Dear God, what was he trying to SAY???

Rating: 1/10 (11 April 2006)

The film is horrific. There's plenty of comments above that should convince you that this is a just plain bad film, almost unwatchable, but that's not what I want to talk about. What really concerned me was the messages that lay at the core of the film- I'll comment on a couple.
The entire storyline is a glorification of sadomasochistic violence by and against women, usually of an either totally or heavily implied sexual nature. The film is absolutely riddled with it. Bill even says as much in the opening scene, while 'executing' the bride. It's no coincidence that the Bride holds hostage and mutilates another woman instead of the 88 male Yakuzas. When the Bride fights other women, both are usually portrayed as gratuitously enjoying the violence. Most horrifically, this is repeatedly extended to children. Who thought that a sixteen year old murderess being decapitated was a pleasant image? Or the image of her stabbing a man to death with the crushingly bad line 'now i have penetrated you'? The film actually praised the violence inherent in the plot- especially the murder of the mother in front of her daughter. Thurmann's performance was as a piece of drama unspeakably poor, it's fairly clear that all the above was intended to appeal exclusively in a sexual way to a male audience. The film runs like a bad and extremely disturbing porn movie, if that's what QT intended, he should have been more clear about it, and not disguised it as a real film.
Almost as worrying in my mind is the portrayal of the Japanese culture that the film was intended to convey. Instead of focusing on the often stunningly beautiful, delicate and precise background setting- the true Japan- the film dredges up uninspiring wartime stereotypes. All the Japanese fall into one of two camps- a handful are portrayed in as near to a positive light as Kill Bill manages- like the Okinawan Sword smith or 'Charlie Brown'- but these are seen as weak willed cowards. The Sword maker is actually praised for giving up his renunciation of violence. By far the majority of the Japanese, however, are portrayed as sadistic, violent, bigoted, mindless, incompetent murderous thugs, with precious little differentiation between them. The most beautiful irony of all is that many of them are played as being racist!!!
By the way, I'm a practitioner of Kendo, Japanese fencing. Whatever they were doing had NOTHING to do with martial arts. A sad reflection on Hollywood's cultural concepts; and a tragic corruption in the anti-violent philosophy of Kendo and other martial arts, and an unforgivable betrayal of the Japanese who participated in the film.
Someone on IMDb commented that the film was comic. I had no idea that this was so until reading that comment.