During the 1970s there was a queasy

urban myth that, in New York cinemas,

drug dealers were skulking down the

aisles at midnight shows jabbing innocent

moviegoers with needles, so instantly

enslaving them to heroin. After one single

viewing of Kill Bill Volume 1, starring

Uma Thurman - Quentin Tarantino’s first

movie for six years - I felt like the director

himself had cacklingly jammed his hypo-

dermic into my throbbing arm. Really, no

one delivers that sheer, aneurism-inducing

rush with the same intravenous efficiency

as Tarantino. It may not be the best film

of the year, nor the best Tarantino film.

But it’s sure as hell got to be the best way,

the only way, to mainline pure adrenaline

in the cinema. Whether this results in

euphoria or nausea depends on the nee-

dle-user.

Brutally bloody and thrillingly callous

from first to last, Kill Bill covers its action

in a kind of delirium-glaze. Its storyline

rolls out in a simulacrum universe, a place

which looks and sounds like planet Earth

in the early 21st century, but isn’t. It’s a

martial- arts movie universe where the

normal laws of economics, police work,

physiology and gravity do not apply: a

world composed of a brilliantly allusive

tissue of spaghetti western and Asian

martial-arts genres, on which the direc-

tor’s own, instantly identifiable presence is

mounted as a superstructure.

But this isn’t the floatingly beautiful mar-

tial-arts tradition as resurrected by Ang

Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or

Zhang Yimou’s Hero. It’s a world of Man-

ga and comic-book serials, of flash and

trash and assassins who scream defiance

long after their limbs have been chopped

and stumps are geysering blood in a way I

haven’t seen since Monty Python and the

Holy Grail.

Tarantino begins with the logo from a

uring the 1970s there was a queasy

urban myth that, in New York cin-

emas, drug dealers were skulking

down the aisles at midnight shows

jabbing innocent moviegoers with

needles, so instantly enslaving them

to heroin. After one single viewing

of Kill Bill Volume 1, starring Uma

Thurman - Quentin Tarantino’s

first movie for six years - I felt like

the director himself had cacklingly

jammed his hypodermic into my

throbbing arm. Really, no one deliv-

ers that sheer, aneurism-inducing

rush with the same intravenous

efficiency as Tarantino. It may not

be the best film of the year, nor the

best Tarantino film. But it’s sure as

hell got to be the best way, the only

way, to mainline pure adrenaline in

the cinema. Whether this results in

euphoria or nausea depends on the

needle-user.

Brutally bloody and thrillingly

callous from first to last, Kill Bill

covers its action in a kind of de-

lirium-glaze. Its storyline rolls out

in a simulacrum universe, a place

which looks and sounds like plan-

et Earth in the early 21st century,

but isn’t. It’s a martial- arts movie

universe where the normal laws

of economics, police work, phys-

iology and gravity do not apply:

a world composed of a brilliantly

allusive tissue of spaghetti western

and Asian martial-arts genres, on

which the director’s own, instantly

identifiable presence is mounted as

a superstructure.

MOVIE REVIEW

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