Kill Bill, vol. 1

Quentin Tarantino's fourth film is quite possibly the best 70s Kung-Fu Exploitation film ever made. It's also likely the bloodiest film ever to get an R rating.

This is a revenge film, with Uma Thurman playing the part of the Bride who was shot in the head and left for dead on her wedding day by her former partners in an assassination squad led by Bill (David Carradine). She awakes from a coma four years later and sets herself on avenging her family and unborn daughter.

Her Kill List takes her first to Japan where she obtains a sword by a legendary swordsmith and then goes against Cotton Mouth (Lucy Liu) and her 99 warriors in one of the bloodiest battles in any film.

The blood and gore flies in this film in ways that would impress even Takashi Miike. Limbs are severed, eyes are gouged, and heads are chopped.

Great fight sequences overseen by Yuen Wo Ping.

This is a film where my lack of knowledge of Shaw Brothers films might leave me not getting all the references, but is still just as enjoyable. I get the Five Deadly Venoms reference, and the bride and the one-eyed woman, but I'm sure that I missed alot more along the way.

Oh, and the schoolgirl with the razor-chain-mace...awesome.

I'll also never be able to look at Kaboom cereal quite the same again.

Gordon Liu and Sonny Chiba make entertaining cameo appearances, and left me wanting more.

There is also an anime sequence that tells the origin of Lucy Liu's character by the same company who did the Boy's story in the Animatrix. This sequence is some of the best anime that I've seen on the big screen, and if Carradine's assertion that there is to be an OAV prequal to this film later on, then I can't wait.

Uma is quite strong in her role as the bride, and her English dialogue most of the time sounds like it is the translated subtitles of a samurai from a Hong Kong film. It is most of the time quite proper sounding.

Also, in case you didn't know Lucy Liu is quite pretty. Just thought I'd throw that in there.

Great film if you like gory, funny/sad exploitation flicks.

Trailers

The Return of the King Trailer is great. Simply great.

The Matrix Revolutions Trailer is also great.

That's two great movies that are both the third films in trilogies that will be released within a month of one another and that I can't wait to see. Then two months after that the second part of Kill Bill will be released.

Thank you Hollywood, I forgive you for the Dickie Roberts film.