Kill Bill

Anticipation for Quentin Tarantino's fourth film starring Uma Thurman will reach fever pitch later this year. Here's our first look...

Love or hate The Matrix Reloaded this year's must see slick kung fu movie is already about to challenged by an edgy alternative. Bring on Kill Bill! Never heard it? Well, you're about to - as we delve deep into why this might just be the big surprise blockbuster of this year. Why? Because of some director behind the camera - what's his name again - ah yes, Quentin Tarantino.

Believe it or not but Kill Bill will only be Tarantino's FOURTH film, following the critically acclaimed Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown. Eagle eyed viewers would have seen Tarantino making a few recent TV guest spots including the high-kicking espionage series Alias playing an ex- SD6 spy as well as popping up in American Idol in the audience that is as opposed to being in an audition. However, movie fans have waited long enough to see Tarantino's movie magic at work again and with Kill Bill it looks like we won't be disappointed.

Scheduled for an October release, the film sees the eagerly awaited return of Uma Thurman as the leading role in a high profile film. Thurman plays "the Bride" who is shot down at her own wedding, with child, by her dangerous boss/past love Bill (played by David Carradine) and his mob. Having woken out of her coma five years later, she is fuelled by intense revenge and sets off to track down each leader from the Deadly Viper Assasination Squad and repay them the suffering they caused her, with Bill as her primary target.

Its explosive trailer already looks quite special with lots of high-octane samurai sword fights nicked in the plot. The stylistics of past low budget Oriental movies are evident even at this stage and this has in some strange way offered us here at Kikizo part sigh of relief having being a little disappointed by the massacre of high production, high gloss, slew of franchise action films this summer.

It's evident that Tarantino promises a lot of complex battle sequences stretching through some of the exotic landscapes in China and Japan where production has just wrapped. With the trailer following Uma through the bustling streets of Japan on her motocycle and later facing around 30 armed assassins in a temple, we're expecting Tarantino will be simmering his retina-popping feast on a retro heat as opposed to a Matrix-fuelled fire. We're gearing up for more tension than a spaghetti western and less long-winded monologues about architects, machines and green eyed monsters.

There were doubts to see whether Thurman or Tarantino for that matter could pull off a kung fu action film like this but we're quite convinced there will be a lot of room to see something a lot more creative and less cg cellulite than what we've seen this summer. The cast involved also speaks volumes as to how exciting the acting in the film maybe as well.

For example, some of Tarantino's film-mates are onboard again including Samuel L Jackson and Michael Marsden and even Tarantino himself is on the casting sheet. Not to be outdone by the Deadly Vipers: Daryl Hannah, Vivica Fox and Lucy Liu as the trio of the sword wielding femme fatales. And if you're still not convinced about the kung fu - well, a staff of local stunt teams including the Hollywood must have Woo-Ping is overseeing all of that so it should quash any reservations you may have...?

In the meantime, the film's distributor Miramax is due to bring out Tarantino's book Kill Bill to gear fans up to the story. Also in the works is (no surprise) a video game developed for the PC (and maybe console too?) in time for the DVD release in early-mid 2004. Fingers crossed it will be half decent. Time will tell.

Bring on October and we'll have the full verdict then. Stay tuned!

Transistor Sister
Film Critic, Kikizo Movies