an asian action flick fan perspective

Rating: 5/10 (3 November 2003)

I came out of the theatre hating this movie, though I cannot figure out why. Kill Bill, for its story, is actually a very well-made movie; I have to give them that. It is fun to watch, a lot of the scenes are visually cool. The blood is excessive, to the point of stupidity, but it's just so silly that I was kind of laughing at it. It doesn't have much of a plot, but given that I'm really into brainless action flick, that's not the issue either.
In the end, after much discussion with my friends, I realized I hated it because it's a 'hommage' to movies that I grew up watching. I'm from HK originally; being an action flick fan, I daresay I've seen most of the movies/tv shows that inspired Kill Bill. In fact, I still watch a lot of the kung fu/action films and tv series and anime these days. A lot of them are very campy, but a few are really exceptional.
So for many of the 'things' in Kill Bill, I can find an example from asian cinema that does it 'better'. For example, the blood spurting is quite typical japanese samurai and anime. Yet, in better done ones, it doesn't look 'stupid'. It's actually cool. The focus was not the blood, but the tension before and after the sword strike; the spurting is there just to highlight the deadly elegance of the motion, which a lot of times is supposed to be so fast that you can't see.
And a lot of the 'oh-so-innovative' camera tricks, I've seen before in HK or Japanese movies, just not together, all mashed in one movie. I believe, the manga sequence is probably the only portion that I find up to par to the standard of most modern day japanese manga/anime.
I cannot help but feel that instead of paying respect to the asian films that inspired it, Kill Bill was making fun of them by making the scenes look as campy as possible for laughs. In the end, Kill Bill just seemed like an Americanized asian action flick/parody... which is not something I would gladly pay $10 to see.