Kill Bill: Vol.1(Quentin Tarantino, 2003): Blood, Blood And More Blood.
- Katherine Goodyear
- Sep 10, 2017
- 2 min read

As a two part martial arts film, it certainly has its specific characteristics, overlapping between the modernism and the traditional values it holds, this film can certainly appeal to a very wide audience. Being Tarantino's fourth film, he had gained popularity, so word of mouth subsequently helps with the release of this film. The film grossed $22 million on opening weekend and grossed $180.9 million worldwide. With the Uma Thurman playing the protagonist, the compelling scenes, controversial gore and appealing pop culture references and editing makes this film a must see. And let us not forget the hospital scene, which introduces the eerie yet catchy whistling that we all find endearing after some time.
One of the most alluring scenes for me in this film is the Crazy 88 fight scene. The contrast of the colours from going normal to black and white make it feel a lot more fierce and important. The lack of non-diegetic sound emphasises the noises coming from the screaming ninjas as The Bride (Uma Thurman) picks them off one by one. The close-ups and pans also make the scene flow with such anger. It is compelling, eye-catching yet makes the audience squirm at the nitty-gritty of it all. Throughout the whole film, there is some sort of correlation to pop culture or animation.A great example of this is when The Bride tells the story of O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) and it is all shot in a cartoon style. This highlights Tarantino's unique style and the distinctiveness of his work has been proved to be popular to a wide variety of audience, with the use of gore, bright colour palette, well known actors and idiosyncratic scenes that are memorable to certain spectators, thus making this film in particular one you can't forget.
Even the narration from The Bride connects the audience with the character in such a sinister way, knowing the back story, other characters and other details. We can help but be lured into the narration, as we are gripped by the action of it all, which also juxtaposes the location or sound from time to time. As subjective as this may sound, this film can only be slightly flawed. It defines Tarantino's style in the most contrapuntal way. Although being split into two volumes, volume 1 is the most recognised out of the two, regardless of the second volume making more money in the opening weekend. There is no doubt that Tarantino is a genius, and it is made apparent that he isn't everyone's cup of tea, but nevertheless, films like Kill Bill help highlight why he is such a successful director. His strong willed imagination comes out through his texts and more, which makes this film unlike others.
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