| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Uma Thurman | ... | The Bride | |
| Lucy Liu | ... | O-Ren Ishii | |
| Vivica A. Fox | ... | Vernita Green | |
| Daryl Hannah | ... | Elle Driver | |
| David Carradine | ... | Bill | |
| Michael Madsen | ... | Budd | |
| Julie Dreyfus | ... | Sofie Fatale | |
| Chiaki Kuriyama | ... | Gogo Yubari | |
| Shin'ichi Chiba | ... | Hattori Hanzo (as Sonny Chiba) | |
| Chia-Hui Liu | ... | Johnny Mo (as Gordon Liu) | |
| Michael Parks | ... | Earl McGraw | |
| Michael Bowen | ... | Buck | |
| Jun Kunimura | ... | Boss Tanaka | |
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Kenji Ohba | ... | Bald Guy (Sushi Shop) (as Kenji Oba) |
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Yuki Kazamatsuri | ... | Proprietor |
The lead character, called 'The Bride,' was a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, led by her lover 'Bill.' Upon realizing she was pregnant with Bill's child, 'The Bride' decided to escape her life as a killer. She fled to Texas, met a young man, who, on the day of their wedding rehearsal was gunned down by an angry and jealous Bill (with the assistance of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad). Four years later, 'The Bride' wakes from a coma, and discovers her baby is gone. She, then, decides to seek revenge upon the five people who destroyed her life and killed her baby. The saga of Kill Bill Volume I begins. Written by JD
Arguably this should not be a difficult film to review. It is nothing less than brilliant. The story, the direction, the musical score, the casting, the acting, the dialog, the fight choreography, the inset homage to past films ... brilliant.
Just brilliant.
What makes this film tricky to review is not the film but ironically the film-maker.
I do not know the deep background here but I am guessing that QT, at the very height of his creative powers, locked himself in a cabin in the woods for a month and put this opus together. And essentially (in the view of this reviewer) not only created one of the best films of all time but essentially defined his own career by setting a bar so high that even his own future work could not equal it.
And there you have it. The hard part of the review.
The film is perfection. But in my view QT has yet to produce anything that comes close either in terms of final product or even in terms of effort expended.