By Alan Cho
Ninjas kick ass. When you dress those ninjas like Bruce Lee’s Kato and have them throw down with Uma Thurman dressed in Bruce Lee’s yellow tracksuit from Game Of Death, you’ve got a whole enchilada of kick ass called Kill Bill.
This soundtrack is an attempt to sonically replicate the movie’s kick-ass experience that caused you to yell, “Kick ass!” in the Cineplex parking lot. There’s an exploration of the tension between the Eastern and Western influences of grindhouse films marking this soundtrack as definitively Tarantino. But that’s probably not the reason you picked up the CD.
So, does it kick ass, ye ask?
Without the kinetic images Quentin Tarantino vigorously smacks onto the silver screen, this soundtrack becomes a somewhat hollow experience. That’s not to say this soundtrack doesn’t kick ass, it’s just a different type of kick ass.
Instead of a cohesive and kick-ass experience in itself, it strongly evokes those kick-ass moments from that kick-ass movie. Though, I’d rather have more of the RZA’s fantastic score suspiciously missing from the CD. Then I could have used “kick ass” one more time in this review.
Okay, I couldn’t resist… kick ass.