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.