Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2004) - A satisfying conclusion but lacks the action of Vol. 1

Review No. : 0013

Title : Kill Bill Vol. 2

Year : 2004

Director : Quentin Tarantino

Country :  United States

World’s Verdict : Rotten Tomatoes – 84%; Metacritic – 83 out of 100; IMDB – 8.0 out of 10.0.

My Verdict : 3.8 out of 5.0.

  

It’s not fair for me to compare Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 since the two were originally intended to be one big movie and one good story.  In any case I decided to review it separately and Kill Bill Vol. 2 is a few notches down for me but please remember that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

Kill Bill Vol. 2 is the continuation of the story of “The Bride” (Uma Thurman).  In Vol. 1 she decides to murder those who tried to kill her during her wedding.  She successfully kills two of the women on her hit list, Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) and O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu).  In Vol. 2 she continues to hunt down the rest of the members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad and this includes Budd (Michael Madsen), Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) and the leader Bill (David Carradine).

Why is Vol. 1 better than Vol. 2?

• The action scenes – “The Bride’s” samurai combat against the Crazy 88 group, her duel with hot Gogo, the knife fight between her and Vernita Green and her subtle match with O-Ren Ishii.  These scenes are full of action and thrill, well directed and beautiful.  In Vol. 2 there are also good action scenes like the fight between “The Bride” and her Kung Fu mentor Pai Mei (Gordon Liu) and also the short fight with Elle Driver.   What I’m trying to say is that Vol. 1 fight scenes are way much better in terms of choreography and artistic quality.
• The iconic and beautiful costumes – in Vol. 1 we can never forget the black and yellow suit of the Bride, the black assassination catsuit of Oren-Ishii, the simple blue jogging outfit of Vernita Green, the slutty nurse disguise of Elle Driver, the slutty school girl uniform of Gogo and much more.  In Vol. 2, the only costume that we will remember is Pai Mei’s garb.
• The songs are better – the songs in Vol. 1 are also memorable because you can easily tie them with scenes like Elles Drivers’ whistling the theme from Twisted Nerve, when Oren-Ishii and the Crazy 88 walks down the aisle with “Battle Without Honor or Humanity” playing, and Nancy Sinatra’s haunting song, “Bang Bang”, plays after “The Bride” gets shot in the head.  In Vol. 2 the only scene with a good song I can remember is in the closing credits when “Goodnight Moon” by Shivaree is being played.

Why is Vol. 2 still a good movie?

• Because just like Vol. 1 the non-linear storytelling still keeps us engage.
• Because it closes the loop and answers most of our questions.
• Because there’s kung fu.
• Because the death of Bill is non-conventional and nicely done.

I need to reiterate that Vol. 2 is actually not an inferior movie to Vol. 1, it perfectly closes the story of “The Bride” but just like any Broadway play the first act is usually the lively one.

Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003) - An example of telling a good story

Review No. : 0012

Title : Kill Bill Vol. 1

Year : 2003

Director : Quentin Tarantino

Country :  United States

World’s Verdict : Rotten Tomatoes – 85%; Metacritic – 69 out of 100; IMDB – 8.1 out of 10.0.
My Verdict : 4.4 out of 5.0.

I remember the first time I watched Kill Bill Vol. 1 and I was totally shocked.  That was more than a decade ago and by that time no mainstream film came near as gory and artistic as Kill Bill Vol. 1.  At that time I thought that it was a very shocking film but was very well crafted and I loved it.  Now, after watching it earlier today I didn’t find the violence horrifying as it was when I first saw it but I love it more than ever.  This is probably the fifth time that I have seen this movie, I thought it’s one of my guilty pleasures, a movie that that is not really good but is highly entertaining.  I can now officially say that it is not a guilty pleasure because it is a legit good movie.

Kill Bill Vol. 1 is the first part of the story of a former female assassin known as “The Bride” (Uma Thurman).  She was about to get married when her former boss/mentor/lover/Bill visits her wedding (actually wedding rehearsal which you will learn in the next volume) with an assassin squad.  Bill and his team kill everyone in the church and totally beat “The Bride” to death and please take note that she is pregnant while they beat her to death.  Before Bill fires his gun to the head of “The Bride”, she told Bill that he is the father of the child she is carrying. 

"The Bride" survives the killing but she is left in coma.  After four years in coma she wakes up in the hospital and realizes that she lost her baby.  She then plans for her killing spree revenge.  One by one she plans to kill each member of the squad that killed her groom and everyone in the church where she was supposed to get married.

The Good
Almost everything in this movie is good and memorable, here are few of those I really like:

• The simple plot with a good structure - this movie is a simple revenge flick but what I like about it is the pacing and structure of the story.  The story is not narrated in a linear fashion instead the story jumps back and forth in a non-chronological way.  It sounds complicated but it’s not and the good thing that comes out of it is that it gives a little mystery and suspense to the story and also helps in slowly building each character’s personality.  The structure of the movie is very well-thought of and this is one of the strengths of the film.

• The combination of reality and fantasy - This film moves you.  You will sympathize with The Bride and you will root for her.  You will fear and be mad at the villains.  In the back of your mind there is a possibility that this story could be true or could happen in real life.  But there is an element of fantasy, not the Lord Of The Rings type of fantasy, but more like an anime type of fantasy.  I’m talking about hot women who are good in martial arts and katanas.  An example is the one-eyed character, Elle (Daryl Hannah), whose mission to kill “The Bride” in the hospital, she disguises herself as a nurse but her uniform looks like a slutty nurse costume, so cartoonish.  Then there’s Gogo a 17-year old girl who is the bodyguard of one of the antagonists, this evil girl wears a school girl uniform, very anime.

• The music and songs - it has music from different types of genres.  You could say that the songs and music are typical Tarantino choices.  The songs and the music add story and thrill to the film.  One of the best music adapted in the film is “Battle Without Honor or Humanity” this is actually a music used in a 2000 yakuza Japanese film (New Battles Without Honor and Humanity) but is now known to be Kill Bill’s music.

• The anime sequence - the story of O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), a member of the assassin squad, is told using anime art.  This medium works very well in telling the story of O-Ren and establishes Kill Bill Vol. 1 as an extraordinary movie.

• The costumes - some of the costumes in Kill Bill Vol. 1 are iconic or at least memorable.  One of them is Gogo’s outfit that I mentioned earlier, another is O-Ren Ishii’s white kimono.  But it’s the yellow and black suit that “The Bride” from Kill Bill will always be remembered for.  Yellow and black suit is modern, is edgy, is sexy and it becomes bloody.

The Bad

I saw an interview of Quentin Tarantino in YouTube once.  In this interview he encourages the children to watch the film and the interviewer doesn’t think that kids should watch it because of the violence.  The interview becomes ugly and Tarantino is obviously pissed, because the interviewer is a little bit arrogant.  I did find the interviewer arrogant but at the end of the day I still think that this movie should not be watched by children.

I really, really like this film.  It is not the violence that makes this film good but how the story is told through good narrative structure, music, cinematography and acting.

Eastern Promises (2007) - A well-directed and entertaining film despite a few flaws

Review No. : 0011

Title : Eastern Promises

Year : 2007

Director : David Cronenberg

Country : United Kingdom, Canada, United States

World’s Verdict : Rotten Tomatoes – 89%; Metacritic – 82 out of 100; IMDB – 7.7 out of 10.0.

My Verdict : 3.7 out of 5.0.

Last week I discovered a YouTube channel that educates the world on culture and arts.  This channel is the The Nerdwriter and the video blogger has amazing analysis on films.  The Nerdwriter is very good in creating professional film analyses that are also magnetically entertaining.  One of his short analyses is “EasternPromises: A Study of Bodies”, this study talks about the 2007 film of David Cronenberg which is Eastern Promises.  I am ashamed to say that I never heard of that film before until I saw the analytical review of The Nerdwriter.  The analysis was so good that I got so intrigued to see the movie so I decided to make it the first film to see this year.

Eastern Promises (2007) is a film by Cronenberg, he directed several horror and sci-fi flicks back in the 70s to the 80s.  One of Cronenberg’s most popular movies is The Fly (1986) that starred Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis.  Cronenberg also directed several drama and action films like M. Butterfly (1993) and A History of Violence (2007).  Now he is back with another drama through Eastern Promises which is a story about a Russian Mafia in London, it stars Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel and Armin Mueller –Stahl.

The main story of Eastern Promises starts in a hospital wherein Anna (Watts), a midwife at a London hospital, finds a diary of a 14-year old Russian girl who dies in childbirth.  Anna is hoping she can get a clue from the diary to the location of the home of the dead girl.  This way she can find the girl’s family and give them the teenager’s baby.  In the diary she finds a calling card of a restaurant which is owned by on old man, Semyon (Mueller-Stahl), who happens to be one of the patriarchs of a Russian Mafia operating in London.  Anna goes to the restaurant and meets Semyon, whom she finds warm and friendly.

Semyon knows that the diary could possibly link him to his illegal operations so he decides to ask his son’s chauffeur, Nikolai (Mortensen), to get the diary from Anna.  Nikolai is under the unofficial Russian Mafia mentorship of the son of Semyon, Kirill (Cassel), but he is eager to be part of the organization so he takes every opportunity to obey and please Semyon.  Nikolai successfully delivers the diary to Semyon and he is given another assignment that will prove his loyalty and reliability.  Semyon is impressed on how Nikolai delivers results so he decides to officially ordain him as a member of the Russian Mafia.  Soon both Nikolai and Anna realize that people are not the way they seem to be.  I’ll stop here for I do not wish to reveal the plot twists.

The Good

• Viggo Mortensen – The character of Nikolai does not require much depth but the actor should at least look like he is patient and hungry for promotion and that he has his own secrets, too.  Mortensen delivers all the requirements but as I’ve said the role does not require much inner digging so this could have been an easy job for any other actors.  There are two things that other actors might find difficult to deliver though.  One is the accent, I’m not sure if Mortensen's Russian accent is believable to a Russian ear but he sounds Russian to me, alright.  Second is the nudity the role requires, and I am not talking about nudity during or after sex, this is total nakedness while aggressively fighting two men.  Mortensen needs to throw punches and kicks while totally naked and he just nails it.  The believable accent and how he handles a naked action scene is enough to say he is perfect for the role.
• Vincent Cassel – The character of Kirill is an immature son, a drunk and a closet homosexual.  He refuses to come out of the closet because he is the son of a mob’s patriarch and he knows it will be unacceptable to the organization.  Now this character requires depth and subtleness of acting.  I judge acting on two basic dimensions: The difficulty of the role and how convincing is the actor.  If the role is mentally, emotionally or physically challenging and that it requires abandoning one’s self then that role is considered to be difficult.  The other dimension, that weighs more, is the believability of the actor in portraying the role whether it is difficult or not.  Kirill’s character is difficult because the actor has to project subtle acting that will give hint of the personality’s secret.  Cassel amazingly conveys the character of Kirill, he acts like a wild Mafia man but shows hints of effeminacy and wild desire to be with a man.
• Armin Mueller –Stahl – Semyon’s character requires several facets.  He is a grandfather figure, a decent friendly old man, a disappointed father and a sly mob trickster.  Mueller-Stahl does all the jobs perfectly without acting over the top.
• Howard Shore’s score – The score is like a crying violin (you will know what I mean when you see the movie).  It is haunting, it is sad, it is lonely.

The Bad

• Drama or Thriller – The film is more of a drama than a thriller and I like it the way it is but I always wonder what if Cronenberg makes it more thrilling, especially on the story of Semyon and Anna.  The interaction of the two lacks a little bit of suspense.
• Stupid killers – The first scene shows a man whose neck is being slashed with a razor.  This man is a member of the mob that Kirill orders to be killed.  Soon the brothers of the man seek for revenge but the problem is they do not know the how Kirill looks.  Seriously?  If you kill my brother and I want vengeance the first thing I want to know is who you are and what you look like.  Seriously?  They considered themselves professional gangsters?

And The Ugly

• Naomi Watts' character – I like Naomi Watts and she is a good actor even in this film but there is a flaw in her character that I don’t quite understand which is over courageous.  Let’s just say that If I were on her position and I found out that I’m dealing with a mob I would immediately give them the diary.  Okay, probably I would also consider giving the diary to the police (which she did not do).  She eventually handed the diary to Nikolai but what I don’t understand is that she has the guts to return to the restaurant to provoke the gangsters by telling them that the baby of the dead girl is part of their family.  And I always thought she wanted to protect the baby!  I guess it’s my bad, she just wants to return them to her family.
• Lousy ending – I can forgive Naomi’s sometimes-thoughtless character.  What I can’t grasp is the ending that which for me is the bane of the movie.  Without giving the important twists here is the ending: Semyon orders Kirill to kidnap and kill the baby.  Anna and Nikolai ride a motorbike (Anna’s Ural motorcycle) to look for Kirill and find him a few seconds before he kills the infant.  It looks like Kirill is drunk at this point because he listened to Nikolai’s persuasion not to murder the child.  When the baby is already safe, Nikolai tells Kirill that he will take him home but Kirill refuses because he still wants to party.  I guess it’s understandable because it is New Year and he is drunk.  What I really can’t understand is Nikolai saying goodbye to Anna with a kiss on the lips.  That is totally cheesy and not essential to the film AT ALL.   And why would Nikolai leave Anna with a baby?  Is he expecting Anna to bring back (single-handedly) the baby to the hospital in a motorcycle?  One of cinema’s biggest question.

I did not like the ending of the movie but it is still a good film and I encourage you to watch it.  Story is good despite the flaws, it is well directed and I know you will not get bored watching it.  Who knows you might its ending.  For those who have watched it already, did I miss something in the ending?