Earlier this evening, I purchased the 'Kill Bill' soundtrack with some gift cards that I received for my birthday. Listening to the soundtrack on the way home, I realized that I had not yet written a review for one of my most favorite movies that I've seen all year.

I had followed the early stages of the 'Kill Bill' movie pretty closely. As soon as I heard that Quentin Tarantino was making a love letter to all of the different genres that influenced him as a young aspiring movie director, I was suddenly interested. While not taken to the extent that Tarantino does, I too grew up with a lot of the same types of movies. I am a product of the different Kung Fu, Westerns, anime, and Blacksploitation. Like I said, my extent of interest in these types of movies was not taken to a tenth of the degree of Tarantino's interest in those types of movies. Well...maybe Kung Fu is the one genre that I probably come the closest in similar interest level. I have more than 40 Jackie Chan videos, more than 10 Bruce Lee movies, I've seen plenty of Shaw Bros. movies. So I was pretty knowledgable of the "Kung Fu Theater" type of movies.

But when I saw the first trailer for 'Kill Bill,' I was less than impressed. I thought that it looked like Tarantino had bitten off more than he could chew in making a movie where his mostly white cast members were attempting to perform martial arts that most people take years to perfect.

But as the movie release came closer, I think that the people at Miramax heard the ruckus raised about the trailer, so they released a more traditional trailer that showcased that this wasn't just a "kung fu western" and was instead actually a story of a young bride seeking revenge on her attempted killer ex-lover.

To be completely honest, I was COMPLETELY flabbergasted by "The Fourth Film of Quentin Tarantino." From the opening quote, to the on purpose cheesy opening credits spoof of Kung Fu movies, to the violent first image, to the opening song, right through every single frame of the film, to the end. I was completely captivated. 'X2' and 'Kill Bill' were the only two movies I've seen this year that I was actually excited throughout the entire running time of the movie.

What I thought was going to be a lesson in self-indulgence, turned out to be a lesson in self-indulgence meets incredible homage. Let's be completely honest, 'Kill Bill' was a major lesson in how self-indulgent one director can get. Everything that Tarantino wanted to put in the movie, is in the movie. Every frame and every shot is just as Tarantino wanted it. 'Kill Bill' is a lesson in how one director's artistic vision meshes perfectly with the pop-culture that sprung his ideas.

This movie is violent. It's just straight up violent from beginning to end. Anyone who knows my tastes in movies knows that on-screen violence has never been something that bothers me. I grew up on the slasher genre and cut my teeth on the Kung Fu movies of the seventies. It's never been something that's made me squeamish. The only type of on-screen violence that repulses me is realistic violence. I don't feel comfortable watching war movie violence or watching a realistic portrayal of a murder or a rape. But when it comes to slasher violence, I've always felt that it's so over the top and so gratuitous that it never really bothers me. Part of that has to do with I know that it's fake, and the other part is that I think that in some ways, watching ultra-violence can be somewhat cathartic. Because generally, I feel that human beings are a violent species who don't get to act out on their violence. So for me to see a violent image on screen, it's kind of like living out some kind of fantasy that we should NOT be able to live out in real life. Maybe I'm just a sick psycho, who knows. Back to the review.

Yes, where was I? 'Kill Bill' is straight up violent. There are stabbings, blood sprayings, implied rapes, beatings, gun shot wounds, and everything else that you can imagine. But a lot of this violence in this movie felt almost justified to me. To see Uma Thurman (the Bride) slam her rapists head in the door repeatedly, I felt disturbed sure, but there was a very primal side of me that said, "that motherfucker had it coming" and wanted to cheer. To see 'the Bride' systematically track down all those that did her wrong, I felt somewhat glad that the people who wronged her, and killed all of her loved ones, had it coming in the end.

BUT...

This is Tarantino. He is an artist. He has bigger issues to deal with. The main point of these two movies is going to be the slippery slope that revenge leads to. There are two great quotes in this movie. The first quote, being the opening line of the movie is "Revenge is a dish best served cold" and the other quote coming from Sonny Chiba, "Revenge is like getting lost in the forest. You never come out of the forest at the same place that you came in on." In theme, I'm going to have to wait to see how the second volume turns out. I'm extremely curious to see what avenue Tarantino takes with "revenge." I want to hold off on judgment of how much value this movie has to offer in it's overall theme.

The acting in this movie was incredible. There are no complete serious moments and no rants on pop-culture minutia that Tarantino is famous for. But the strength of the acting lies mostly in the casting. Uma Thurmas was surprisingly capable with a sword and her tough gal posings. There were some pretty good moments of softness in her character which added a few nice layers to her role. It was smart of Tarantino to layer the part so that she didn't seem one dimensional. David Carradine, Vivica Fox, Lucy Liu were perfectly cast. Each character in this movie was wholly unique from the other.

This movie has probably some of the best cinematography that I've ever seen in a movie. I have always been a big fan of Robert Richardson. His work with Oliver Stone and Martin Scorsese is unique. He has a fantastic eye for lighting and is able to give the director exactly what they want. He has his own trademark that few cinematographers have. Roger Deakins (used mainly by the Coen Bros) is one of the only other cinematographers that I can think of that have their own distinct styles, that when you find out that they're working on a project, you can be assured that the movie is going to look a certain way.

Did I mention that the movie is violent? I like what Tarantino did with the violence in this movie. Most of the violence is done in such a way that it is too over the top to get too offended by. I mean, someone's arm will get chopped off and it'll spray blood as if someone cut a hole in the middle of a firehose. Someone's head will get lopped off, and it'll spray like a pulsing fountain. The reaction that I had was equal parts freaked out, equal parts hilarious.

And like every Tarantino movie I've seen, the music is awesome. It's not quite up to 'Pulp Fiction' standards, but pretty darn close. The music is certainly more unique than the 'Pulp Fiction' soundtrack, but it doesn't have that same type of changing the pop culture lexicon that 'PF's' soundtrack had.

I was completely enthralled by Tarantino's fourth film. I cannot wait until the second volume comes out to see how this whole things winds up. I've heard that the second volume is more Tarantino-heavy so that it'll be more about the dialogue and advancing of the story as opposed to great visuals that the first one had.

Great movie, but not for everyone. When recommending this movie, I usually tell people that if they liked the Marvin getting his head shot off scene and the Zed's redneck store scenes in 'Pulp Fiction,' then chances are you'll like 'Kill Bill.' If not, then maybe 'Seabiscuit' is still playing. ;-)

matt out