Quentin Tarantino’s back after a long absence with a new movie. Expect more from his typical rag-bag of genre hopping stylistics – and, by the sound of the pre-screenings, bucketloads of blood. 

This is the soundtrack to the first of the two-part Kill Bill story, released nationwide in mid-October, a movie that is set to mix kung-fu with lewd sex and extreme violence. Much like a night out in Norwich’s Prince Of Wales Road then, except with kung-fu.

Tarantino’s always had a knack for picking diverse music on his soundtracks, seemingly grabbing from styles at random and linking them together in a way that makes sense – so here, rockabilly collides with Morricone-style spaghetti western, and Nancy Sinatra sits side-by-side with Isaac Hayes and The RZA.  Without the film to tie the tracks together, it’s hit and miss.

When it works, it works - ‘Run Fay Run’ is ‘70’s beatnik bongo chic at its best, and Al Hirt’s superhero theme ‘Green Hornet’ is both entertaining and scary; ‘Battle Without Honor Or Humanity’ is what the Miami Vice theme tune should have sounded like, and The 5.6.7.8.’s ‘Woo Hoo’ is one of those irritating tunes that sticks in your head long after the film’s finished.

But it’s not all gold by a long way.  RZA’s rapping over what sounds like a child’s music box toy is disappointing.  The spaghetti western-flavoured ‘The Grand Duel’ is actually the theme from Crossroads in disguise, and the biggest clunker is a shoddy cover of ‘Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood’, which sounds like it’s being performed by a gay Spanish ABBA tribute band.

There’s too much of a variation in quality here to be anything to get excited about.  Tarantino die-hards and music buffs will have fun playing ‘spot the band’ or ‘spot the reference’, but many of us will find the most fun we have is in playing ‘hunt the receipt so I can take it back and exchange it’.  Let’s hope the film’s better.
(3/5)

Release Date: 06 October 2003

---

Kill Bill Vol. 1