After seeing “Kill Bill Vol. 1” last fall, I could hardly wait to see its conclusion, “Vol. 2.” When the release date was announced, I started counting down the weeks until it opened. Usually when my anticipation of a new movie gets that high, there is nothing but disappointment in store.
Luckily though, director Quentin Tarantino has returned to form. Like “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction,” “Kill Bill Vol. 2” unleashes witty and real dialogue, and it is a movie that will not be among Tarantino’s forgotten films.
In the first volume, a bride known as Black Mamba (Uma Thurman) awakened from a coma four years after being attacked and left for dead at the altar of her wedding, where Bill and his top four assassins massacred everyone else. As soon as she woke up, she had one thing on her mind: to kill Bill, the leader of the Deadly Vipers Assassination Squad (DiVAS), for which Black Mamba worked as an assassin.
In “Vol. 2” she seeks to fully quench her revenge by killing all of her five attackers: O-Ren Ishii, Vernita Green, Bud, Elle Driver and Bill.
Once she has killed everyone else, Black Mamba only has one name left on her revenge list: Bill. When she finds him, he is waiting for her with a giant surprise. The bride was pregnant by Bill when she was attacked, and Bill has her little girl. This momentarily slows her killing frenzy down. But after some cuddling and a movie with her daughter, she is back to business. And Bill does not stand a chance.
Uma Thurman does a wonderful job of balancing a character that is a vicious assassin, a spunky blonde and in the end a loving mother. Her fighting scenes are fun to watch. She seems to be a skilled sword fighter but in a moment she is able to return to the cheerful blonde. When she finds Bill with her daughter, she turns from revenge to love in an instant. But once her daughter is tucked in bed, she is back on the path of revenge.
David Carradine is the perfect actor to play Bill. He is best known for his work as David Cane in the TV series “Kung Fu.” He is dark and intelligent as the leader of an underground group of assassins. Even the pitch of his voice works well of the dialogue. He is soft spoken but able to convey fear.
The dialogue in most of Tarantino’s movie is real, gripping, with bits of humor from everyday chatter. For example, when Budd, who works at a strip bar, since he has retired from killing people, shows up late to work, his boss interrogates him about being late. It’s hilarious and shows the character of both Budd and his boss.
One of the things I really like about this movie is its ability to mix genres. At times it seems to be a drama and at others a B-Kung Fu flick. During the scenes with the bride and Pai Mei, her martial arts trainer, the combination of quick zooms, subtitles and fortune cookie dialogue makes the scenes dynamic, memorable and in the style of a B-Kung Fu movie. Gordon Liu Jia-hui plays Pai Mei perfectly. His deep chuckle and sharp movements including the repeated stroking of this white silky beard exemplify an old wise warrior with a touch of evilness who is seen as nearly invincible.
The violence in “Kill Bill Vol. 2” is not nearly as prominent as it is in “Vol. 1.” In fact, it is not as bloody as “Pulp Fiction” or “Reservoir Dogs.” Like “Reservoir Dogs” and “Four Rooms,” another movie Tarantino directed, people lose body parts (Elle’s eye is ripped out) but it’s not as gruesome. In Vol. 1 people are getting their arms and legs cut off left and right. That simply does not happen in Vol. 2, because a lot of the violence happens off screen. Vol. 1 seems to almost be held together by the violence, but Vol. 2 uses Tarantino’s real creative strengths of witty dialogue and an interesting story to make it captivating.
I cannot say that this movie will win an academy award, but I would be surprised if Tarantino is not nominated for his direction and writing. There are also a few loose ends from the two stories. Elle Driver is never killed and during Vol. 1 Vernita Green’s daughter witnesses her mother’s death. There could be a sequel down the line with these two coming back to exact their revenge on the bride. All in all, Kill Bill Vol. 2 is an entertaining movie and I recommend that everyone go and see it.
Michael McAllister can be contacted at [email protected]