Sources: Wikidata · OpenAlex. The record of the motion picture, not an assessment of this cell.
FILM NOTES
Kill Bill: Volume 1 arrived in 2003 from Miramax Films, marking Quentin Tarantino's return after a six-year gap since Jackie Brown. Conceived as one sprawling revenge epic and split into two volumes for release, it paired Tarantino's genre-blending instincts with Uma Thurman's performance as the Bride, fusing samurai cinema, spaghetti westerns, and Hong Kong action into something distinctly his own. The film's stylized violence and structural audacity made it an immediate cultural touchstone, cementing Tarantino's status as a director unafraid to reshape familiar forms into something wholly recognizable as his own.
This piece preserves the picture's opening declaration, the title card that announces Kill Bill before a frame of story unfolds. Such cards function as thresholds, the formal handshake between studio and audience, often rendered with a director's own visual signature baked into the design itself. For collectors, this moment carries weight precisely because it is untethered from plot, an artifact of pure branding and intention, the first thing projected and the first thing remembered. It stands as the film introducing itself, before the Bride's story begins.
Authentication Findings8 checks
Consistent with a 35mm color release print of Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003).
Gauge
35mm, confirmed by four perforations per frame on both edges; the strip holds three complete frames.
Perforations
Four per frame on both edges; spacing appears even and the punched edges look clean with no torn or missing perforations visible.
Soundtrack
A variable-area optical track is visible running along the lower edge of the picture area, appearing as a narrow light band beside the frame line.
Base appears with a slight blue-green tint typical of Kodak color print stock; the dye image reads as deep black with saturated red title lettering, showing no visible fading or color shift.
Projection history
No scratches, splice marks, or cue marks are visible in this capture.
Picture
Positive image; all three frames show identical title card content, indicating a title sequence held on consecutive frames, consistent with a release print of Kill Bill: Volume 1.
Era check
The Kodak 2383 print stock edge code, variable-area optical soundtrack, and 2003 date in the edge print are all consistent with a 2003 theatrical release print.
Read from the original intake capture shown below. Observations only — film is authenticated, not graded.
This original motion picture film element has been examined and authenticated by Crown Grading in partnership with National Film Vault, and encapsulated for archival preservation.
Why so little survivesRelease prints were leased to theaters, not sold. When the run ended they went back to the distributor to be destroyed, and most were. What collectors hold today came from the prints that escaped that order, and no new 35mm prints of these films are being struck.
CROWN SERIAL 000062981
Original Film CaptureAs received
Photographed on the light panel at intake, before encapsulation — tap to open full size
Tap to enlarge
