Kill Bill, Volume 2

Vengeance comes to its end.

Continuing with the great movie Kill Bill is,  it is time to close the curtain with part 2, AKA Kill Bil, Volume 2.  In the first volume, released only a few months before "Vol. 2" in the tail end of 2003, we met The Bride (probably Uma Thurman's greatest impersonation ever) one deadly woman trained in the arts of killing. "Vol. 1" is all about the killing the unnamed bride has to go through to meet her final worst enemy: Bill. Volume 1, had a lot of blood, violence, and wisecracks, and raged across the screen like a mad V8 engine.

However, Volume 2 (fortunately) doesn't repeat  what happened in Volume 1 giving fans more expectation instead of the "oh, yeah, she's gonna kill again" It makes sense it's a separate movie; the tone is such a departure from "Vol. 1" in two ways. One is style. Director Tarantino has fun stylistically quoting Sergio Leone (kill yourself now if you don't know who this man is) and chop-fu cheapos from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Cinematic sampling is something he's good at and enjoys, but in "Vol. 2" he doesn't go as overboard as he does in "Vol. 1." He pulls back and lets the plot breathe, rather than filling every spare second with a homage-cum-parody that maybe a dozen lucky fans will get. Maybe some here wish he'd pile it on a bit more, but they have to make do with the goofy Pei Mai sequence, which is a flashback and hence not jarring in its "Vol. 1"-style comic-book treatment. Throughout "Vol. 2" the emphasis is on storytelling and character-building, which is where it should be given we are now being asked to deepen our commitment of interest to these people. "Vol. 1" is okay for what it is, but its flash and action are no match for the depth and nuance of "Vol. 2."

In part II we learn how Pai Mei trained the bride.

Bud won't be so happy to see the bride again.

Elle Driver, a tribute to Thriller, a Cruel Picture.

This gets to the second different tonal difference between the films, which is emotional. It all comes back to the characters. They don't quite become real people here, but they get close enough to get under your skin. Admittedly, the opening part of "Vol. 2" tests the viewer's patience a bit, there's some long bits that show the director hasn't really mastered self-discipline, like with Thurman's graveyard struggle, but the meandering usually has a purpose. Tarantino is building toward something here that has its payoff when Thurman's character finally has her face-to-face showdown with Carradine's Bill.

From that moment forward to the end, this is the best Tarantino has ever been.

Carradine and Thurman dominate the proceedings with two of the finest performances I've seen, certainly the best Tarantino has directed, playing off the mythology we've been taught in "Vol. 1" and developing resonances with the viewer both together and apart which will surprise those expecting a casual butt-kicking affair. We finally find out what Carradine means in the first line of "Vol. 1" where he tells a whimpering victim he is being masochistic, not sadistic, and its a powerful revelation, that this sinister baddie may have a heart buried under that cold exterior. Carradine is perfect in his phrasing, his pauses, the tired glint in his eye, or the way he says "Kiddo." You can't ask for a better veteran performance. For her part, Thurman presents a brilliantly conflicted character who can not stop either hating or loving Bill, and brings us not into a world of cartoon anguish, but real human pain.

a Hattori hanzo katana.

Bill is the man.

Bill, your time has come.

"Kill Bill Vol. 2" is slow-moving, and needs "Vol. 1" in a way few sequels do, since it assumes you know nearly all the characters coming in. That's a weakness. So are some undeniably pointless bits, including the entire sequence with Bill's father figure, Esteban Vihaio, and some business at a bar involving Michael Madsen, who plays a former assassin now gone to seed.

Madsen's good, though, and so's Daryl Hannah as another rather mouthy assassin, Gordon Liu as Pei Mei, and especially Perla Haney-Jardine as a girl named B.B. The nice thing with Tarantino is for every scene that strikes a bum note, there's four or five that hit the right mark, and some manage to do much more. My favorite scene involves a Mexican standoff in an L.A. hotel room between Thurman's character and an anonymous hitwoman, at once grippingly suspenseful, hilarious, and life-affirming. Still, it's the final moments of this film that will stay with you, as Bill and his former pupil work out their "unfinished business" and we are left to ponder the results of their decisions and actions.

BB lives!!

The final battle.

"Kill Bill Vol. 2" should definitely be considered as a masterpiece, it deserves it.  Why these kind of films never enter the serious arena of master pieces is beyond me. Remember Kill Bill is just one movie, splitted for the convenience of the movie making industry, and be careful cause volume 3 will arrive sooner than later, as Tarantino has already stated.

Here's the movie trailer: