Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
STEVE PERSALLQuentin Tarantino delivers a sharper, wittier Kill Bill in Volume 2.
It's hard to believe that both volumes of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill saga were ever combined into a single movie. The differences between the two films are like night and day, or perhaps splatter and chatter.
Kill Bill, Volume 1 was a live wire of violence with flashing samurai swords, geysers of blood and a surprising shortage of Tarantino's funny-tough dialogue. Even when the movie dragged, its energy was fascinating. Any shortcomings could be excused by the filmmaker's sheer joy of treating like treasures those film genres - catfight cinema, sordid horror and kung fu flicks - that are often regarded as trash. The exception was a gory, glorious detour into Japanese anime that is the best sequence in the film.
Now comes Kill Bill, Volume 2, an even tougher film to define. The tale of a vengeful assassin (Uma Thurman) left for dead after a wedding massacre continues, although with an entirely different vibe. There are still references to past genres - more Western than Eastern this time - through cinematographer Robert Richardson's shot compositions and varied film stocks. More importantly, Tarantino dropped the annoyingly arch dialogue of Volume 1 and wrote a movie as thrilling to hear as Volume 1 was to watch.
This time character substance is more important than style and talk counts more than action. It's very possible that fans of the first film won't enjoy the second. But it's equally possible that viewers turned off by Tarantino's grindhouse approach to Volume 1 will embrace its sequel.
The film begins with an entire reel in black-and-white, a prologue and Chapter 6 of the story, "Massacre at Two Pines," showing the events leading up to the image of a bloodied, pregnant bride (Thurman) beginning both films. She tells the unseen Bill that she's carrying his baby before he shoots her in the head. The first film detailed her recovery and execution of two former Viper Assassination Squad colleagues. The bride - her name is teasingly bleeped out several times but we'll learn it later - has two more traitors to go before she can kill Bill.
Finally, Tarantino puts a face to the name, voice and hand we saw in Volume 1 and what a face it is. David Carradine becomes the latest faded star resurrected by Tarantino with a delicious role as Bill, introduced in monochrome closeups exposing each crevice of his countenance, making him appear monstrous and strangely beautiful at the same time. Carradine's Bill is more of a charmer than expected, which only heightens his danger. This is where Tarantino's card-shuffle chronology pays off; we already know what Bill is about to do - and that he really doesn't want to have to do it - so his calm and the bride's relief are emotionally tense.
Grainy color returns with the second reel as Bill warns another Viper, his younger brother Budd (Michael Madsen), that the bride is coming for him. "That lady deserves her revenge and we deserve to die," says this broken-down enforcer now working as a strip club bouncer. Chapter 7, "The Lonely Grave of Paula Schultz" details Budd's encounter with the bride, culminating in a crisis that will have some viewers squirming, a primal fear depicted with harrowing patience.
Chapter 8 flashes back to "The Cruel Tutelage of Pei Mei," and happier days for Bill and the bride. Tarantino pays tribute to Carradine's Kung Fu days on television with Bill's campfire recitation, while playing a flute, of the legend of Pei Mei (Gordon Liu), a mentor who was a frequent character in 1970s martial arts movies. The bride eventually endures the old man's training, building the skills that drive her revenge.
Details of the final two chapters are better left for viewers to discover, except that Daryl Hannah's irritating Volume 1 role as assassin Elle Driver is fully redeemed. Rather than a cartoon, Elle is flesh-and-bloodthirsty, probably the greatest single improvement over the first film. Volume 2 becomes such a snake pit (actually four snakes in a mobile home) that I forgot about the first film's cliffhanger - the bride's child is still alive - until she appears and any survivors are changed forever.
Kill Bill, Volume 2 is pulpish fiction, if not of the highest order then at least at its most exuberant. There are times when Tarantino gets so wrapped up in a conceit - giving screen time to old pros Michael Parks, Larry Bishop and Bo Svenson, or overwriting poetic threats - that the film feels a bit flabby. Dividing the story into two films gave Tarantino more time to dawdle. Yet we enjoy those moments even when they shouldn't be there.
Some of the film's pleasures are for only the most attentive viewers, the ones who notice that the street where the wedding massacre occurs is named Agua Caliente, "hot water," which is certainly what everyone's in. Tarantino wants us to recognize the name Paula Schultz from a terrible 1968 comedy starring Elke Sommer and Bob Crane, and that Pei Mei's Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique sounds a lot like Five Fingers of Death, the first Hong Kong import to succeed in the United States.
Sure, the Kill Bill saga is an extended inside joke, but without a trace of arrogance for anyone who doesn't get it. Tarantino wants everyone on the inside, he wants them to bathe themselves in cinema as he has. Then, he's convinced, they'll see him for the genius he considers himself to be. Kill Bill, Volume 2 won't engage everyone for the multiple viewings it requires, but it's an impressive essay from an impetuous scholar of schlock.
Kill Bill, Volume 2Grade: A-
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Cast: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, Gordon Liu, Michael Parks, Bo Svenson
Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, Uma Thurman
Rating: R; strong violence, harsh profanity, brief nudity
Running time: 137 min.