Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004)

Starring: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Gordon Liu, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Parks, Bo Svenson, Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Julie Dreyfus, and Sonny Chiba
Grade: A

It’s not as fast-paced as the first film, but it’s arguably just as good. Again, you have to watch them both together.

Summary

After a replay of the opening of Kill Bill: Volume 1, we are reminded by the Bride (Thurman) that just four years earlier she was almost killed by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad and Bill (Carradine) while pregnant and about to be married. Now, she is driving to find Bill.

We jump back to that day that the Bride/Beatrix Kiddo was almost killed. It turns out that the “wedding” was actually just a rehearsal. Kiddo and her husband are told the whole situation by the pastor. Eventually, Kiddo goes outside of the chapel to get some air. There in the flesh, is Bill. She seems happy to see him but tells him to be nice to everyone. They then talk a little bit, and he says he wants to sit on Kiddo’s side of the church, representing her “family”. Bill talks to her husband for a bit and Kiddo lies to him, saying Bill is her father. They go through with the rehearsal with Bill watching in the back row. As this happens, the Deadly Vipers show up and kill everyone.

In the present day, Bill goes to one of the members of the Deadly Vipers in Budd (Madsen), code name Sidewinder. He warns him of Kiddo wreaking havoc, but Budd doesn’t seem too worried. He almost welcomes it and says that they all deserve to die. He goes to work (He’s currently a bouncer at a strip club) but gets taken off the schedule for the next week because he showed up late again. He goes back to his trailer in the desert, and Kiddo is waiting for him. He sees it coming though. When she tries to attack him, he blasts her with a shotgun full of rock salt and calls up fellow former assassin, Elle Driver (Hannah), code name California Mountain Snake. They come to an agreement: Budd gets $1 million, and Driver gets Kiddo’s priceless Hattori Hanzō sword and Kiddo has to suffer until she breathes her last breath. To fulfill the agreement, Budd seals Kiddo in a coffin and buries her alive.

As it looks like all hope is lost, we then flashback to years early when Bill took Kiddo to her first official day to train with the legendary Pai Mei (Gordon Liu). Thus, giving us an insight to Kiddo’s will and spirit as a fighter and as a human being in general, something that proves vital to her survival and eventual goal of killing Bill.

My Thoughts:

Though there’s a bit less fighting in this sequel compared to its predecessor, that doesn’t make it worse. It’s still got the violent action, but a lot more is dedicated to who the Bride, or Beatrix Kiddo is. Here, we get to see everything about Kiddo and why she became the person she is regardless of the revenge backstory we already know about, creating a mythology for our protagonist that feels superhero-like. Kill Bill: Volume 2 is more about character development, compared to the full-on action film that the first one was. That doesn’t mean it’s significantly toned though. We still get a lot of incredible action and tense moments that shape our hero’s plight to kill the evil Bill. There’s just less fighting on the grand scale that the first one had. However, if you watched both Kill Bill movies back-to-back (like I told you), it shouldn’t matter because you’re already hooked into the world Tarantino has created for us. You should want to learn more at this point, and that’s what Kill Bill: Volume 2 does.

David Carradine is remarkable. We barely see him on-screen in the first film, with the focus just being on his distinct voice and the way he in which he speaks. It really works for that film, but something in the air changes when we see him in the flesh in this sequel. Finally, we get a face to the evil voice that terrorized our hero, and it creates this aura around him as soon as he steps into the scene. Carradine gives us a hauntingly exceptional performance that makes me glad he was picked over Warren Beatty. Honestly, I didn’t know he had this in him. This is a villain. I wondered in the first film how we are supposed to believe that someone like David Carradine is able to convince all of these young women to become underlings to him, and in some case lovers. However, in this sequel, I can see it.

He’s got this striking quality about him. Even with age, he’s got this indescribable charisma that can’t be taught. Bill moves in such a way and talks with such certainty, with years of wisdom behind his confident voice, it’s hard to not be attracted to every word he says. There’s a certain coolness he possesses that is hard to explain. When he goes on this soliloquy about how superhero mythology relates to Kiddo’s story, you really hang onto every word, even if in retrospect it goes on too long. Normal people can’t get away with this, but Bill is different. He’s so calm and confident that once he finally meets up with Kiddo in the end, you fully understand why he’s just as much of a legend as she is. You can almost see in Kiddo’s eyes that despite the journey she’s been on, it’s almost like she’s having second thoughts. That final half hour is incredible and worth the two films it took to get there. What’s amazing about it is that we didn’t need a huge climactic fight to do it. Most of it was just conversation and the revelations because of it. I was completely engrossed at the tension and all the buildup, and I stayed wide-eyed throughout the entire sequence wondering what was going to happen and how Kiddo was going to respond. It was magnificently put together by Tarantino, and Carradine put together the best performance of his life at the age of 67.

Well, it’s never too late I suppose!

Uma Thurman is once again incredible and is able to bring this character full circle. She’s not just an action hero capable of killing virtually anyone. She’s a loving and caring mother that just wanted a new life. We’ve seen this type of story before but for some reason, it feels so fresh with Thurman’s performance and Tarantino’s hands all over the creative process going into it. Her going to train with the overtly cartoonish Pai Mei is something we have seen countless times in martial arts films, but it has such a different energy behind it because of Thurman and how much we have understood and seen from her character up until this point. Bill explains before she goes to train with him that Mei hates Caucasians, Americans, and women. Her work is cut out for her, but because of her determination, hard work, and flat-out suffering, she’s able to win over Pai Mei. This is a great representation of how Thurman’s Kiddo is able to win over the audience watching too. Also, I know I gave Pai Mei shit, but we know for a fact that his ridiculousness was intentional because it’s exactly like how those old kung fu movies were back in the 70s. He’s a clear homage, so you just have to bypass it if it bothers you because this whole elongated chunk of film is supposed to be as over-the-top as it is.

If I were to critique some things, I will say there was a lot more unnecessary stuff that could’ve been left out this time around compared to the first movie. There is literally no point in introducing Samuel L. Jackson’s character. They waste minutes introducing him and having characters interact with him when it had nothing to do with what was going on. Then, there was the background to Budd. Now, I understand giving O-Shen Ishii a huge backstory to explain her character in Kill Bill: Volume 1, but I don’t think anything revolving around Budd is worth diving into in this film. There’s this huge detour the film takes to explain he’s semi-retired, lives in a trailer, and works as a bouncer at some low-level strip club, but it leads absolutely nowhere. A simple conversation could tell us everything we need to know about Budd, but going through his entire backstory just wasted our time, considering nothing comes of it and the characters introduced don’t change the trajectory of the story or character in any way, shape, or form. There’s no reason why this film is twenty minutes longer than the first one. There’s also an end credits scene where we see a close-up of Uma Thurman’s face as she drives for three minutes.

Why?

Thankfully, I am able to move past this because the awesome flashback scenes involving Kiddo training with Pai Mei, the buried alive sequence, the Kiddo/Driver fight scene, and the ending.

As I said before, it’s kind of hard to rate both Kill Bill films separately because it was always intended as one massive saga. They are both vitally important to one another, and that’s why I gave both movies an “A” grade. If I have to choose, I’m giving the edge to the first one, but the reason Kill Bill: Volume 2 managed to snatch the same grade from me despite more complaints this time around was because of the better (and intense) character development of our two co-stars and David Carradine crushing it.

All in all, the Kill Bill series is as good as they say it is.