DVD Review HTF REVIEW: Kill Bill Vol. 1 (RECOMMENDED) (1 Viewer)

[DaViD Boulet]

Firstly,

let me appologize for having taken so long to get this review posted. I only recieved the screener at the end of last week (right before the holidays) and didn't realize that the release date was so soon...usually I get screeners at least two weeks early so when this came to my door I figured "oh, I can get to that after the Easter holiday". I was quite surprised on Monday when I realized the release date was at hand! :frowning: Next time I won't make any assumptions.

Now, please let me comment about this sort of attitude:


Folks,

I hope everyone realizes that my goal in reviewing is to alert you all to the picture and sound quality issues of a DVD. That's why I just upgraded to my front-projector and that's why I pay such special attention to the picture and sound quality issues in my reviews. I'm assuming that the ardent fans out there have already seen the movie and know whether or not they want it...the primary reason why they're reading my review is to see if the picture and sound of the DVD do the film justice.

There's no way I can become an afficionado regarding every title that comes my way, but I do my best to describe the special features of the disc and try to give an objective evaluation of the "movie" as well for those not acquainted with the title.

However, for me to being expected to have knowlege of whether a Japanese DVD is available that has sequences in the movie that differ in content both from what is on the current DVD *and* from what was shown theatrically in the U.S.? Plleeeeeaaaasse.

You're the fan who scours the net all day reading rumormills from every obscure site regarding the titles that you love. That's your area of expertise therefore it's YOUR job to let us know these things--not mine. That's the beauty of reviews at HTF...they are the genesis for discussions where information exactly such as this can be shared by those who know with others so HTF visitors can make an informed purchase decision.

Don't chide the review for not including such fan-worthy obscurities. Instead, read my review to find out what the picture of this DVD looks like on an 8-foot wide screen and high-quality sound system by someone who is extremely picky about such matters . That is the basis for my "recommendation". Then share information you have about the history/context of the film and/or its direction with the rest of us so HTF members can make up their minds.

We all bring something to the table, and that's a good thing.


-dave



p.s. I thought the B&W sequences during that fight scene were very artful and added quite a bit of stylistic depth to the film. If I could choose, I'd keep them, and from what I've read in other threads the debate is open as to exactly what QT's intensions were.

 

[Alex Spindler]

As to whether this should get a 'Recommended', I'd say absolutely. We're presented with exactly what we got in the theater, warts and all. It would be something like saying the TE of a LotR film can't be Recommended because an EE is coming on its heels. I am also assuming that the final combined film release will be markedly different and may likely have many scenes shortened or excised entirely to make it one solid film. As I love KB:v1 as it is, there is no way I would wait for a version that might be missing anything.

 

[Kevin Porter]

Same here. While a great amount of passion and love was put into the making of that trilogy, I didn't feel that it completely carried across on screen how much everyone was passionate about what they were doing (Preparing for the flaming) The endless hours of bonus material show it but, in comparison to KB, there was a sense of sterility to some things. Or perhaps, not being a diehard or for that matter a hard fan for the fantasy genre, I didn't fall in love with the films as much as the people making it did. With huge commercial success of course comes some deadening of the "coolness factor" of liking LOTR. For me, I fell in love with what these people, especially Tarantino of course, were doing as much as they fell in love with what they were doing and it just clicked and connected in a way LOTR didn't with me. And as an aspiring filmmaker, the bonus features for Kill Bill are far more compelling than those of LOTR as with LOTR, you have like a $200 million budget at your disposal whereas with Kill Bill it's on a relatively smaller scale (no thousands upon thousands of CGI shots and only a $50 million budget) and more the kind of movie I would be interested in making. That's just me though. I will however, buy every version of the films released.

 

[Richard Gilmore]

David, your review was fine. You reviewed the DVD released in the USA, which matched the film released here.

Loved the film, it's a film lover's dream with it's homage to various genres.

 

[Doug Schiller]

Then he should sue the compressionist, it still looks just average to me.
Skin, hair, cloth textures are non-existant. except for Uma's hideous big toe
Of course, this could be more of a factor of the "created by the devil" format called Super (low detail) 35.

Just my opinion.

D

 

[DaViD Boulet]

Doug,

exactly. Why that one scene with her (ugh!) big toe looked so detailed compared to everything else is a cruel irony!

Whether the film-tape transfer is to blame or the HD-SD downconversion or the SD-master-> authored DVD mastering process is irrelevant. The point is that the movie clearly (pun intended) had much more detail that what we're getting on this down-resed DVD copy. Still a great movie and a DVD worth watching...but it could have been even better and it *should* have been even better.

 

[Jonny P]

I saw the movie twice in the theater. I actually enjoyed it more the second time.

The first theater I saw it in was the newest theater in our city built a few years ago. The picture quality and sound were good.

The second theater I saw it in is the old art-house theater in town built back in the 1940s. It is old, musty smelling, has the original seats, has Dolby Stereo Sound and not much more. The film had been out a while when I saw it, so it wasn't a clean copy.

I would have to say that watching the film in the lower quality theater actually improved the experience of "Kill Bill Vol. 1" for me. It just seems like the type of movie that should be viewed that way.

This may be more of a psychological observation than anything else, but part of me wonders if it actually distracts from the movie watching it on these state-of-the-art monitors and projectors that all of you have.

The film simply had a retro feel to me. Part of me gets the sense that the film might be enjoyed more on a 20-inch Goldstar set with mono sound than with all the bells and whistles.

(Does the preceding sound rational to anyone, or have I completely lost it? )

 

[Michael Reuben]

If that were the reason, you would have seen it in the release prints, and people wouldn't be bemoaning the difference between the disc and the image on film. Bjoern's lengthy post supplied a good explanation of the likely factors.

M.

 

[George_W_K]

Jonny,

You may either have found the cure for upgraditis, or you are suffering from the much worse disease downgraditis!










Just kidding, of course.

 

[Richard Kim]

Well Tarantino does have a thing for women's feet. Check out From Dusk till Dawn and Jackie Brown for more examples, as well as the "foot massage" conversation in Pulp Fiction.

 

[Haggai]

DVDFile has an interview with Uma where she mentions the Tarantino foot thing:
Uma mentioned this with a little more detail in another recent interview, either in Rolling Stone or EW (I read both of those magazine's Kill Bill stories in the airport on Monday). She said that if all the dialogue were retained, but every shot was just of the people's feet, it would actually have made narrative sense.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I've got a foot fetish (well, sort of...let's all share our deep dark secrets on HTF ), but Uma's big toe didn't do a thing for me...

Foot massage anyone?

 

[Haggai]

Yeah, her feet aren't exactly a thing of beauty. I'm not a foot man myself--not that I don't like nice feet, I just don't care that much about how they look. I think I could deal with those feet if they came attached to Uma, though! I'm guessing you're probably in the same boat on that last point, DaViD.

 

[Mark Bendiksen]

Well, that may be true...to a point. Miramax has been nicknamed "the house that Tarantino built" and Quentin and Harvey Weinstein are pretty close as I understand it. Therefore, my guess is that Tarantino would have the ability to load the Kill Bill DVD with most everything he wants. The reason this first release is fairly skimpy in extras is probably because of his schedule, and I'm pretty sure he'll stay true to his word about producing an SE at some point.

 

[Bjoern Roy]

Doug,


I hope you were doing some sort of funny Jeff Kleist impersonation there and don't really believe that

The resolution difference of Panavision vs S35 is of interest at a high meta level for DP's (and hideously overblown, btw), but has no bearing whatsoever on DVD.

To bring this point across more vividly, and hopefully to settle this argument for, eh at least a couple of weeks... , i will take Gladiator as an S35 example.

While the NTSC Gladiator isn't the best DVD in existance, we can agree its a very good one (the PAL superbit is marvelous btw).

This is a comparison of a shot on the DVD against a film scan:



The 'lowly' S35 scan has several magnitudes more detail than the DVD. And the S35 scan i used isnt even at the full resolution it was captured at AND even more importantly, i only have a heavily compressed version of that scan that contains a horrendous amount of compression artefacts (zoom into the S35 image above to see them). The proper original scan uncompressed would have even more detail, and the original 'film' frame even more yet.

So with a format that is capable of capturing well past 25 times (5x5) the detail of what is on DVD today... how could the argument of Panavision having the 'potential' capability to store some additional odd percentage more (not as easily determined as the anamorphic advantage would suggest) EVER be used in a DVD discussion??? Beats me.

Well, as i said, you were probably only doing a JK impersonation

Sorry for the off-topic comments, folks!

Back to your host David, the freshest movie out of hollywood in ages, plus the added free bonus of thread fart collateral damage.


Best regards
Bjoern

 

[TonyD]

i wasnt as thrilled about this movie as many seem to be.
it was just a series of fights scenes and not much else.
no character developement or backstory to speak of.
maybe that will come with part 2.

i did like the movie but it wasnt "all that".

anyway i did notice one part were the subs changed color for one character for one line of dialogue.
i think it was go go.

it changed from the usual yellowish to a greenish color. anyone else see this?

 

[Nick Sievers]

They seemed to keep the subtitles relatively close to the Theatrical print, they were even to the left of the screen when Sonny Chiba was walking down the stairs in the loft.

 

[Matt Stone]

I liked this film in the theater, but I absolutely love it on DVD. As most, I wasn't too impressed with the transfer, but I thought the DTS track was really strong. It may just be a series of fights with no development per se, but it the execution is so flawless. Watching this film was like eating a really damn good piece of candy.

 

[Dave_P.]

Also when Sofie Fatale and The Bride are having their little "chat" at the end of the movie, her subtitles are in white.

Also, if you were looking for character development, Vol 2 is supposedly the more dialogue driven one with Vol 1 being the action part.

 

[GarySI]

Why would any buy a projector only to si less than 2 screen diags away? No wonder you notice the mid and far screen losses.