Reviews were mostly positive, with some reviewers regarding it as a cinematic masterpiece, but other reviewers felt that Tarantino's homage to Asian cinema was overly indulgent and still others felt that it was a new low in cinematic morality. Some conservative critics decried its extremely graphic and exaggerated depictions of violence.
The film begins with a dedication to Japanese director Kinji Fukasaku. A different cut of the film was released specifically for Japan, where it opened several weeks later. While the American cut of the movie shows a notably violent segment (the battle at the House of Blue Leaves) in black and white, the Japanese cut shows it in color. The film was shot over eight months, with many scenes filmed on location in Japan. Miramax Films is the U.S distributor.
Scenes in the movie are shown heavily out of order (e.g. it starts with footage of the wedding, flashes forward to The Bride's second kill, goes back to the wedding and The Bride's recovery from her coma, etc.). This technique was already used by Tarantino in "Pulp Fiction".
Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers.
The Bride (AKA Black Mamba, played by Uma Thurman) is a former member of "The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad". She attempts to retire, but, while heavily pregnant, is attacked on her wedding day by the group. The groom and the rest of the wedding party are murdered and The Bride is shot and left for dead. Left in a coma, Bill (David Carradine) sends Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) to finish her off, but subsequently decides to give her a reprieve until such day as she might wake.
After four years the Bride awakes, childless, to the sight of a man preparing to rape her; while she was in a coma, Buck, a hospital employee, had arranged to prostitute her body. Exacting her revenge against the rapists and appropriating the late Buck's "Pussy Wagon", she begins her quest to eliminate all her former associates.
She travels first to Okinawa, Japan where she asks master swords-maker Hattori Hanzo (Sonny Chiba) for a katana with which to accomplish her revenge. Hattori Hanzo was Bill's teacher, and feeling an obligation for having trained him, he agrees.
Flying to Tokyo, the Bride wastes no time in locating O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), a half-American former army brat orphaned by the yakuza, and her bodyguards, the Crazy 88. The Bride kills or maims all but one of the Crazy 88 inside a restaurant and pursues O-Ren Ishii outside to a snow-covered garden. Although injured in the exchange, the Bride manages to finish the duel by slicing off the top of O-Ren Ishii's head. Next, she obtains information about Bill and her other former associates by torturing Sofie Fatale (Julie Dreyfus), one of Bill's lovers and O-Ren's lawyer.
Making a kill list on the plane, the Bride then returns to the United States where she kills Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox).Plot
Volume 1