First half of Tarantino’s epic film is a complete hit

At the halfway point, my mind is blown.

Rather than gutting his massive director’s cut of… At the halfway point, my mind is blown.

Rather than gutting his massive director’s cut of “Kill Bill” – reportedly around four hours – writer-director Quentin Tarantino opted to release it in two parts. “Volume 1” is literally half a film.

The rest doesn’t arrive until February, but I’m already comfortable saying the words “living, breathing masterpiece.” That date can’t come fast enough.

If you spent years feeding a computer the choicest trash cinema – blaxploitation, kung fu bloodbaths, bad-girl flicks, nasty revenge pics, etc. – it might, upon overload, spit back something close to “Kill Bill.” But you’d still need the deep, resonant sadness that’s at the heart of Tarantino’s film.

“Bill” is every bit the homage to the films that made Tarantino the particular monster he is that fans are expecting. It’s primarily a euphoric celebration of the depravity of the ’70s B-film world. One sequence goes black-and-white – the Motion Picture Association of America is more accepting of blood if it’s not red – for an extended, eye-popping, samurai-sword massacre. There’s also a spectacular anime sequence that culminates in a veritable blood storm.

The unexpected part is the emotion under it all. The opening shot alone is devastating – a single long take of Uma Thurman as the Bride, bloody and battered in her wedding dress, with minutes, perhaps seconds, to live. The voice of Bill comes, then a gunshot. As if it was created specifically for this film, “Bang Bang,” written by Sonny Bono and sung by Nancy Sinatra, plays over the opening credits. This sequence hurts.

When she wakes up in a hospital four years after that gunshot, revenge is all the Bride has left. She was once a contract killer. When she quit the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, her former colleagues and boss, the mysterious Bill (David Carradine), murdered her entire wedding party and left her with a bullet in the head. But she’s still alive, and on a mission to get them all back. Especially Bill.

Two elements of the film are perfect above all else. The first is the original music by RZA, who must be quite the connoisseur of the films that inspired this one; damn, does he get it. Like Tarantino’s filmmaking style, the music references other films and adds its own edge.

The second is Thurman, who it’s all riding on. She’s electric in a way she isn’t for anyone but Tarantino. We have to stay with her through her brutal past and future, even as she engages in some seriously cold-blooded behavior. And we’ve got her back the whole way.

To those who condemn Tarantino as a thief: yes, he stole every bit of “Kill Bill” from other films – and created one of the most original films in recent memory.

“Kill Bill” isn’t perfect. Not yet. It’s only intermission.

“Kill Bill: Volume 1” opens Friday, Oct. 10.