Violence in films has been a controversial issue since the early days of great train robberies and moustache twirling villains. There are those who blame it for society’s ills, while others defend it as a mere reflection of pre-existing troubles. Yet for the most part both views are wrong for screen violence is generally nothing more than an aesthetic device.

Kill Bill is the fourth film by the contemporary master of violent movie making, Quentin Tarantino, and is his first in over six years. His previous outing was the oddly downbeat Jackie Brown, and Kill Bill is almost its polar opposite, a highly charged, visceral homage to his favourite movie genres –kung fu, Samurai, and spaghetti westerns. The free-flowing dialogue that made Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction stand out is pared down to generic heroic statements and one-liners. In fact the film is almost like a betrayal to his loyal fans.

But Tarantino had other plans for Kill Bill. The plot, as it barely exists, centres around the Bride (Uma Thurman) who is left for dead on her wedding day by a group of assassins, and awakens from a four year coma to seek revenge. Vol. 1 –the second part is due out early next year –sees her begin her quest and come face to face with her enemies. But none of this is important.

What is important is the stunningly shot action sequences that propels the film along an edge of your seat, wide-eyed in wonder (when you’re not wincing or laughing at the cartoon gore) cinematic speedway. The genres pilfered and styles honoured, especially from the martial arts field, are obvious throughout. Tarantino likens this to sampling in hip-hop and as Stetasonic once said, samples are a tool not an objective. The objective here is to capture violence in its most aesthetically pleasing form. Everything in Kill Bill looks good. From Thurman’s iconic, usually blood-spattered heroine and the frequent close-ups of Lucy Liu’s porcelain, yet murderous face, to the kinetic and visual energy of the fight sequences. The huge fight in a Japanese club, makes the bar room brawl scene in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon look like afternoon tea at the bowls club, while its similarities to the multiple agents scene in the second Matrix movie, highlights the shallowness that the latter’s philosophical pretensions can only hide.

By switching from colour to black and white in the blink of an eye, telling Lucy Liu’s backstory using Japanese anime and of course his usual, though less disorientating this time, narrative tricks, Tarantino never ceases innovating at a frenetic pace. While many critics see this as one exploitation movie too far for him, they fail to recognize his growing maturity as a director and a visual artist. The snow-covered garden setting for the final showdown between Thurman and Liu is sumptuous, but is also brilliantly allied with a perfect dulling of the pace and sound to let the almost slow-motion images do all the work.

Tarantino has time enough to make the definitive big movie that so many want to see him do. In the meantime, he is expressing himself using established palettes in vivid colours and a style that is uniquely his. And lest this all sound so worthy, it should be noted that Kill Bill is also the most kick-ass film you’ll see all year.

words: Colm Larkin