Writer/Director/Producer Quentin Tarantino again gets to play Cinema in this, his fourth movie (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown being the first three). Give him credit for one thing: He knows what he likes from the history of film, and uses it as much as possible.

I initially disliked PF, then a few years later re-watched it, and saw RD, figuring out Q.T. and appreciating his work. So I'll say right now that Kill Bill kicks a**, then slices the a** off.

What makes Q.T. stand out is that it shows how much he enjoys the filmmaking process. What other director could pull off using "an old Klingon proverb" as the basis for a movie? Brilliant.

In Kill Bill, Vol. 1 (the second part comes out in February), Q.T. makes full use of Japanese film styles, with an admiration of the samurai pictures (a nod to Chinese kung-fu as well), not to mention an entire chapter done in anime. Q.T. also gives a nod to spaghetti westerns, with super-close eye shots and wailing music announcing an upcoming duel with Oomph! Very cool, indeed.

Speaking of the music, it's some of the best and most well-fitting I've ever seen in a movie. Whether it's the mariachi or the hip-hop, the scene gets what it deserves, and if a scene should be without a score, it is.

I'm not an Uma Thurman fan, but she's pretty daggum good here. She wants to kill Bill over some testy thing like offing her friends and family at her wedding four years before, leaving her in a coma with a bullet lodged in her skull. Geez, some people just really hold grudges.

Anyway, Uma's ticked, and she's back to wipe out the rest of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad of which she was a part, and now must kill in revenge for their part in killing her family, and her unborn child, too.

One of the interesting bits was that the movie wouldn't let her real name be heard by the audience. Q.T. beeps it out like a curse word on "The Osbournes," and just lets her be known as Black Mamba, her Squad name. Just as well, because there's little of what might have been a sympathetic person left. Uma lacks mercy, compassion and forgiveness, not rationality. It's the warrior code.

No time to dawdle. Just bring it on! Uma takes on Vivica A. Fox and Lucy Liu in Volume 1, but next up are Michael Madsen and Daryl Hannah, not to mention the ubiquitous Bill, who isn't much more than a voice on a phone in this first part.

The fights are well orchestrated, fast and furious yet controlled chaos. In one scene that will remind one of the Matrix Reloaded scene in which Neo takes on 100 Agent Smiths, Uma takes on scores of henchmen in a Japanese disco, and you always feel that she controls the moment. Using her martial arts skillz, Uma and her enemies engage in a little Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon-ish "flying" from the ground floor to the balcony, except that while Tiger/Dragon was about the grace of battle, Kill Bill is about the bluntness and speed of it.

GRAPHIC doesn't even begin to describe the violence. Lots of spatter and spurts. Heck, there are veritable fountains of blood gushing at times.

Was it too bloody for blood's sake? Probably. Thank goodness I was desensitized to graphic violence many years ago, so I wasn't bothered one bit.

At least there's not as much bad language. Among the blood and severed body parts, only every other sentence has the "f" word, compared to every sentence (sometimes every other word in a sentence) in Q.T.'s previous releases.

Part of that reason is that this is an Action movie. Dialogue is minimal, but when its there, is hip, quotable and punctual. Every sentence has a reason, every word dissected for intention.

Of course, even then there is time for humor, and Kill Bill is full of it, plus the action scenes contain countless "ooh" and "ah" and "oh!" moments.

Every device in the book is utilized at least once, from slow-motion to split screen to flashbacks to the aforementioned anime and nifty overhead tracking shots from room to room. Q.T. plays with lighting, too, giving us Technicolor, black and white and nifty shadow shot for parts of the Japanese disco fight.

At times Kill Bill can over-manipulate the trickeration and coolness, but the movie never fails to entertain and you'll seldom if ever lose interest in what's on screen.

The movie oozes "cool" motion picture making, and will be a hit with anyone who appreciates style in their films. Q.T. is so popular because he represents every movie geek who wishes he/she could make a film like they would.