A severed head cartwheels in mid-air as a group of ‘gentlemen’ look on in horror. Fountains of blood spurt out as limbs are chopped off and tossed about like pancakes. A drunk male nurse’s uniform is bathed in crimson as his tongue is bitten off. Truly, life comes (and goes) cheaply in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill:Vol 1. Cringing already? Don’t feel like reading further? Well, thank me then, for warning you, for this movie is definitely not for those who find ‘blood-n-gore’ unpalatable.
For the less squeamish, this review has been divided into five chapters, just like the movie.
Chapter One: The Bride Wore Red…
The movie opens with a battered-n-bruised bride (Uma Thurman) watching helplessly, first with an expression of rage, which transforms to perceptible horror, as a mysterious sadist ‘Bill’ prepares to shoot her brains out. Before you can blink, bang!!! The unfortunate bride is as good as….dead.
Did I say ‘dead’? Yes, I thought so….but there she is, four years later, in the next frame, hale and hearty as ever, kicking and punching one of those ladies who had done her harm. After a tension filled drama, during which we learn that she was pregnant when she had been so mercilessly attacked, interspersed with generous doses of black humour and profane words that are characteristic of Tarantino’s movies (from what I’ve heard), she completes her job, goes back to her car ‘The Pussy Wagon’, takes out her diary and strikes out the second name on her ‘must kill’ list. The first name is already struck off….so be prepared for flashback.
Chapter Two: The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad…
….or DVAS is a crazy gang of anarchists code-named after poisonous snakes, with Bill leading the way. Thurman, it seems, was herself a part of this squad and worked under the name ‘Black Mamba’. Prominent among the members of the squad is O-Ren (Lucy Liu).
The day the bride was shot, the DVAS also killed nine innocent people. “A mistake”, says Thurman, as she narrates the gruesome assault, “They should have killed ten”.
Cut back to a hospital, where the comatose bride ,battling for dear life, wakes up after four years and overcome by just one thought, manages to escape. The thought is that of Revenge---the one thing that this movie centers upon. Dragging herself into ‘The Pussy Wagon’, she attempts to bring her temporarily paralyzed foot back to life, and in the process recounts what she knows about the life of O-Ren.
Chapter Three: O-Ren…
Former member of DVAS and now Queen of the Tokyo Underworld, she heads a much feared gang called ‘The Crazy 88’. She has lived no less than a traumatic life herself, having seen her parents being brutally murdered in front of her eyes, she avenges their death at the age of eleven and goes on to become Japan’s most proficient assassin.
On the day she becomes the supreme commander of The Crazy 88, she beheads ‘The Boss’, one of the founders of the gang, for bringing up the issue of her ‘Chinese-American’ ancestry. Feared by all who work for her, she has on her side a beautiful half French, half Japanese agent and a lunatic 17-year old girl (brilliantly characterized) as her bodyguard, besides a string of Samurai ‘Men in Black’ for personal safety.
Chapter Four: The Duel…
Once out of hospital, ‘the bride’ flies off to Tokyo, to learn the art of sword-fighting under the very Japanese master who had taught Bill. After a month of training, he gives her the finest, strongest and sharpest sword he has ever made. “If God comes in the way of this sword, He too shall be cut”, he exclaims proudly as he hands over the sword to her.
Once armed, she sets out on her mission, following O-Ren’s motorcade to a swanky hotel, where people are swaying to the music, unaware that the dance floor will soon become a slaughter-house. Cut straight to the pre-climax, where slasssssssssh!!!!our heroine wields her sword to perfection to cut her opponents down to size, well, literally!
You watch open-eyed as her blazing yellow dress turns crimson with the blood of vengeance. “Those of you who still have their lives, take them with you…..As for your limbs, leave them here, for they are mine now!” she roars, even as O-Ren awaits her in the Garden of Snow for a one-on-one duel, which forms the brilliantly shot climax of this bloodfest.
Chapter Five: “Revenge is never a straight line…”
Neither is this movie. Throughout, the director switches time frames as only he is known to do----changing rapidly the present to the past, and pushing even the past behind by a few years. And then he executes the film in a style that he has made his own. Note the use of animation to narrate O-Ren’s past. And the shot-to-perfection fight sequences, which leave you asking for more, showcase the efforts taken by the director, the actors and the fight director to keep the viewer (and the reviewer) engrossed for the entire length of the movie, which is a measly 100 minutes, which brings me to the only complaint I have about this film.
When there have been 3- hour- plus English movies like ‘Titanic’, why did the director choose to divide this saga of revenge into two volumes? My guess---Mr. Tarantino is as brilliant a tactician as he is a director and the sole aim of releasing this movie in 2 volumes was to double the collections, so instead of buying a single ticket to watch the entire movie in one go, we now have to shell out twice the price to watch it in “installments”. Anybody who knows the real reason for this absurdity, please visit the ‘Comments’ section.
Anyway, the concluding line of Vol.1 is enough to make the viewers impatient for Vol.2.
Watch this space.
