After blowing everybody away in the mid-nineties with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino seemed to take to heart the criticisms that he was more a great dialogue writer than a great director. His last film, Jackie Brown, although replete with the trademark Tarantino violence, was both a more introspective work and an attempt to carve out a 'serious' directorial style. Martial arts extravaganza Kill Bill: Volume One, Tarantino's long-awaited return to the big screen, throws aside concerns about anything other than action; it is more pulp than Pulp Fiction and, although violent as hell, it's a lot of fun.

Uma Thurman stars as 'The Bride,' an avenging angel with a yellow tracksuit and a custom-made samurai sword. Along with Viveca A. Fox, Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen and Daryl Hannah, Thurman is a former member of the 'Deadly Viper Assassination Squad' controlled by mastermind 'Bill' - an unseen but much heard David Carradine.

After an early fight-to-the-death scene between Thurman and Fox, carried out in a suburban home in the presence of Fox's young daughter, the film jumps backwards and forwards in typical Tarantino time-juggling style, revealing that a very pregnant Thurman, her family and friends were all supposedly murdered by her former squad mates at Thurman's wedding. After four years in a coma, however, Thurman wakes up with a plate in her head and revenge on her mind.

A single-minded, kung-fu-kicking killing machine, this 'woman with no name' sets off to find and take out all of her former mates, a quest that takes her to Japan and allows for Tarantino to mount an ever-escalating series of fights that are ultra-violent to the point of parody. Every martial arts film from Bruce Lee's to current Japanese gore meister Takashi Miike's is referenced, as limbs and heads are severed, bodies (in a direct reference to Miike's Ichi the Killer) are cleaved in two and the blood doesn't so much flow as erupt like geysers from wounds and stumps.

Despite the (for some) outrageous amount of violence, Tarantino manages to stage these fight scenes with panache, opting for a tongue-in-cheek tone that elicits more chuckles than gasps of horror. The surprising thing here is not the over-the-top mayhem, but the inanity of the infrequent dialogue scenes. Generally a Tarantino strength, here they come across as stiff and badly acted. Of course, given the film's aim to be an homage to all things martial arts, perhaps the bad acting and dialogue are part of the plan.

The film ends on a cliffhanger that some viewers will see coming, setting things up nicely for the second installment due out in a few months. The only question is whether or not Thurman will be able to get all those bloodstains out of her yellow tracksuit in time to continue along her wrathful path.