Prologue
Everyone loves violence-The degree of palatability varies
Ancient Proverb (Book of Hollywood Flicks)
Chapter Four
Kill Bill Vol 2 scheduled for release in February 2004 is the second part of the film Kill Bill, the fourth work of legendary American director Quentin Tarantino. Due to it’s length, the studios thought it a good idea to split the movie in two and release it as two volumes.
Kill Bill Vol1 happens to be the first installment of this highly anticipated and well-acclaimed series.
Chapter One Part Two
So what’s the story of Kill Bill?
Actually no one can be really sure of it until they watch Volume2.
Volume one would like you to believe that the titular Bill heads a crime syndicate which hires some viperous women of deadly martial skills that calls itself the Deadly Vipers Assassination Squad.
(Fans of Pulp Fiction would immediately remember the legendary Uma Thurman led Fox (‘coz we are a bunch of wily chicks) Force (‘coz we Kick ass) Five (“coz there are five of us”) that gets passing mention in the above masterpiece)
For some undisclosed reason Bill and his gang decide to dispense with the services of a certain “Black Mamba” (Uma Thurman) on the day of her wedding.
Hence a blood-splattered pregnant bride surrounded by dead friends, relatives and Bridegroom, gets to hear the tragic masochism of Bill which is often mistaken for Sadism before being shot in the head and left for dead by Bill and company.
Years later the Bride wakes up from a coma and decides to serve revenge nice and cold to her tormentors.
Follows footage after footage of blood spattered stylish action filled with samurai swords, frenzied school girls, Samurai sword makers and masters, pedophiles and a host of tributes, snide remarks and homages to all the senseless violence that the action genre has celebrated for so long.
Chapter One Part One
Tarantino’s movies themes are all the same…
1.Shock even the numbest viewer with extreme violence
2.Make words and wit fly around like bullets as every one talks their heads off discussing everything inane from Madonna’s songs to Big Macs in Amsterdam
3.Give the movie an amazing soundtrack by picking up lost gems of the pop culture and presenting them with new meanings in extra-ordinary situations
(eg Nancy Sinatra’s ’’Bang Bang’’ Dusty Springfield’s ’’Son of a Preacherman’’)
4.Play around with time and space till the viewer no longer cares when is when or where is where and decides to enjoy the movie for the movie’s sake.
Kill Bill does all the above with extra flavors like a blood gushing Japanese cartoon and a “happening” action choreographer.
Chapter Five
The Paradox
Stylish violence might glorify sometimes the very thing it sets out to denounce. This might just be the sad truth with Kill Bill too.
But who is complaining, anyway?
Chapter Three
So how good is Kill Bill?
Kill Bill is
Part tribute to those Hong Kong flicks that used to clutter Star movies Fridays with bad English and nasal “master master teach me kung fu”
Part mockery of the extreme violence that plagues our culture under the guise of “slickness” and style
Kill Bill does the same thing with the same slickness and poise only with much more exaggerated nastiness and blood to underline the stupidity that lies in it all.
Hence a wafer- thin plot that cares little for the viewer’s sensibilities, that awes and shocks again and again with its visual brilliance.
One reviewer calls the movie, as Tarantino falling in love all over again with directing…one cannot be closer to the truth.
By repeating all his pet themes, Tarantino only serves once again as an intelligent mirror that darkly reflects the insanity of action films.