I'm driving home from the multiplex, having just seen Kill Bill. I am exhausted from the experience. My muscles ache.
I try to recall if I've ever before witnessed such an orgy of violence, such a cartoonish display of bloodletting. The only thing I can equate it with is the video games I've watched my brother play on his computer.
I dial my cell phone. My brother answers.
"Kill Bill," I intone.
"What?" he responds, as if we've never started a conversation in the middle before.
"You must see Kill Bill. It's every video game you've ever loved, made into a movie."
He's already heard good things. I feed him more.
"When someone gets thrown to the floor, you get hurt."
He looks up the movie schedule on the Web. There's a show he can get to tomorrow after work, at a theater on his way home. I tell him that not only must he go, but he has to call me immediately after seeing it.
Yes, it's incredibly violent. And the blood? Oh, mein papa, you've never seen such blood...unless you're a fan of Sonny Chiba movies from the 1970s, in which case you're used to it. And that's the point -- it's an homage.
Did you find yourself laughing at the part of Pulp Fiction when Marvin accidentally gets his face blown off, and then Vincent and Jules have to clean up the mess? Then you can handle Kill Bill. Trust me. You'll marvel at the scene in which The Bride gets into a samurai sword fight with 70 gangsters at once. You'll get a Yakuza's eye view of what it would be like to be near someone who just got hacked with a supreme piece of Japanese steel, and thrill at having been made a part of the action.
Here's another example, and then I'll stop, because if not I'll just keep spilling details: There's an extreme close-up of a pistol pointed straight at you. The gun is fired, and you watch as the bullet exits the chamber in such slow motion that you can see the rotation of the slug. It's hurtling inexorably toward your skull. And when it hits...you feel it. Literally. The sound and the visual are engineered to make it so.
Lest you think it's all action and no acting, check out the scene in which The Bride emerges from her coma. It's been four years, but from her POV, the massacre that left her comatose happened a second ago. Then she feels her stomach and realizes that the child she'd been pregnant with is gone. It's an Oscar moment. Brilliant.
Do not, I repeat, DO NOT wait for Kill Bill to come out on video. See it in the theater, as it's meant to be seen. Go. Now.
Welcome back, QT.
