---
title: "Kill Bill: Vol. 1"
year: 2003
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/kill-bill-vol-1"
fi1m_id: "kill-bill-vol-1"
imdb_id: "tt0266697"
tmdb_id: 24
wikidata_id: "Q165325"
fi1m_score: 72
critics_score: 66
critics_reviews: 10
published: "2026-09-09"
updated: "2026-09-18T08:37:51.298576+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)

Directed by Quentin Tarantino · 1h 51m · MPA R · Action, Crime

## Identity

Kill Bill: Vol. 1

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/kill-bill-vol-1
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** kill-bill-vol-1
- **IMDb ID:** tt0266697
- **TMDB ID:** 24
- **Wikidata ID:** Q165325
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266697/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/24, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q165325

**Fi1m score: 72** · Critics 66 from 10 reviews

*In a sentence:* A woman in a yellow tracksuit slices through a nightclub and the best scene is two people talking about sushi

> Tarantino’s revenge film is the most purely made thing he has done and the least written. The fights are extraordinary and Uma Thurman carries them on nerve alone, but it is half a film and knows it.

## Synopsis

The Bride (Uma Thurman) wakes from a four-year coma. The last thing she remembers is her wedding, the killing of everyone in the chapel by the assassination squad she used to belong to, and its leader, Bill (David Carradine), putting a bullet in her head. She writes down five names. The first is Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox), now a housewife in Pasadena. The biggest is O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), who runs the Tokyo underworld from a nightclub called the House of Blue Leaves. Before Tokyo she needs a sword, and Hattori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba), who keeps a sushi bar in Okinawa, no longer makes them. Daryl Hannah is Elle Driver, the one with the eyepatch.

## Review

Six years after [*Jackie Brown*](https://film.one/film/jackie-brown), Quentin Tarantino comes back with a revenge film so long it has been cut in two, and this first half is the most purely made thing he has done and the least written. A woman is shot in the head at her own wedding, wakes up four years later, writes five names on a pad and starts working through them. That is the whole plot. Tarantino tells it out of order, in numbered chapters with title cards, and each chapter is a set piece. The set pieces are as good as anything he has staged. The talk in between them is where the trouble is.

Yohei Taneda and David Wasco build the House of Blue Leaves, the Tokyo club where the film ends up, as two storeys of dark wood around a dance floor lit from below, with a snow garden out the back. Robert Richardson lights it hard and clean, so the yellow of Thurman’s tracksuit and the white of Lucy Liu’s kimono read from the back row and the blood comes out a poster red. Earlier, in the hospital, he splits the screen down the middle: Daryl Hannah’s Elle Driver in a nurse’s uniform and an eyepatch, walking a corridor and whistling, on one side; the Bride asleep on the other. It is the tensest minute in the film and nobody draws a weapon.

Sally Menke cuts the fights so that you always know where the Bride is and how many are still standing. When the Blue Leaves fight reaches a pitch of gore no certificate would allow, the film drops into black and white and carries on, and we laughed out loud at the nerve of it. Then the lights go and the fight continues as silhouettes against blue, and the laugh turned into admiration. RZA’s beats and Tomoyasu Hotei’s strutting guitar riff, which arrives with O-Ren’s entourage in slow motion, are cut to the footsteps. Chiaki Kuriyama’s Gogo, a schoolgirl in uniform swinging a spiked ball on a chain, gets the best short fight.

Thurman holds it together with almost nothing written for her. The Bride is given no jokes and no speeches; Thurman plays her as pure effort, a woman whose body keeps having to be argued into working. The hospital chapter horrified us, and not because of anything with a blade. Michael Bowen’s orderly Buck has been selling the comatose Bride to men, and the film says so with a grin and a novelty truck and moves on. We wanted it to be as sickened as we were. Then it sits still while she stares at her feet and wills her big toe to move, and Thurman does more with that minute than with any sword.

Liu gets the one stretch of writing that sounds like the man who wrote [*Pulp Fiction*](https://film.one/film/pulp-fiction), a speech to the Tokyo crime bosses that switches from Japanese to English for the threat, and she delivers it with relish. Sonny Chiba’s Hattori Hanzo, a swordsmith running a sushi bar in Okinawa, has the only quiet scene and the best: two people at a counter, one pretending not to understand the other, then an attic full of swords. David Carradine’s Bill is a voice on a phone and a pair of hands. Vivica A. Fox gets one fight in a suburban kitchen and makes Vernita Green a person in about four minutes.

The rest of the cast is not so lucky, because Tarantino has given most of his dialogue to other films this time. The chapter that tells O-Ren’s childhood is drawn as anime and is the nastiest thing here, a child watching what is done to her parents, and from there the killing stops costing anyone anything, including us. What follows is an expensive tribute reel. If you do not know the films being quoted, a good deal of the second hour is men in black suits falling over.

[*Reservoir Dogs*](https://film.one/film/reservoir-dogs) (1992) and *Jackie Brown* (1997) were about people who talked, and the violence interrupted them. This time he has kept the violence and left most of the talk at home. It is also, plainly, half of something: it stops rather than ends, on a last line we will not repeat that changes the shape of what you have just watched.

See it for the Blue Leaves, for Chiba, for Thurman’s toe, and for the moment the colour drains out of the frame. Do not expect to feel much for anyone but her. It runs 111 minutes and carries an 18, and it earns the certificate.

*Fi1m score 72, published 9 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

The critics split widely on this one, and the middle ground is thinner than the score suggests. Almost everyone praises Uma Thurman, whose performance is variously called steely, athletic and more emotional than the film around her, and almost everyone admires the fight sequences, the editing and the sheer confidence of the staging. The reservations are just as consistent. Several reviews find the relentless bloodletting numbing rather than provocative, and more than one notes that the film feels like half of something, with an ending that satisfies nobody. Empire and The Independent both miss the dialogue Tarantino is known for. The dissent runs in both directions: Total Film is unreserved in its enthusiasm, while Eye for Film dismisses the film as a self-indulgent barrage of banality and The Independent finds it joyless and adolescent. The majority sit in between, admiring the craft while wondering whether the references add up to a film.

## Straight answers

**Is Kill Bill: Vol. 1 worth watching?**

*Kill Bill: Vol. 1* is worth watching for anyone who wants Tarantino's fights without his talk, and we scored it 72. The House of Blue Leaves set piece, Sonny Chiba's sushi-bar scene and Uma Thurman willing her toe to move are as good as anything he has staged. It is half a film, though, and stops rather than ends.

**How long is Kill Bill: Vol. 1, and what is it rated?**

*Kill Bill: Vol. 1* runs 1h 51m and is rated R by the MPA in the US. It is an action and crime film.

**Where can I watch Kill Bill: Vol. 1 in the US?**

*Kill Bill: Vol. 1* is streaming on Amazon Prime Video in the US, and it is also available to rent from Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV from $3.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How violent or frightening is Kill Bill: Vol. 1, and is it suitable for children?**

*Kill Bill: Vol. 1* carries an 18 certificate in the UK and earns it, so it is not for children or younger teenagers. The sword fights reach a pitch of gore the film has to drop into black and white to show, an anime chapter depicts a child watching her parents killed, and a hospital orderly is revealed to have been selling the comatose heroine to men. The squeamish should stay away.

**How does Kill Bill: Vol. 1 compare to Kill Bill: Vol. 2?**

*Kill Bill: Vol. 1* is the fighting half and [*Kill Bill: Vol. 2*](https://film.one/film/kill-bill-vol-2) is the talking half, and we think the second is the better film. The first has the extraordinary set pieces, the split-screen hospital corridor and the moment the colour drains from the frame; the second has the dialogue this one lacks and a proper David Carradine as Bill. Choose the first for spectacle, the second for people, and accept that neither works alone.

**What should I watch after Kill Bill: Vol. 1?**

After *Kill Bill: Vol. 1*, try [*Kill Bill: Vol. 2*](https://film.one/film/kill-bill-vol-2) (2004, Fi1m 77): The other half, with the talk this one is missing and a better Bill. Then [*Point Blank*](https://film.one/film/point-blank) (1967, Fi1m 84): Lee Marvin comes back from the dead to collect, and nobody is quipping.

### Reviews we read (14)

- **Total Film** (90/100, inferred): The critic hails the film as a brilliant, genre(s) masterpiece and Tarantino masterpiece, praising its pacing, graceful action set pieces, shifts in tone, and how it stands strong as its own film despite the split into volumes. They highlight the cool, stylized violence and fresh tweaks to the director's style. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/kill-bill-volume-1-review/)
- **Radio Times**, Alan Jones (4/5): Tarantino marshals a bewildering number of multi-genre references into a hypnotically entertaining whole in this violent martial arts revenge drama, with a searing performance from Uma Thurman. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-wyxy5k/kill-bill-vol-1/)
- **Screen Daily** (80/100, inferred): The first part of the two-parter is an exhilarating ride anchored by a bravura action performance from Uma Thurman, with cartoonish violence and riveting balletic fight sequences. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/kill-bill-vol-1/4015250.article)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Manohla Dargis (70/100, inferred): Blood splatters in baroque fountains in this private fetish of a movie that is a blood-soaked valentine to movies and the ultimate film-geek freakout, a compendium of 1960s and 1970s cine-references. The critic singles out the quiet exchange with Sonny Chiba's sushi chef and Lucy Liu's performance as elements that elevate it beyond extreme gore and self-adoring virtuosity, while noting it feels like half a movie. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-oct-10-et-dargis10-story.html)
- **The AV Club**, Scott Tobias (70/100, inferred): The critic praises the masterful grindhouse theatrics and meticulously orchestrated setpieces in this half of the story but finds the cumulative effect wearying due to unrelieved carnage and an unsatisfying ending. They single out the non-sequential storytelling and eclectic references for effective homage to genre films. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/kill-bill-volume-1-1798199049)
- **The New York Times**, A. O. Scott (70/100, inferred): The film is an exercise in style, a densely referential pastiche of B-movie attitudes and situations that immerses viewers in an artificial world reflecting the director's cinematic obsessions. Its appeal depends on sharing those obsessions, with the critic highlighting the passion behind the spectacle and the central connection between Tarantino and star Uma Thurman. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/10/movies/film-review-blood-bath-beyond.html)
- **Empire**, Colin Kennedy (65/100, inferred): The review admires the film's confident action set pieces, Uma Thurman's steely performance, and its splattery climax but finds the rest a curate's egg lacking Tarantino's usual dialogue and quotable flair. It concludes it is a worthy addition to his canon that just about stands alone ahead of Volume 2. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/kill-bill-vol-1-review/)
- **Time Out**, TCh (50/100, inferred): The critic finds the film self-indulgent, tasteless and ultimately numbing as pure fanboy escapism stitched from set pieces, but praises the bravura filmmaking from a prodigious talent and Uma Thurman's performance as its potential saving grace. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/kill-bill-vol-1)
- **The Independent**, Jonathan Romney (40/100, inferred): The critic views the film as a joyless, adolescent tribute to Asian action cinema that prioritizes flashy violence over substance. They praise the virtuoso sound design, editing, and Uma Thurman's athletic performance while complaining about the callous tone, skimpy drama, and absence of Tarantino's signature wit. [Read](https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/reviews/kill-bill-volume-1-91161.html)
- **Film Comment**, Geoffrey O’Brien: The critic views the film as a return to Tarantino’s video-store-clerk roots, a stylized love letter to grindhouse and martial-arts cinema centered on Uma Thurman’s avenging Bride. He praises its dazzling formalism, color, compositions, and inventive action while noting its cartoonish violence and lack of deeper cultural context. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/article/devotional-furies-kill-bill/)
- **Slant Magazine**, Ed Gonzalez: The critic views the film as a soulless, vacuous pop-culture mixtape that prioritizes references and gags over originality. They single out the constant bloodletting as desensitizing rather than provocative, while noting Uma Thurman's performance as more emotional than the film itself. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/kill-bill-vol-1/)
- **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw: The critic finds the film an exhilarating adrenaline rush delivered with Tarantino's signature efficiency, though not his best work overall. The stylish, allusive martial-arts revenge tale set in a comic-book universe stands out for its cartoonish violence and genre homages. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2003/oct/10/quentintarantino)
- **The Telegraph**, Sam Leith: The critic sees the film as a triumph of pure style over substance, a shallow but visually energetic cinephile exercise about movies themselves with no real dramatic tension. Its relentless, gory rampage of revenge and genre pastiche are singled out as its core appeal and limitation. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1443130/Blood-doesnt-just-trickle-it-rains.html)
- **Eye for Film**, Angus Wolfe Murray (1.5/5): The critic calls the film the most self-indulgent, gratuitous, blood-soaked barrage of banality in B-picture pastiche. They single out the excessive, repulsive violence and lack of memorable dialogue or coherent story as major flaws. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/kill-bill-volume-1-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray)

## Details

- **Director:** Quentin Tarantino
- **Director:** Quentin Tarantino
- **Writer:** Quentin Tarantino
- **Cinematography:** Robert Richardson
- **Editor:** Sally Menke
- **Music:** RZA, Tomoyasu Hotei
- **Production design:** Yohei Taneda, David Wasco
- **Costume design:** Kumiko Ogawa, Catherine Marie Thomas, Mark Zunino, Alexander AD
- **Producer:** Lawrence Bender, Katsuji Morishita
- **Cast:** Uma Thurman as The Bride; Lucy Liu as O-Ren Ishii; Vivica A. Fox as Vernita Green; Daryl Hannah as Elle Driver; David Carradine as Bill; Michael Madsen as Budd; Julie Dreyfus as Sofie Fatale; Chiaki Kuriyama as Gogo Yubari
- **Runtime:** 1h 51m
- **Certificate (MPA):** R
- **Release (the US):** 10 October 2003
- **Genres:** Action, Crime
- **Budget:** $30 million
- **Box office:** $181 million

## Where to watch in the US

- Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, uhd
- Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $14.99, uhd
- Apple TV: buy $14.99, hd

*Checked 2026-09-10.*

Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IS, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- International Cinephile Society Award for Best Actress 2004: International Cinephile Society Award for Best Actress (won)
- MTV Movie Award for Best Villain 2004: MTV Movie Award for Best Villain (won)
- European Film Award for Best Non-European Film 2003: European Film Award for Best Non-European Film (nominated)

## If you liked this

- *Lady Snowblood* (1973): The snow-garden duel comes from here, and the original has a colder heart.
- *Kill Bill: Vol. 2* (2004), Fi1m 77: The other half, with the talk this one is missing and a better Bill. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/kill-bill-vol-2.md)
- *The Bride Wore Black* (1968): Truffaut’s widow works down her own list of five, without a drop of splatter.
- *Lady Vengeance* (2005): Park Chan-wook’s revenge film asks what the Bride never does: what it costs.
- *Point Blank* (1967), Fi1m 84: Lee Marvin comes back from the dead to collect, and nobody is quipping. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/point-blank.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/kill-bill-vol-1