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As you may have read in SILMAN'S REVIEW, KILL BILL plays like a greatest hits collection of Asian cinema. It's also got its share of Spaghetti Western, anime, and Blaxploitaton cues. For Cassavetes disciples, who despise genre films and complain that movies built on filmic references are hollow, dumb exercises in getting in-jokes, KILL BILL is their worst nightmare. Well, to use a Silman expression, these folks need to “unclench their buttocks” and just have fun with a film like BILL.

Everything comes from something, and as the saying goes: Talent borrows. Genius steals.  Yes, KILL BILL is one uninterrupted stream of stolen elements, but like a great song cover, Quentin Tarantino has taken those elements and made them his own.

One of the great strengths of KILL BILL – and one of the ways in which it sets itself apart from the films from which it steals – is that it doesn't take itself too seriously. Yes, it's a pretty nasty revenge story. Yes, there's a pretty somber anime sequence, a dead-serious climactic fight scene, and a solemn sword bequeathing. And I think Tarantino's respect for the genre of samurai films is apparent in these scenes. The care given to them proves that he's not just throwing out references and stolen goods and hoping that some of them will stick.

What Tarantino does so well is that he takes the more exaggerated elements of these genres – genres that often do take themselves too seriously – and creates some of the most absurdly hilarious concoctions – Uma willing her big toe into wiggling in the back of the Pussy Wagon. Daryl Hannah's one-eyed California Mountain Snake in nurse disguise complete with eye patch. Like no one's going to notice her in that get up with that eye patch! Sonny Chiba's Laurel-and-Hardy-sushi routine as a front for his defunct sword-making business. 

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