Kill Bill is the most marvelous piece of ULTRA-violence ever engineered. Following is an extremely disjointed account of my experience of this film*:

*[Warning: I have friends whose experiences on watching a movie have been lessened by the expectations heaped upon it by my glowing praise. I'll take it as a testament to my eloquence of expression, and you may take it as a warning not to read the following paragraphs if you find yourself subject to such overthrows of personal judgment. However, there are no actual plot spoilers.]

Vicariously experienced Horrendous, up-close-and-personal Worlds of Hurt one after the other. Takes about an hour to get used to, at which point I realized I was having a transcendental and erotic experience. Taboo? Oh Yes! All of it is, so very. Reminded of the beauty and allure that violence holds when treated with the utmost reverence. The rituals, the respect mixed with fear, and the grace and tension inherent in it when it is well-executed. And the complete mastery of self and overcoming of ego that it requires to excel in such a profession.

This movie reminded me often of the Japanese comic Lone Wolf and Cub, about a rogue samurai traveling with his baby boy. A brutal, graphic, and morally heavy series. Maybe it was partly because so much of Kill Bill took place in Japan, and there was a lot of samurai-style fighting, with which LWAC is heavy. But there was the visual brutality, the fearsome grace held by a main character with a justified but horribly violent mission.

Eyes wide the entire time. Wide, wide, open. Oh, and the Soundtrack Was AWESOME! Wow! Good job RZA! Excellent timing on everything, great, great fight scenes. I'd watch it again, but not too soon.

10:49 p.m. 2003-10-11�