Reviewed By: Arsalan Altaf Soomro
The Weakest Movie Of Quentin Tarantino.
(Note: Okay, this is counted as one whole movie but still I am gonna do separate specific reviews on the both parts, and here I am gonna start today with Vol 1. First, I will start with a quick review where I will share my views quickly without any depth, it will be easy for any viewers who don’t want to read much, and secondly, I will go in-depth of my reasons and overall about this movie. So, if you want to discuss properly then you’ll have to read the second portion properly)
Kill Bill: Volume 1 – A Quick Take
I am one of those admirers of QT Bhaiya, he is without any doubt, a really profound and important director to the cinema. He has made some definitive flawless movies, but! not today, not today. This movie is the most cartoonish movie by Quentin Tarantino. The pure essence of this movie is all about the fun, setting, action scenes and soundtrack. Look, I am not against the fun and all. If it is your intention then be it. Just, I want it to actually be fun and profound under its intention. This movie is classic with its action scenes, awesome soundtrack, killing cinematography and the elegant production design, but the screenplay is not the strong one here.
To be honest, it is actually pretty weak. Quentin Tarantino always kinda pays homage to some sort of cinema’s material with his really strong modification to the typicality of it. Here, you’ll found everything as same as any Japanese or Hong Kong movie, to whom he is paying a tribute but if we look at movie like Django Unchained, it is in same manner a love letter to spaghetti westerns and all, but in no way is completely same, it is even a better version of those westerns, with more fun, profound and unique screenplay, and it has an originality of its own. Here it is quite opposite. In this movie you’ll all find just same classic Jackie Chan movie tale where hero tries to rise with the help of the master who trains him and all, or some Bruce Lee shit where he earns the most bad ass weapon from the master and is now using it for his bad ass redemption or like fucking any kung fu hero’s fall and rise movie. There is only few profound moments in screenplay and really fucking few. There is another issue too, this movie does take itself too seriously, like this movie wants you to feel the characters and all, yet it doesn’t do anything worthy to let us feel it. Plus, this is a cartoonish fun movie, so, let us have a proper fun for fuck sake!
In the end, despite no originality and profound screenplay – this movie still rocks on its action scenes, setting, cinematography and just some next level soundtrack. Watch it for fun and don’t take it seriously, and the fun is kinda limited too, so, just be sure about it.
Kill Bill: Volume 1 – In-depth Analysis
The story is obviously a pretty common revenge tale but it is not a big issue regarding what is the intention of this movie. It is pretty clear that this movie was not trying to give us some next level story, it just wanted to pay tribute to a certain type of story with a profound screenplay and some new type of direction. So, there is no plus point of story and no minus point as well. Tbh, even viewing anything on the basis of story or judging the story of this movie is pointless regarding what this movie is doing.
This movie is directed by Quentin Tarantino. So, without any single motherfookin doubt, it is really well directed and tbh, almost perfect or actually it is perfectly directed, I didn’t see any mistake regarding direction here. Everything in direction is well maintained and well established. Every scene with their intention is presented just as what they wanted, there is no flaw in this aspect at all, apart from why their intention was not strong but that is an issue with the writing and their vision.
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Now, the writing and mostly overall the screenplay is too dry in this movie. Majority of the time it doesn’t feel like some top-notch Quentin Tarantino writing. I can give credits to the opening scene of The Bride and Vernita Green’s face off – It was pretty well written and the normal magic of Quentin Tarantino’s writing was visible there but overall in the movie, it is gone like Tobey Maguire’s career. All the other scenes are just too typical and filled with nothing special to give your love to. The dialogues are really okay at best, which is weird since I think in cinema, Quentin Tarantino is the king of dialogues.
There are some but really few profound scenes other than what I just mentioned. Mostly, this whole O-Ren Ishii part is completely lame, old, boring and dryAF. There is no good modified moment of typical cinema movies which Quentin Tarantino is known for, but instead there are just those typical scenes of many movies once again repeated here.There is something else which is really worthy to give credit to tho. It is about how the original language is used for characters belonging in their own culture, and it is used pretty nicely, it doesn’t feel like an Americanized version of Japanese language, tbh. It feels like an actual Japanese movie when it is taking its time in their culture, unlike Nolan Paaji movies which still don’t even showcase american culture accurately.
This movie does have those anime writing issues too. Overall, the writing is a big disappointment here.
Just another big disappointment is the characters. Actors did their job well enough as far as I know, but their characters were not good and not bad either but average at best. And They are really really average and lame, they were too ordinary and too stale as well. These were seriously one of the most forgettable characters, tbh. Each character was typical with nothing new and profound in any manner. This is another weird case in this movie since I actually like Quentin Tarantino’s characters. There are many awesome and many nicely written characters who are under the cinema’s best characters and they are created by Quentin Tarantino. In this movie there is not a single strong and well made character to remember for a day even.
The soundtrack is like the heart of this movie. It is phenomenal and just too good. It is a big achievement in this movie. The cinematography is just so elegant, pure and wonderful on the set design of this movie which is just pure beauty on itself. The technicality of this movie is pure gem and flawless. All the little items to the whole production design were just intact with awesome efforts. This whole open world filled with many regions of different bosses was shown as it should have been.
The universe of this movie is really dank and impeccable. It is an open world where she is hunting down the bosses in their specific regions. The whole tone changes and shifts time to time in this movie. It was a wonderful world, ngl. It was just something unique and was making this movie’s boring moments even cool. It was explored well enough too, so, no complaint on that, but obviously the writing was soulless and the usage of it overall went up and down. But I still like it and it is a really strong universe which I will remember for a long long time.
All in all, it is a fun action movie which in the first watch you might enjoy a lot but the more you watch it, the more it becomes dry. If you don’t take it seriously a bit, it can be a lot better. I already have said, my complaint is more with it’s lackluster endeavor of being cool. If it was dank, cool and filled with awesome screenplay, I would have loved it more. It is avoidable too, if you want to.
The World of Movies Rating – 6.5/10
Movie Title: Kill Bill: Volume 1
Directed and Written by: Quentin Tarantino
Main Cast: Uma Thurman as the Bride (code name Black Mamba), Lucy Liu as O-Ren Ishii (code name Cottonmouth), David Carradine as Bill (code name Snake Charmer), Vivica A. Fox as Vernita Green (code name Copperhead)
Year of Release: 2003
Genre: Action, Crime, Thriller
Country of Origin: USA (Hollywood)
Languages: English, Japanese
Running time: 111 minutes
Production Company: Miramax
Distributed by: Miramax
Image Source: Screenshots taken from Kill Bill: Volume 1 movie.