April 16, 2004 | The geysers of blood are tapped down to trickles, the swordfights are more even-sided – one-on-one face-offs, not against-all-odds marathons – and the breakneck pace slows enough to allow for lengthy stretches of dialogue. But don’t worry, fans: Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol. 2 is very much a complementary companion piece to last year’s turbo-charged, ultra-violent Vol. 1.
Much like its predecessor – which, as you likely know, really was the first half of a single, singular movie that its director divided into a double feature – Vol. 2 is an exuberantly over-the-top extravaganza that shamelessly celebrates the giddy, guiltier pleasures of moviemaking and moviegoing.
Vol. 1 sampled the visual and dramatic tropes of Tarantino’s favorite ’60s and ’70s movie genres – operatically excessive Spaghetti Westerns and kung-phooey Chinese martial-arts melodramas – while following the vengeful exploits of a femme fatale known only as The Bride (Uma Thurman). In Vol. 2, the plot continues apace while other elements and influences are added to a fusion best described as equal parts Bruce Lee and Sergio Leone.
The sumptuous black-and-white prologue, which has The Bride at the wheel of a convertible while rear-screen projections indicate movement, is a nifty tribute to glossy Hollywood widescreen fantasies of the ’50s. A bit later, however, another black-and-white interlude, which provides the back story for the bloody slaughter that ignited Vol. 1, is an extended dialogue, terrifically played by Thurman and Keith Carradine (as the Bill who must be killed), that suggests everything from the soul-baring intensity of Ingmar Bergman to the ominous ambiguities of film noir in broad daylight.
To fully enjoy Vol. 2, it helps a lot if you’ve already seen Vol. 1. Tarantino offers a smattering of plot synopsis at the start of the new film, but it’s best that you already know who The Bride is (a former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, a.k.a. DiVA), why she’s so dead-set on vengeance (Bill and other DiVAs killed her husband-to-be and all other guests at her wedding rehearsal), and what temporarily delayed her demand for payback (she was in a coma for four years after Bill shot her in the head and left her for dead).
And, oh yeah, you really, really should know that, when The Bride was shot, she was pregnant with Bill’s child. She gave birth to a daughter during her long slumber, and Bill claimed the child to raise her on his own.
In our last exciting installment, The Bride sliced and diced her way through two former DiVA associates (Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox) and several dozen guilty bystanders. Here, the body count is smaller, but the fight scenes are more intensely intimate.
As a clever counterpoint to the previous movie’s most astounding action set piece, an elaborately staged and audaciously detailed sword battle between The Bride and scores of blade-wielding adversaries, Vol. 2 places its heroine within the cramped confines of a trailer home where she barely has room to draw her weapon against the eye-patched Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah). And just in case that’s not claustrophobic enough, Tarantino also has The Bride buried alive by Budd (Michael Madsen), Bill’s white-trashy brother. Fortunately, our heroine is able to flash back to her rigorous training with a martial-arts master (grandly played with beard-stroking, eye-rolling hamminess by Gordon Liu), so she’ll remember the best way to literally punch her way out of the sealed coffin.
It all comes down to a fateful reunion between The Bride and Bill in a posh Mexican resort hotel. Tarantino makes time for an amusingly oddball discourse on the nature of superheroes before the grudge match begins. Even after the swords are drawn, however, Tarantino appears uninterested in trying to top the hyperkinetic spectacle of Vol. 1. Rather, he gives us a conclusion that, like the rest of Vol. 2, is emotionally, viscerally and dramatically satisfying on its own terms.
