Synopsis for the Theatrical Short Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (Kill Bill: Volume 1)

Kill Bill is both an homage and a reimagining of the genre films that Quentin Tarantino has seen and loved: spaghetti westerns, Chinese martial arts films, Japanese samurai movies as well as anime. Put simply, Tarantino describes the movie as a "duck press" of all the grindhouse cinema he's absorbed over the past 35 years. The film is conceived in chapters, each with the characteristic look and pulse of a specific genre and then interwoven with references from pop culture and other genres.

When a rubout sequence from a yakuza film is presented in Japanese anime imagery with a score lifted from an Italian Western, what comes through is a sense of the thematic and emotional binding energy that gives all of these forms their enduring power. Tarantino evokes not just the gaudy, engaging surface of genre cinema but also its rebel spirit. As a result, the archetypal characters of Vol. 1 have a surprising undercurrent of emotional conviction that pulls us toward the ultimate confrontations of Vol. 2.

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