Kill Bill (5 Stars)

Oops I did it again. I went to see "Kill Bill" for a second time in two days. When I bought my tickets it seemed necessary, because it was claimed it would never be released on disc. Quentin Tarantino has  changed his mind, fortunately. But it was still good to see the film again.

One recent change to the complete film that wasn't in the 2011 version shown at the Cannes Film Festival is a 12-minute after-credits scene, called "Kill Bill: The Lost Chapter". It's a fully animated sequence featuring Gogo's sister Yuki. It doesn't really belong to the film, especially not at the end. When I own the film on disc I'll probably watch it separately, not tagged on to the end.

One thing that amused me tonight was the man sitting in the seat next to me. I always respect people who go to the cinema alone, like me, not with their partners or friends. It shows that they take films seriously. This man was different. During the fight scene in the House of Blue Leaves he covered his eyes every time a head or an arm was chopped off. Someone should have warned him that it would be so violent.

Kill Bill (5 Stars)

Finally! I've waited 22 years to see this film. "Kill Bill" was originally released as two films in 2003 and 2004. Quentin Tarantino re-edited the two films into a single film in 2011, but it was only released in Japan. In December 2025 it was finally shown in America at a few select cinemas and minor re-editing. Conflicting statements were made, possibly deliberate misinformation to raise expectations among film fans. First Tarantino said the film would only be shown in cinemas and not be made available for home viewing on disc or streaming. That was depressing. Then it was said that it would be released on Blu-Ray, but not streaming. Ideal! For me, at least. Then I was surprised to see that it was dropped onto Amazon Prime today, without prior announcement.

My local cinema was only showing the film twice, today and tomorrow. I bought tickets for both days. Then, last Monday, they announced that it would be lengthened to four days, probably because both days were sold out.

The main changed are

1. Oren Ishii's origin story is lengthened.

2. The fight scene in the House of Blue Leaves is in colour throughout, not partially black and white.

One small change that I noticed immediately was that the Klingon proverb was missing from the opening scene. I've read theories why Tarantino edited it out, but I miss it.

The official name of the film is "Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair". Giving it that name makes it sound like two films that have been stitched together. I prefer to call it "Kill Bill", which emphasises that it's a single film that was chopped in two.

Kill Bill (5 Stars)

Today I watched "Kill Bill" with my friend Alex and his girlfriend Anna. It's always a pleasure to watch films in a group of like-minded film fans.

There's nothing I want to add to my previous reviews, apart from a few words about the film's two four-year-old girls.

Nikki, the daughter of Vernita Green aka Copperhead, is played by Ambrosia Kelley, who was seven years old at the time. She appeared in a few television programmes after "Kill Bill", but her acting career fizzled out in 2012. I haven't been able to find out what she's doing now.

B.B., the Bride's daughter, is played by Perla Haney-Jardine. She was five years old at the time. She's had a more successful acting career, including films like "Spider-Man 3" and "Steve Jobs". I hope to see a lot more of her in the future.

As you can see, some child actors have success that continues into adulthood, others don't. An early start in acting isn't an automatic guarantee for a long career. There's no replacement for talent and hard work.

Success Rate:  + 3.6

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Kill Bill (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #15

Even though it was released in two parts, I consider "Kill Bill" to be one film. I've heard discussions whether "Kill Bill Volume One" is better than "Kill Bill Volume Two", but I refuse to compare them. It's just one film. It's perfect as it is.

The story's chronology jumps backwards and forwards, but it's never difficult to understand. The Bride's numbered Kill List tells us what order things are happening, even when a scene isn't explicitly marked as a flashback. I once asked myself the question whether the film would be better if everything were shown in chronological order, and I eventually came to the answer No. Things are ordered just as they should be to tell the best possible story. I'd prefer a single four and a half hour cut as a single film, omitting the recap at the beginning of the second part, where the Bride speaks directly to the camera. That's the only change I'd make. Quentin Tarantino promised a complete cut 15 years ago, and I'm still waiting. I'm sure the film studio has blocked it as financially unviable. I'm hoping that the 4K remastered release will have a single cut, when it's finally released.

I mean a single cut of the official films. I'm not talking about the Japanese version, which has several differences to the international version. It would be interesting to see the two versions side by side, but they'll never be released in a single box set, because a different studio holds the rights to the Japanese version.

Beatrix Kiddo, usually called the Bride, was a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. It's never stated what their aims were. Mercenaries for hire? Probably. Their leader is a man known only as Bill. When she found out she was pregnant, she spontaneously decided to quit, even though Bill was her child's father. She didn't tell him she was leaving, she just went into hiding. She changed her name and fell in love with a record shop owner in El Paso, Texas. Bill located her and took revenge by executing her and everyone else invited to her wedding rehearsal.

From left to right.....

Elle Driver (code name California Mountain Snake).

 Vernita Green (code name Copperhead).

Budd, Bill's brother (code name Sidewinder).

O-Ren Ishii (code name Cottonmouth).

Sofie Fatale wasn't a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, but she was trained by Bill, and she was present at the El Paso massacre as a witness.

The Bride (code name Black Mamba) survived the massacre and lay in a coma for four years. When she woke up the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad had broken up, so she had to search for the former members. She set out to take revenge on the four assassins and Bill himself. She spared Sofie's life, merely cutting off her arms.

The Bride was also carrying out revenge for the death of her child, but she discovers that the baby was born while she was in a coma. The girl called B.B. is living with her father.

The Bride becomes the Mother. And they all lived happily ever after.

Success Rate:  + 3.6

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Kill Bill (5 Stars)

This is doubtlessly one of the best films ever made. Whenever I watch it it stuns me. I just watched the two parts back to back in a four hour session, which is the best way to enjoy it. In Japan a slightly different cut was released as a single film. I don't know why this version still isn't available in the rest of the world.

I watched the first part in the cinema in October 2003. Like all fans, I couldn't wait to see the second part. The UK release date was 23rd April 2004. About a week before this date my friend Pete told me he had bought it on DVD for £2 (approximately $2.75) from a nearby video store which was well known for its under-the-counter offers. He invited us to his apartment to watch it.

We watched it with Pete and his friend Bob. It was nasty. It was a DVD that had been recorded in a cinema. The picture was dark, and the the voices of the people in the audience frequently drowned out the film. The volume was so low that it was difficult to hear even when the television set was cranked up to maximum. Added to this, Pete and Bob were talking all the way through the film. At the end I still didn't understand everything that had happened.

Never again!

Lucy Liu will cut off the head of anyone who watches pirate DVDs.

Chiaki Kuriyama agrees.

So does Julie Dreyfus.

This is probably Quentin Tarantino's best film, but it's difficult for me to decide. I always prefer whichever film of his I watched last.

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Evil Toons (4½ Stars)

Everyone hates being woken up early in the morning. So do I. But there are rare occasions when it's acceptable. One of them is when the postman is delivering something marvellous. Look what he brought me today. The 25th anniversary edition of "Evil Toons", remastered for Blu-ray, personally signed by Fred Olen Ray. For something like this he could have knocked on my bedroom door and dragged me out of bed naked.

"Evil Toons" was filmed in eight days in late 1991 and tells a true story, featuring the people who took part in the incidents. How do I know it's true? It's because Fred Olen Ray tells us it's all true, and we know he would never lie to us.

Four college girls are hired to clean a house before it's sold. It's a large house that's been empty for years, so they have to stay in the house all weekend. Whatever pays the bills. On the first evening a mysterious man in a long cloak delivers an old book written in Latin. Just like college girls anywhere in the world, they do what comes naturally. They open it and read one of the pages out loud. This summons a demon who's been trapped in the pages of the book. The demon possesses the body of one of the girls, Roxanne, and she goes on a killing spree.

"This looks like an interesting book, girls. What should we do?"

"I know! Let's read it together. What's the worst that could happen?"

"I will kill you all! I will devour your souls! The streets will run with blood!"

As you can see, it's not recommendable to read old books written in Latin, or any other old language that you don't understand. Since this is all a true story, it means that the Earth had a narrow escape in 1991. If you're reading my blog now you know that you're alive and safe. How did the girls manage to defeat the demon? It's not a secret. If you hurry you can still get a copy of the story on Blu-ray, limited to 1000 copies, all signed personally by Fred Olen Ray. If you wait too long you'll have to make do with the DVD release. It tells the same true story, but it doesn't look as good. That's a shame. An important story about the world being saved needs to be watched in the best possible quality.

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Armed Response (3½ Stars)

Burt Roth (Lee Van Cleef) is a retired police officer. His three sons served in Vietnam. After returning home from the war Jim (David Carradine) opens a bar, while Tommy (Brent Huff) becomes a private investigator and Clay (David Goss) carries out shady deals that he won't disclose to the rest of his family.

A valuable statue is stolen from Tanaka, the head of a Los Angeles gang. Tanaka agrees to buy it back from the thieves for one million dollars. Clay and his partner Cory Thornton (Ross Hagen) are hired to carry out the exchange. Cory double crosses everyone when the exchange takes place. He kills the thieves to keep the money for himself. He attempts to kill Clay, but Clay escapes with the statue heavily wounded and gives it to his father before dying. His father has no idea what the statue is or how much it's worth. Cory tells Tanaka that Clay is the one who stole the money and the statue. Tanaka believes this and decides to wage war on the Roth family.

This is a mildly entertaining film with some good acting. It was one of Lee Van Cleef's last films and one of Brent Huff's first films, both of whom are outstanding actors. Lee spent his early career typecast as a bad guy in American westerns, but from the mid 1960's onwards he specialised in spaghetti westerns in which he usually played the good guy. I've seen him in a few films, but this is the first time I've seen him in a film which isn't a western.

Brent Huff is a different case altogether. He's someone that Hollywood passed by. In his very first films he showed that he had the talent to make it all the way to the top, but somehow he was never noticed. That's tragic.

Ross Hagen is a cool character in every film he appears in. He's just so likeable. It was difficult for me to take him seriously as the bad guy in "Armed Response". He's too pleasant to be bad.

The film's weak link, as far as the acting goes, is David Carradine. I never liked him much as an actor. He had a very rigid style that might have been appropriate in "Kill Bill", but it's certainly inappropriate in "Armed Response".

As is typical for low budget direct-to-video films, the film relies on plot twists rather than big production values. Although Cory is the film's bad guy almost all the film deals with the battle between the Roth family and the Tanaka clan. I can't help feeling that when they made the film they either ran out of time or money. The end is unsatisfying. Cory is never challenged, his death is accidental. In the final scene Burt Roth says that he wonders what has happened to Cory. That isn't the way to end a film. I would have rated it higher if not for this disappointment.

I should also mention that Michelle Bauer appears in a non-speaking role as a nightclub dancer. We only see her for 20 seconds, but she always lights up any scene that she appears in.

Kill Bill (5 Stars)

In the past I reviewed "Kill Bill, Vol 1" and "Kill Bill, Vol 2" separately. I shan't do that any more. Even though they appeared in the cinema separately, a year apart, it's only one film. Quentin Tarantino originally intended it to be released as a four hour film, but the film studios didn't go along with this. In 2008 Quentin promised a four-hour single film version would be released on DVD "soon", with certain changes to make it more similar to the versions released in Japan, but now it's 2013 and there's still nothing. My guess is that he's still arguing with the studios.

This is a film that I have to keep watching. Sheer genius!

Kill Bill, Vol 2 (5 Stars)

A lot of people I've spoken to were disappointed with the second volume of the Kill Bill films after watching the first. I think I understand the reason why. "Kill Bill, Vol 1" attracted a lot of interest from martial arts fans who weren't necessarily fans of Quentin Tarantino. They were drawn to the action scenes, in particular those that took place in Japan at the end of the first film. In comparison, the second film is low key. For those expecting a big climax the final showdown between the Bride and Bill probably seems flat. Let's just say that they don't get it. Whatever action there may or may not be in Tarantino's films, the real battles are fought with words. If you doubt this, look at the conversation between Col. Landa and the farmer at the beginning of "Inglourious Basterds". The Nazi colonel's words cut and thrust sharper than any knife.

This film is more chronological than the first film, but within the chronology it relies on flashbacks. In the first film she battles with Oren-Ishii and Vernita Green. In the second she battles with Budd, Elle Driver and Bill. We also see the Bride's training with the old master Pai Mei.

Click here to view the trailer. It's another poor quality trailer that shows too much of the film.

Kill Bill, Vol 1 (5 Stars)

Even though I love this film, it's a difficult film to describe. It's an homage to the Chinese and Japanese fighting films of the 1970's and 1980's, even down to the fake Shaw Brothers logo at the beginning. The film is told in a non-linear way, a style already developed by Quentin Tarantino in "Pulp Fiction". This works well. It puts the action scenes at the beginning and end of the film, and the slow events (that happened first, chronologically) in the middle.

The film is about a hit squad of assassins, the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Uma Thurman plays the assassin codenamed Black Mamba. On the day of her wedding she is killed by the other squad members. Or at least, they think she's dead. The police find her alive, and she lies in a coma for four years. When she wakes up she goes on a mission to kill the other members of the squad, and then go on to kill the squad's leader, Bill. Her mission takes her around the world, and there are dazzling sword and martial arts battles. The whole film is made surreal by the soundtrack, which would be more typical for a spaghetti western.

Brilliance, sheer brilliance. Check out the trailer, which includes spoilers of things we don't find out until the second film. Strange trailer.

I just read through this review, and I don't feel happy with it. Maybe I'll write more next time. To make up for it I've added the photo of Gogo Yubari, played by stunningly beautiful Chiaki Kuriyama. 17-year-old schoolgirls never looked so hot.