Is kill bill a joke?

Okay, now I'm going to actually answer the question.

Yes, it's overdone, intentionally so. Same with the blood. The segment having to do with Japan is sort of a live-action-anime, which means the events that unfold aren't subject to the rules of an action film or what have you, but the rules of the "anime genre", whatever that encompasses. Tarantino switches "background genre" a lot to coincide with setting and character... you'll notice the fight in the kitchen, for example, involves a frying pan, a carving knife, and a box of breakfast cereal, and there's no dramatic music. You'd need to be in tune with the conventions of the genre and pay attention to what's going on to "get it", which of course means watching more than 5 minutes of the movie.

Obviously there's more to say on all of this, that's just a short answer, and there are other ways to look at it.
 
PS- From an "Is this a good movie" standpoint rather than an "Is this fun to watch / time killing" standpoint, the 2nd one is actually better than the first, largely because of Michael Madsen. The cheesy palm technique business is a product of the 70's kung fu genre (those badly dubbed b-movies), as is the whole thing with Pai Mei. Note the absolutely abysmal camerawork during everything to do with Pai Mei, which was supposed to be dramatic back when those movies were popular (Pai Mei was a recurring character), and nowadays looks crap unless you get nostalgic over film style as Tarantino obviously does. Sometimes I feel like he doesn't give a shit who likes his movies, as long as he loves them. Nowhere is that more evident than in KB. But whether you like it or not, you can't deny that by contrast to all that corny camerawork, some of his more impressive cinematography in terms of everything from camera angles to colour use (or lack thereof) becomes all the more impressive as a result, and the same is true of the various aspects of the plot. They stand out better by comparison to each other, even though you could say that also makes the whole thing a bit disjointed... well, there's lots to say about it.
 
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