Objectively, what's so excellent?

Rating: 6/10 (23 October 2003)

Well, i have to say, there are a lot of people happy to call this one of the best movies ever made and that's unbelievable. To give a b-movie satire 10/10 is crazy and you've probably been seduced by the allure of the hip.
True, Tarantino is hip. He's more hip than any other filmmaker ever and his movies are so easy to love, but Kill Bill Vol. 1 is not an excellent movie. Perhaps if it is combined with it's upcoming sequel and many needlessly lengthy fight scenes are cut down to create a full movie with a decent amount of storyline, then it can be ranked at the height of b-movie satires, but that's not a 10/10.
I loved the introduction, the knife fight in the house and its dramatic climax was great and very well done. With humour, drama and action working excellently together, i figured i was in for a very unique and excellent movie. But, unfortunately for me, the drama died and the humour was reduced to laughing at the ludicrous amounts of blood lost and huge number of limbs amputated. This was funny, but pretty low brow.
The bleeping of The Bride's real name was great and showed courage and originality, the cheesy b-movie character names also worked very well, but the vast quantities of fight scenes were overwhelming and unnecessary. There's a great storyline under there about a woman who was wronged and needs revenge, but it is eclipsed often for 15-20 minutes at a time as our heroine goes to battle evil, or to get a samurai sword of unequalled quality.
I hated the anime part, that's just me (i always hate it) but in fairness it was done pretty well and fitted into the patchwork feel of the movie.
So, in summary, there were many good points to this movie, but its overall quality as a whole movie was most certainly not excellent. Unless you *love* a movie purely for the fact that it isn't afraid to do what's normally taboo.
Honestly, this was better than a lot of movies that come out of Hollywood so i'm giving it 7/10.