in this cinematic narcissism. QT takes a hacked-to-death B grade revenge plot(like I spit on your grave), puts in stock characters(the washed-out master, the over-the-top villians--one of them wears a Long John Silver type patch on her eye), makes them sprout cliched dialogue and puts them in standard "hong kong-style" setpieces. And despite all the seen-a-hundred-times garbage he pumps in, QT is able to lift "Kill Bill I" to the level of celluloid poetry. Purely on his own story-telling strengths and nothing else.

So how really does he pull it off ? For a start, exquisite frame compositions and brilliant background music. He uses innovative narrative patterns like anime to advance the plot; he pays tribute to himself(who else!) by inverting events like in Pulp Fiction. The entire movie is punctuated by cool cinematic tricks..like using an overdose of gore to dilute its very impact. The violence is cartoonish and designed to revolt as well as entertain you in a way you didnt think possible. Not a date movie for sure---neither QT's best(that will always be Pulp Fiction) but surely not to be missed

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Absolute Wubbish.
Review: This film is very violent. Since it is a two parter, I should have perhaps waited perhaps untill the second part came out to decide on a grade. However, if the second part ends with '''The Bride'' being revealed as actually a man, then I will give it ten stars. Absolute Wubbish!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Tarantino's back! With a Vengeance!
Review: Two weeks have passed since my initial viewing and I'm still thinking about this sucker! The Wachowski Bros. should have phoned QT to write "Reloaded". Here is a director so in touch with his audience, you can feel him reaching into your brain and pushing buttons! This is how I can sum up watching this (or any other)Tarantino film: you will have no idea when it's safe to head for the restroom. That's the bottom line. Any other movie, you've got a fair sense of whether or not you'll miss anything by taking a bathroom break. But try that with Kill Bill. You just have the feeling that anything can happen to anyone at any time! And that makes a terrific film!

This is a movie that makes you pay attention and makes you wish its director would do more than one movie every 6 years.

Too cool!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Redefining the cartoon. And other audio/video bytes...
Review: Asian cinema is the primary influence in "The Fourth Film by Quentin Tarantino". Samurai swords, martial arts, and anime figure prominently and even when they don't, Mr. T. is feeling his Asian oats in both the handling of the main theme and the hyper-stylized bloodiness that spews all over the place a whole bunch of the time. Japanese culture--honor, revenge, and all that good stuff--and Hong Kong action fuse in Kill Bill, along with the pop-savvy auteur's encyclopedic command of pulpy cinema, spanning the globe from Japan to Italy to the U.S. and back again.

Character development? Not really. Plot drives this baby, and Mr. T. knows that cinema this character-thin has to pile on the plot-driven glitz to keep the viewer's attention. Uma Thurman, the Bride, is violently assaulted on her wedding day and left for dead, but isn't. She vows revenge on all those who've done her wrong and makes good on her promise. That's the plot.

Along the way, we're treated to a finger-snapping mix of 60s and 70s film soundtrack and pop music, and an equally ever-kinetic brew of the multiple forms that video takes to evoke instantaneous reactions. These include Japanese anime, way over the top chop-socky battles, and intense-to-the-point-of-complete-wackiness "emotion". If somebody has to die, they do it as violently as possible. If somebody feels something, they feel it so it hurts like nothing else in the entire world.

This is how cartoons operate and while this is an exceedingly entertaining cartoon, it is, nevertheless, a cartoon. A cartoon exists to elicit one simple, basic response at a time, with no requirement for depth of understanding. It's interesting to contrast this with Mystic River, Clint Eastwood's breathtaking work of violence and family. Both films have revenge as a core theme. The difference is remarkable.

What's also interesting is to compare this film with Reservoir Dogs in which characters evolved from the plot gradually, credibly, and powerfully. In Kill Bill, whatever characters there are exist only to make the writer-director's cartoon vision come to life. Characters don't really change as the film progresses. They can't--each one exists to address a specific function and once that function is fulfilled, the character either dies or keeps doing the same thing he or she was doing before, whether it's kill people, make swords, or just be a general pain in the butt. And that, Mr. T. says, is the whole point.

Tarantino is the master of pop fusion; he does it better than anyone else. In Kill Bill, he's upped his own pop fusion ante to a level at which glitz reigns supreme.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The return of the revenge flick.
Review: Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill is a throw back to the retro 70's revenge movie is not only a tribute but also grand come back to those styles of filmmaking. Uma Thurman is Wonderful, and Lucy Lu is just as great as her adversary. This is the first part of a two part movie, and while that is frustrating because I will have to wait to the next chapter to find out what had happen, but judging by this movie, it will be worth the wait

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Thank you, Sonny Chiba
Review: Okay, this movie is very weird. It has annoying sound effects, gushing fountains of blood, and the usual movie version of the Japanese sense of "giri," sort of a cross between honor and obligation. That said, it's also a [great] martial arts movie with a warped sense of humor. I cannot believe there are so few reviews mentioning Sonny Chiba. He and his sidekick (forgive me for missing his name) have the funniest scene in the movie, with dialogue entirely in Japanese (subtitled). Perhaps they don't want to ruin it. The movie is worth getting for that scene alone, a nice interplay of a love/hate relationship between an employer and an employee that's been around waaaay too long. Trashy fun for smart people.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Return of the King.
Review: Quentin Tarantino loves movies. This homage to grindhouse is fuel-injected madness from a filmmaker who knows movies inside out, and who has so much style he's almost aflame with it. Yes, it is extreme, no, it's not by-the-numbers Hollywood pap that panders to television addicts and lovers of the empty and the watered-down. It is for other people who love movies and who loves this guy's intense mission, which is to create art based on personal preference rather than formula. (...) he's back in high gear. Full- throttle Q.T.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Kill William
Review: Every few years, a film transcends the directorial boundaries set before it and asks audiences to disavow their universal cinematic expectations. If successful, these pictures become the new artistic standard and send the entire film industry scrambling back to the drawing board. Quentin Tarantino's 4th film, Kill Bill, is one of these, accomplishing more in each of its minutes than most films do in their entirety.

There are millions of movies. Why is Kill Bill any more profound than Crouching Tiger, the Good the Bad and the Ugly, and the Matrix? The rivers of blood and remarkable fight scenes aren't the reasons, as cool as they are. No, it's the film's chameleon-like blend of genres; Tarantino takes pieces of Kung-Fu, Anime, the Spaghetti Westerns, and Pulp Fiction, adds a dash of 70's funk, and molds together a colorful and explosive patchwork. Though each borrowed style already exists, their mere combination represents the movie's originality. So as thievish as Tarantino's tactics may seem, the recipe tastes too good for anyone to care.

This in mind, grab your kitana, hop on your motorcycle, and speed to the nearest mega-plex. Kill Bill is superbly entertaining and worth seeing twice, three times even.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Tarrintino Film Eva!!!!!!!!
Review: october 10th sees the release of the famous Quentin Tarrintinos nxt highly anticipated project KiLL BiLL the critically aclaimed director of what has offten been described as the greatest film of all time Pulp Fiction no one shuld understimate this Spaghetti Western so october 10th volume 1 "carry a big sword...... uma therman will KiLL BiLL this low budget film has already been predicted to overrun the maatrix reloadeds box office takings and only took a quarter of the matrix's budget to create which just goes to show that u need class and witty screenplay and amazing directing rather then a shedload of money!!! this spaghetti western is going to blow you away already described by one of the films many beautiful stars Lucy Lui as being able to make u physically sick this is not one for the light hearted the soundtrack of this new picture has already been described as more addicting then the songs on the Pulp fiction soundtrack which i am still listening to to this day all i can say is well done on what is going to be an amazing film

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The Bride and The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad.
Review: There's a good chance that you already know the story behind "Kill Bill," the first Quentin Tarantino movie in 6 years. It was originally going to be released as a 3-plus hour epic, but the boys at Miramax studios made the dubious decision to cut the film in half. Even so, "Volume 1" is good enough to stand on its own. Uma Thurman is on fire as the Bride, who goes on a mission to get revenge against the five members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (the "DiVAS") who gunned her down for dead on her wedding day four years ago. Like 1994's "Pulp Fiction," the events in this film are told out of sequence, leaving the viewer to piece together the chain of events in order. And as action movies go, "Kill Bill" is a virtual bloodbath, a martial arts film with enough gore to make "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" look like a Disney picture. If the sight of decapitations and the removal of limbs repel you in any way, you are best advised to steer clear from this movie. (There's also an extended anime clip that shows the history of the assassin O Ren Ishii that's equally graphic and disturbing) At times, "Kill Bill" goes into overkill and gets a bit too flashy for its own good. You can almost visualize Tarantino exclaiming "look Ma, no hands!" as he relentlessly brings on the action to cartoonish extremes. Say what you will about this movie, but one thing is certain: you won't be bored. "Kill Bill" also closes with an effective cliffhanger that leaves you salivating. The second "volume" is slated for release in early 2004. I'll be in line for tickets.


<< 1 .. 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 .. 80 >>

© 2004, ReviewFocus or its affiliates