Kill Bill, Volume 1 - The ultimate revenge movie

Even if you’ve never seen a ‘Tarantino movie’ before, the only thing you need to enjoy this film (and its second part, obviously) is a sense of fun.

‘Kill Bill vol 1’ centres on the mysterious ‘Bride’ who is one fifth of a team of assassins. Only the other four, plus mentor ‘Bill’ doublecross her and leave her for dead. Not a good idea. So... four years later, she begins to get her own back on them.

Like I say, this film is never meant to be taken truly seriously. Yes, it is strongly ‘adult’ in its content, but everything is beautifully (and knowingly) over the top, creating a comic-book style adventure (for those adults with strong stomachs).

Obviously, Uma Thurman as the central character carries the film on her own, but you won’t find a dull or disappointing performance from anyone here.

If you like Tarantino’s other work, or just martial arts, adventure or action films in general, you should love this. The only people I can see not liking the ‘Bill’ saga are those who want a ‘hyper realistic’ film with its roots based firmly in reality. This is not real. This is fun. And fun is sooo much better than real!

Perhaps its only real downer was that it was split (by the studio?) into two parts. This makes both halves just slightly longer than you feel they ought to be. Yes, it certainly forces the cinema-going public to pay twice to watch the story, but there are places where scenes feel they could have been left out in favour of making just the single story.

10/10 The Monty Python Knights of Camelot are currently looking for this