I saw Kill Bill Vol 1 last night with Josh, Gretchen, Mike (someone really needs to hook him up with an RSS feed), Chris and a couple of other folks. I knew we were going to be in for a ride when during the credits I noticed the names of martial arts legends Gordon Liu (Enter the 36th Chamber of Shaolin & Shaolin Challenges Ninja) and Sonny Chiba (Storm Riders & The Street Fighter) as well as the fact the movie would be featuring music produced by the RZA.

This movie is definitely a homage to old school martial arts flicks and is shot in a stylish, off kilter manner and embraces a mish mash of techniques (black & white, anime, etc)  in a way that reminded me of Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers.

In typical Quentin Tarantino style we start with a scene in the middle of the story and afterwards piece together how things got to that juncture. It started off kinda slow and I was actually disappointed in the fight between Vivica Fox and Uma Thurman but once we got to the parts of the movie that occured in Japan the fights there more than made up for it.

Just like the movies it is paying homage to the plot is braindead simple. A wedding party was shot up and left for dead but the bride survived. She awakens from a coma 4 years later with a lust for revenge and goes on an ass kicking crusade.

I've seen some complaints about the violence/gore and I agree that it was definitely over the top even by Tarantino standards. Decapitations and dismemberments were definitely the order of the day with blood spurting from wounds in a manner  reminiscent of movies like Invincible Super Chan and Ninja Scroll.

Overall, I liked it a lot and will definitely be in theaters next year to catch Kill Bill Vol. 2

Score: **** out of *****