Kill Bill: Vol. 1

Two Stars
Uma Thurman

I was excited to see Kill Bill (1) and anticipated a love affair with this movie so many people had raved about. I think however that the only people who saw this film must have started out Terentino fans, becasue this, his latest directorial offering, left me like his other films - feeling mediocre.

Kill Bill (1) felt like Pulp Fiction on steroids with a twist of kung fu. Terentino takes you on one his patented flashback roller coaster rides. For me this served to make my overall view of film favorable, but make the smaller sections distracting and confusing. It's always entertaining to see how he rolls everthing up at the end though, and in this case, it was more intriging to see him forshadow the second half of the saga, Vol. 2.

The best part of the movie was The Bride's pilgimage to Japan to seekout a renown blade maker. This portion of the film carries some great comedic interludes and is punctuated by Japaneese martial arts mysticisim with overtones of samurai honor and religious devotion.