She landed at the multiplex this summer like a pink confetti bomb, blithely crushing the patriarchy under one (permanently) arched foot. Two decades before Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, though, Quentin Tarantino lured legions of moviegoers with his own bloodied, baroque take on essentially the same formula: a canonical blonde, a feminist even film bros could appreciate, a deathless Halloween costume.
Kill Bill Volume 1, released 20 years ago this week, isn’t strictly the best Tarantino film, but it is maybe the most Tarantino. The film is the purest expression of his id, or at least his abiding interests: kung fu, classic grindhouse, lingering closeups of ladies’ feet. Volume 1 is like a Wu-Tang album in its clarity of purpose and fondness for martial-arts mythology. (In fact, RZA curated the movie's choogling soundtrack of rockabilly, vintage funk, and spaghetti-western brass.)
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