Kill Bill: Volume 1

Kill Bill: Volume 1 is Quentin Tarantino's fourth film. Released in the United States on 10 October 2003 and in France on 26 November, it was shot as a single movie with Volume 2 before Miramax decided to split it in two during editing. The ShawScope logo that opens the credits sets the tone: a tribute to the Shaw Brothers kung fu films, to Japanese sword films and to the B movies of the 1970s.

Fights staged by Yuen Woo-ping

Tarantino handed the fights to Yuen Woo-ping, the Hong Kong choreographer behind The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Uma Thurman started katana training in March 2002, a few weeks after giving birth, and learned wire work with his team. The payoff is the House of Blue Leaves assault against the Crazy 88, which took eight weeks to shoot and runs for about twenty minutes on screen.

Real martial artists in the cast

Sonny Chiba, the karate star of Japanese cinema, plays Hattori Hanzo, the swordsmith who forges the Bride's blade. Gordon Liu, a Shaw Brothers regular since The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, is Johnny Mo, leader of the Crazy 88; he returns in Volume 2 as the master Pai Mei. The Bride's yellow tracksuit copies Bruce Lee's in Game of Death, and the Crazy 88's black masks echo Kato in The Green Hornet. Lady Snowblood (1973) inspired O-Ren Ishii, whose childhood is told in an anime sequence by Production I.G.

What a practitioner will recognise

The sword duels follow the logic of kenjutsu: distance, guard, one decisive cut and a quick ending. The final duel in the snowy garden between the Bride and O-Ren is built like a chanbara fight, with a long wait before the cut that settles it. In the House of Blue Leaves, Yuen Woo-ping mixes blades, throws and kicks in the Hong Kong tradition, with wire work shown rather than hidden.

Reception

The film grossed $180.9 million worldwide on a $30 million budget and drew more than 1.5 million admissions in France according to AlloCiné. Rotten Tomatoes lists 85% positive reviews and Metacritic a score of 69 out of 100. Roger Ebert gave it four stars out of four, and Uma Thurman earned a BAFTA nomination for best actress. Since December 2025, the full-length Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, which joins both volumes into one film of more than four hours, has been back in US cinemas, followed by Spain in April 2026: the trailer above is the one for that re-release, published by Lionsgate.