Review: Kill.Bill
DISCLAIMER: contains some spoilers but then again, there’s not much of a story to give away.
On with the review. What I liked abou it. The movie was very stylish. Comparable in style to anime. There are alot of good camera angles and good shots. The scenes are great and shot well. The setting including set and sound fit great. In comparison to anime, the camera work is very similar to many anime scenes. The action is similar, dramatized, and surreal. Some may say that it gets old, but then Tarantino switches up the camera work and changes up the style to make it fresh again. The soundtrack is “in your face” Sometimes it goes with the action, makes the pulse pound. Othertimes, it adds a comic relief to the scene. The sound is well done and adds to the movie. The tone of the dialog and the presentation add to the anime-like style. The second “half” is scripted in Japanese subtitled in English. I feel this adds style points w/o detracting the viewers attention. It fits nicely with the anime theme and Japan setting.
Now for what I disliked. There was very little character development. The only character developed was O-Ren (played by Lucy Liu) While I liked the way they presented her story, I wished they did that (or something similar for all the major characters) It would have given them depth and helped them come alive. The story line doesn’t help that as there isn’t much to the story. It’s a basic revenge theme with “The Bride” (Uma Thurman) going after the murderers of her wedding party and unborn child. As there isn’t much story or character development, there’s not much of a script. Mostly narrative, there are quite a bit of flash backs and seemingly disconnected parts within the movie. At sometimes it feels disconnected, the story (what there is of it) doesn’t flow.
So how I would make it better. Seeing as it’s already 2 parts. They could have used the time wisely and developed the characters. As there are four “antagonists”, each half could “develop” 2 characters with no problem. I would develop them like they did with O-Ren. Give them a back ground, a theme, something to make them feel like people. Unless they are supposed to be symbolic. In that case, make it more obvious to the reader, but of course Tarantino has alot of “hidden” stuff so. So you develop the antagonists in background subplots before they encounter “The Bride”. Then you develop Uma’s character a little at a time in the form of flashbacks. Giving her more depth and revealing why they killed everyone and what’s going on. You can even create a contrast with the characters before, during, and after the execution of the wedding party. There could have been alot more done with the characters that would have added positively to the story. I hope Volume 2 addresses these lackings while continuing the all that I liked about the movie.