Quentin Tarantino's new film Kill Bill has been getting rave reviews ahead of its hotly anticipated release.

Total Film gives Kill Bill, Tarantino's first film since 1997's Jackie Brown, five out of five and declares it a Tarantino masterpiece.

The review concludes: "So good it deserves mention in the same breath as Reservoir Dogs or Pulp Fiction."

More plaudits come from Empire Magazine, which gives it four out of five and also praised its "sly visual wit".

The review, published in next month's issue, also praises Uma Thurman's performance and urges filmlovers to "just sit back and enjoy the splatter".

The critics are divided on the decision to split the film into two. The first instalment hits cinemas on October 10, with the second part due out next year. Total Film declares it "all good news" while Empire reserves judgement until both parts are out.

Kill Bill's cast includes Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen and Daryl Hannah, as well as Thurman who plays an assassin who awakes from a five-year coma with a bullet lodged in her skull.

She sets out to track down her former boss, Bill, who ordered a massacre at her wedding after she tried to quit crime.

According to co-star Liu, who plays Japanese gang mastermind O-Ren Ishii, some of the violence in Kill Bill is so extreme, audiences may be physically sick.

And Thurman adds to the queasiness when she says of her character: "I get shot in the head, raped, kicked, beaten and sliced by samurai swords - they should have called it Kill Uma."

Source: Press Release