live-action anime

Rating: 10/10 (29 December 2003)

This film is brilliant. It's a bonafide vision from beginning to cliffhanger.
As others have pointed out, I think this film was created with anime-style in mind. I haven't seen much anime but many of the visuals in this film remind me of stuff like Mononoke Hime and Rurouni Kenshin. The latter example tells me to interpret Kill Bill as a brilliantly executed episode, a two-parter, rather than a film.
People have complained of the "lack of story." I perceive the same fact this way: Tarantino is working with a cookie-cutter cliche of a revenge flick, so it defies any attempt at exciting description. The movie tacitly assumes that a story so basic should automatically resonate with anyone. So now the entertainment is derived from seeing *how* the film executes the story: a movie movie. I think Tarantino has created this film with more enthusiasm and panache than you would normally see in mainstream stuff.

The semiformal dialogue in this film also reminded me of old Samurai stuff where strongly-abided codes of honor and respect, and warriers and swords (as well as swordsmiths) of different orders of strength are the dictates of the land. So I think it is appropriate that the dialogue is restrained compared with Pulp Fiction. Really, I don't see how Pulp Fiction has anything to do with this film other than the fact that the director made both with his particular kitchensink style. Folks he was going for something different from his previous efforts. Actually I take it back: Pulp Fiction foreshadowed this film when Butch rescues Marcellus Wallace from a fate worse than death with a samurai sword, and subsequently Wallace, who was a moment ago hellbent on "scouring the earth for the motherf*cker" Butch, without hesitation follows an unspoken code of conduct and dissolves their feud.
Okay, naysayers, you gotta admit at least that Tarantino has a sense of showmanship. That alone, sadly, still puts Kill Bill above average in the mundania also known as Hollywood.