Kill Bill: Vol. 2

Kill Bill: Vol. 2; action drama, USA, 2004; D: Quentin Tarantino, S: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, Chia Hui Liu, Michael Parks, Bo Svenson, Jeannie Epper, Stephanie L. Moore, Perla Haney-Jardine, Samuel L. Jackson

The Bride, alias Beatrix Kiddo, continues her revenge campaign against Bill and his henchmen. She attacks his associate Bud, but he wounds her, places her in a coffin and digs her deep below the ground. But she remembers her skills she learned from the Chinese Kung Fu master Pai Mei and thus frees herself from the coffin. In a trailer, she finds her mortal enemy Elle, who killed Bud, and eliminates her. She finally meets Bill in his mansion—where their daughter B. B. also lives. Beatrix kills Bill and runs away with B. B.

6 years after his excellent "Jackie Brown", Quentin Tarantino finally showed up with a new film, the unusual two-part "Kill Bill", but judging by the finished result, he should have still polished that idea a few more years. As trashy as it was, the first "Kill Bill" film was still better and more elegantly directed than this second one, that is more serious, ambitious, practically dramatic, but also feels like it has anemia. "Vol. 2" brought Uma Thurman back and finally revealed the excellent David Carradine as the title antagonist, and has plenty of interesting, but also exaggerated and excessive scenes. Tarantino is definitely a director with talent, especially in the neat way he pays homages to old, neglected films, and twists several cliches, but at the same time he sadly wastes that talent with wrong decisions, trash and the hidden notion that absolutely every scene he directs, no matter how boring, trivial or overstretched it is, is great because it's his—unfortunately, because of his megalomanic ego, we got two only good films, instead of one really great one. 

If the first film was the "action part", this second one is the "motivational part" to try to explain and justify the bloody events in Volume 1. However, Bill's motivation is a letdown, as random as when he says he "overreacted" when explaining his actions to Beatrix, which is lazy writing. The problem with "Kill Bill Vol. 2" is that it works when it is a modern neo-Western thriller grounded in reality, but falls apart when it unnecessarily detours to a Kung Fu genre that is a cartoonish fairytale, obvious in the overlong and exhausting flashback of Beatrix training with her mentor Pai Mei, with a ridiculous fake beard and too clean wardrobe. This flashback is used to justify how Beatrix is able to use her hand to break out from the wooden coffin—but Tarantino conveniently forgets that breaking a board is not the same as breaking a board reinforced with half a ton of ground that buried the coffin. Beatrix escaping while buried six feet under ground is thus a stretch that one cannot buy. Other cop-outs also bother: for instance, Bud opens up a briefcase by Elle with a million $ inside it, but as he takes a bundle of money, a snake randomly pops out from it, and bites him, killing him. It's lame, and it takes away from Beatrix taking revenge on him. Bill has two great juicy lines, though, a one at the beginning ("I always told you, your sweet side is your best side." - "I guess that's why you're the only one who's ever seen it"), and the other is his long monologue about Superman. It's all well done, clever and stylish, but somehow without spirit—after the great opening act, the story becomes too self-indulgent and overburdened by 'empty walk', with several moments shouting "deleted scene" (the boring Esteban sequence).

Grade:++