The Audacious Joy of Violence

Review: Kill Bill Vol 1

By Claire Lustig

A tale of vengeance like no other, Kill Bill Vol. I is an action packed and bloody film with lots of stylistic prowess. Although overly violent films are not typically something that I enjoy all that much, the violence and bloodshed of this movie was actually one of the most interesting parts of it. For starters, most of the deaths in this film are over the top bloody, with many of the deaths including blood squirts. However, the deaths of the two characters that The Bride actually wanted to kill had very little blood, which is a significant contrast from pretty much every death in the film. My best guess is that this choice was to emphasize the mutual respect between The Bride and O-Ren and Venita despite the circumstances that they were in, but I don’t really know for sure if that’s the reason. The other interesting thing about the bloodiness is the way Tarantino tries to cover some of the bloodiness up in order to avoid the NC-17 rating. The first tactic is doing O-Ren’s backstory as animation, which I ended up really enjoying because animation is a great medium for focusing on eyes, which this film does a lot. The second cover up is making a sequence black and white so that the violence looks less extreme. Both of these are very innovative ways to keep the violent tone of the movie without going too far. Another one of my favorite elements of this film is the style. Tarantino seems to have a good eye for style in general and it’s especially evident in this film. The production design, coloring, and shot choices were especially impressive. Kill Bill Vol. I also has some really great performances. Uma Thurman is great as The Bride, who could’ve been a one dimensional character if played by a lesser actor. The other stand out is Lucy Liu as O-Ren, who is both the most tragic character and the most comedic character simultaneously. The last thing that I’ll bring up is that I’m really glad that a revenge film with a female lead is allowed to exist and is lauded. In general, a lot of revenge films tend to be centered around a man who wants revenge against someone who hurt his love interest and the female characters in these films don’t really get an agency and this film subverts that in every way and I really admire it for that. Overall, this movie was a blast and I would recommend it to anyone who can handle violence.