After a six-year fast, director Quentin Tarantino has returned to the screen, this time with an Asian-style film.It's been six years since Quentin Tarantino's last film, Jackie Brown, came to theaters, and now the video store guy has a new movie for us. The film's producers at Miramax have allowed him complete creative freedom, even allowing him to delay the release date by a few months. And most importantly, much to the chagrin of us as movie consumers, they allowed him to split his film, due to its excessive length, into 2 parts - Kill Bill – Volume 1 and Kill Bill – Volume 2
And it was on October 10, 2003 that the world premiere of Volume 1 was pushed back to October 10, 2003, and the Czech Republic was one of the countries in which the premiere took place. We are used to the fact that in the Czech Republic premieres are 100% on Thursdays, but unfortunately this film had a world premiere, and what can we do, we have to submit to the world, so we have to give the premiere on the same day, not a day earlier, as it was with other American films (Matrix II, or X-Men 2)
I went to the cinema with a good sound system, with a good picture, and so it was worth it. I revisited Pulp Fiction with feeling, which was full of mobsters, full of blood and heads and people getting blown off. And it was also full of punchlines. But Kill Bill, unlike Pulp Fiction, isn't about the mafia or firearms, it's about kung fu and Hong Kong and everything that made the great Asian world famous. What Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction mainly have in common are litres, even hectolitres, of fake blood.
And now for the story. The main character is "The Bride", we don't know her real name, who wakes up after a 4 year coma caused by an Asian combat commando,we don't know why, with Bill as the main boss. When she wakes up, she discovers that she no longer has a child, probably died when she was shot while pregnant, and that she is determined to kill everyone who caused her coma, and the murder of many innocent people. So, mainly Bill, but there are less than ten other people, so that she can kill the entire murder squad in the final showdown.¨
For the pleasure of the producers and their wallets, the entire film is divided into two parts. Unfortunately, the second part won't be released until early 2004, so we only get part of the story. It's definitely a very convoluted story, because Tarantino went back to non-chronological narration again, and so we learn the whole convoluted story gradually, over and over again, in five chapters, with descriptions 4 years before, or a few months after. We learn who and how she has already killed, the master with the knife - a black woman, and the boss of the Tokyo Yakuza. We learn how she actually came to be a samurai swordswoman, how one little girl became the most feared Tokyo boss, and also how she actually escaped from the hospital after waking up.
Tarantino must have been inspired by Asian martial arts films, and even Japanese Anime, because one part, quite important to deepen the characters in the story, is animated. But even in the animated part, he didn't forgive himself litres of artificial blood.
What can I say in conclusion? Tarantino is back in the limelight once again, this time with a film that takes plenty of inspiration from Asian fight movies.
Original release of this article October 14, 2003 – Kritiky.cz
