by Michael Sanchez
Daily Lobo
"Kill Bill: Volume One" is Quentin Tarantino's hyper-kinetic, ultra-aware return to directing that accomplishes what it sets out to do - generate bloody mayhem.
The plot is a loose one about a former assassin (Uma Thurman) who was attacked on her wedding day by fellow assassins and left for dead along with nine members of her wedding party. She swears revenge on her attackers when she wakes up from a coma four years later.
The movie begins with violence and doesn't let go until the end - a shocker that sets audiences' patience on the grindstone, at least until Feb. 20 when "Volume Two" is released.
Much has been said of the direct and indirect influences that color Tarantino's work. In "Kill Bill," his fourth film, they've never been so obvious. From blood spurting forth whenever anyone is wounded to Bruce Lee's famous yellow tracksuit, Tarantino stopped trying to hide his love for his predecessors and finally just ripped them off outright.
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Like a deejay using samples to make a new song, Tarantino pays tribute to these scenes and combines them with his unique vision.
When that isn't good enough for the man who's become synonymous with 21st century avant-garde, he goes for alternative techniques that other filmmakers will be afraid to touch for a few more years.
One of the most stunning sequences in the movie is the background information of Oren Ishii (Lucy Liu), one of the bride's former working buddies. Done in anime style by Production I.G., the sequence is beautifully detailed and fits into the action almost seamlessly, encouraging other directors to take similar chances in their own movies in the future.
The biggest problem with "Kill Bill: Volume One" is evident in its title - this is only half a movie. Tarantino allowed actors to improvise, pulling away from a script that was already over projected length and running time. He faced massive cuts in the editing room if he wanted "Kill Bill" to fit inside Miramax's desired two-hour cutoff point. Instead of letting the movie get sliced up like so many of it's characters, Tarantino decided to simply cut it in half and release it in two chunks. An admirable choice, still it leaves filmgoers with half of a finished product and lots of questions.
Also, Tarantino directs this movie much as he has most of his other works, bouncing around in time, switching from future to past to present and playing free and loose with reckless abandon. This sometimes makes the plot hard to understand, but this problem is overcome with the film's frantic energy.
The sense of self-awareness that seeps into this movie is almost distracting, especially in the beginning of the film, when it is literally billed as "The Fourth Film by Quentin Tarantino."
With such a huge cult status surrounding him, Tarantino seems to be in danger of surpassing his own films in popularity.
But as long as he keeps turning out movies like this, even if they're only half of one, he shouldn't have to worry.
