Perhaps the most highly anticipated film of 2003, Kill Bill Vol. 1 marked the return of renowned filmmaker Quentin Tarantino after a six-year hiatus. Re-teaming the director with Uma Thurman for the first time since 1994's Pulp Fiction , the film was originally the first half of what was to be a three-hour movie before being split into two 90-minute films. Thurman stars as The Bride, one-fifth of a team of assassins called DiVAS. When The Bride opts to leave the outfit for a life of marital bliss, it doesn't sit well with her boss, Bill ( David Carradine ), so he has her former cohorts, played by Lucy Liu , Vivica A. Fox , Daryl Hannah , and Michael Madsen , show up at the nuptials, leaving behind a blood bath. Miraculously, The Bride survives a bullet to the head and, four years later, she sets out for revenge against her four assassins and their employer. The story is concluded in Kill Bill Vol. 2 , released four months later. — Matthew Tobey