Quentin Tarantino assured his skills with witty dialogue cues and narrative invention with his first three films in Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, but never action; and so it wasnt until Kill Bill, his two-part revenge drama inspired by the directors obsessive love with both samurai films and spaghetti westerns, that Tarantino proved he could helm fight scenes, too. The plot, then, purposely simple, allowed Tarantino to work his magic as Uma Thurmans Bride a former assassin sets out to kill those who shot and left her for dead on her wedding day. A roaring rampage of revenge, she brands it. Indeed. The first volume of Tarantinos bloody revenge saga is the most conventionally action-clad, then, whereas the second is more meditative (well, meditative for a Tarantino film, at least); there are several ingeniously devised action sequences scattered throughout Vol. 1, the best of which includes a memorable knife fight that leaves a suburban home smashed into pieces, and a near-on ridiculous final battle which sees The Bride taking on an endless array of Japanese bodyguards, tearing them to pieces with her samurai sword until hundreds are left begging for mercy.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
