Kill Bill—Volume 2 (2004)

Movie Info

Please let me kill you…

The Bride (Uma Thurman) is still coming for Bill (David Carradine) and getting closer.  Working her way through his men, the Bride is remembering her past and her training and how she ended up on the other end of Bill’s gun.  When the Bride finds Bill, Bill has a surprise of his own for the Bride.

Directed by Quentin Tarantino, Kill Bill—Volume 2 is the second part to Tarantino’s bigger Kill Bill project.  Due to a four hour running time, the movie was split into two parts and released in October 10, 2003 and April 16, 2004.  The movie adapts many genres and a lot of the story from 1973’s Lady Snowblood.  The film saw wide critical acclaim and both Uma Thurman and David Carradine received Golden Globe nominations.

I hate it when my day ends up with me buried in a coffin.

Despite being “Quentin Tarantinoed out”, I enjoyed Kill Bill—Volume 1 a lot and looked forward to Kill Bill—Volume 2.  With so much energy and action, Kill Bill—Volume 2 was going to be a hard follow-up.  It didn’t succeed in that aspect, but it still came as a solid film.

I really like the energy and action of Kill Bill—Volume 1, and Kill Bill—Volume 2 was more of the flip side of that.  There was a lot of action, but nothing compared to the first Kill Bill.  The movie deals much more in plot and story than action and is often filled with long dialogues.  Tarantino does keep the “cool” factor of the dialogues, but does have much more control over them than in some of his previous works.

Honey, we always have the best time together…

The movie once again is aided by strong acting.  Uma Thurman’s portrayal of the Bride (who gets a name…Beatrix) is spot on.  She is scary sometimes and sympathetic other times, for an action star to ooze emotion is rare.  The film also features the nice return of David Carradine as Bill.  He really commands his scenes and does a great delivery of some long monologues.  Gordon Liu also gives a nice performance as the master Pei Mei (he previously played the head of Lucy Liu’s Crazy-88s in Volume 1).  Most of the other players in Volume 1 also returned for some moments in the film.

The movie continues to look great.  I do admire Quentin Tarantino’s blending of genres for both of these films.  It is appropriate for the story, and it makes a very, very long story move fast.  It also shows a great appreciation for some of those underappreciated filmmakers who helped stylize this type of story and were often just subjected to second features and midnight showings because of the low budgets.

Kill Bill—Volume 2 when combined with Kill Bill—Volume 1 is a great film.  Though I do like Kill Bill—Volume 1 more than Volume 2, Volume 2 does also have it good attributes.  For me, Quentin Tarantino is very polarizing, and I sometimes hate what he does.  Kill Bill—Volume 1 and Kill Bill—Volume 2 represent his work where it works.

Related Links:

Kill Bill—Volume 1 (2003)