Product details: - Product group: Video
- Edition: VHS Tape
- Publisher: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm
- Format: PAL
- Release Date: 2004-04-19
- Number of discs: 1
- Starring: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, Lucy Liu
- Audience rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
- Run Time: 111 minutes
- Studio: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm
- Manufacturer: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm
- Package Dimensions: 7.32 x 51 x 75 inches
Proudly billed as "the fourth film by Quentin Tarantino", Kill Bill, Volume 1 is actually half of it (if you include his chunk of Four Rooms it's really the fourth and a quarterth). If Jackie Brown achieved a certain maturity beyond callous cool, then this is his Mr Hyde's trash picture, which relishes all the things in cinema that are supposed to be bad for you. The opening Shaw Brothers logo and cheesy "our feature presentation" card, redolent of rancid Kia-Ora and stale Wrestlers, sets this up as defiantly a movie-geek's movie, whose touchstones are spaghetti Westerns, comic books, kung fu/samurai quickies and second-hand vinyl albums. If Kill Bill was a dog-eared paperback, it'd be confiscated by a teacher. Tarantino's favoured flashback-and-forth structure means we begin with a shuffle between past and present as the Bride with No Name (Uma Thurman) is shown being apparently murdered at the climax of a Texas wedding chapel massacre and alive again tracking down the second person on her to-kill list. The bulk of the film takes place between these plot points as the Bride carries a vengeance feud to the first of her enemies, yakuza queenpin O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu). Like its soundtrack--everything from Nancy Sinatra to the RZA, with the Green Hornet theme along the way--it's an eclectic picture, with sequences done as a gruesome anime, particularly genocidal stretches in black and white, and segues from cheerful kung fu massacre to Kurosawa-look poised duelling. Tarantino holds back on his trademark motormouth pop culture references; in fact, much of the film is in sub-titled Japanese. You have to lock your brain into trash-film mode to get the most out of it, but its cliffhanger fade-out--unlike the dispiriting "to be continued" at the end of Matrix Reloaded--makes you want to come back. It's not a spoiler to reveal that Bill (a barely glimpsed David Carradine) hasn't been killed yet, and Thurman needs to take out Daryl Hannah and Michael Madsen before she gets to him. --Kim Newman
Customer reviews:  An awesome, empowering film!, 2009-06-25
I loved this film when I first saw it as a teenager, and couldn't quite put into words just why I found it so empowering. With retrospect, the reason is this: it was one of the first action films (if not the first film) I'd seen with so many strong, powerful female characters.
A female assassin, referred to as The Bride (Uma Thurman), is attacked and left for dead on her wedding day by the Deadly Viper Assasination Squad, led by the mysterious Bill (David Carradine). Four years later, she wakes up from a coma looking for revenge. Throughout the course of the film, she relentlessly takes out the minions who ruined her life - Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox), Sofie Fatale (Julie Dreyfus) and O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu). The film ends with The Bride moving towards the assassination of her ultimate target, Bill.
An obvious positive aspect of this film is the abundance of women in strong, pivotal roles in this film. As well as the Bride, the assassin squad is comprised of three women and only one man. Ex-DiVAS assassin O-Ren Ishi-i's bodyguard, Gogo, is female, as is her lawyer and best friend, Sofie Fatale. All of them are forces to be reckoned with. The utter dominance of women in, of all things, an action movie is a very rare thing and should be welcomed with open arms.
As well as being physically strong, the Bride is also mentally strong, embodying typically male characteristics such as decisiveness, resourcefulness, determination, good judgment and tolerance of pain, as opposed to sexual submission, ineptness, and an act-now-think-later aggression so often seen in female action heroines.
Another positive aspect of this film is that the women involved are not over-sexualised. They wore long, loose-fitting kimonos, androgynous gangster suits, hospital gowns, black jumpsuits, jeans, yellow tracksuits and school uniforms, but nothing which would reduce them to sex-symbol status.
Those of you who are particularly squeamish may want to give this film a miss, as certain scenes make for rather uncomfortable viewing. However, if you can see past the gore, this film a definite must-see - it buzzes with energy and visual exuberance, with impressive fight sequences. I highly recommend this film, particularly if you need an antidote to the mind-numbing awfulness of other "girl-power" films such as Charlie's Angels.
 Uma Thurman's Film., 2009-06-08
Uma Therman despite being strictly average looking, became one of the sexiest women alive in kill bill vol1. Not only did she possess that killer instinct i think all men adore, but she also has the will and determination to go through with her plan.
Ok it's a great film, with blood and body parts plastered all over it, but this doesn't mean it was a gimme. Quentin Tarantino makes this film flow and give the audience a mixture of satisfaction and a lust for more.
Some of the shots in this film are pretty basic, and can be seen as lazy or uninventive, but it's not really the case as i can think of quite a few adventurous shots that really add to the story. Such as when Lucy Lui walks down the middle of the room with her body guards in slow motion as the camera moves along with them, or when she paddles her feet down that long table before chopping some yakuza mans head off.
So yeah, i really enjoyed it and can watch it again and again, although the 4 star is really just a bitter pill because of what could've been in vol2 but wasn't.
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