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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Kill Bill Vol. 2

  
  

Page: 1(2)3

 
 
Solitaire Rose as Tom Servo
02:41 / 29.04.04
The Superamn speech is line for line directly from Jules Fieffer's Book "The Comic Book Heroes"

It fits, but it's not QT's.
 
 
Jack Vincennes
12:47 / 29.04.04
When we leave Kiddo in her grave and get the Pai Mei flashback, we know that she's going to use the punch she never perfected to escape.

I enjoyed the Pai Mei flashback... it's obvious that she's going to use the punch to get out, but it's obvious that she's going to get out anyway, and I thought that seeing her learn to punch her way out was more interesting than just watching her do that.

This might just be me defending that section, though, I thought it was one of the most effective in the whole film ; the fact that we saw quite how nasty her training was was an important part of the story as opposed to the legend. So however cool all that she did in the first film looked, in the second film we see that it wasn't effortless.

I'd not thought about comparing it to Until The End Of The World, but the shift in focus is very similar -imagine that watching Vols 1 & 2 as a single film would have the same disorienting effect.
 
 
Jack Vincennes
14:28 / 29.04.04
(Sorry about the two posts, should have thought properly before the above...)

More on the comparison with the Wenders film, because I think it's an interesting way of looking at the split -whilst the shift between Vols 1 & 2 is just as jarring, there seems to be more of a reason for it than in Until.... The slower pace seemed to reflect that the remaining three were worthier adversaries of The Bride -Elle had also learnt from Pai Mei, Bud and Bill both had Hanzo swords -so it made more sense that the pace would be slower. Until..., however, seemed to carry on because Wenders realised that despite his film ending, he was still quite interested in Claire and Eugene.

Also Jack - now that you've pointed out that Elle fights with both sides of her body, that's going to annoy me retrospectively...
 
 
PatrickMM
15:12 / 29.04.04
It's all very well filmed and written, as far as it goes, but that's it. There's no point to it, and, like many fanboys, Tarantino assumes that just because he loves something, everyone else should too.

The box office figures and DVD sales show that people certainly don't object to what he loves. I see your point, but I don't think the films are just Tarantino making homages to movies and genres that he liked. It's more that he's taking certain elements of those films that he liked and building them into a new narrative. I've heard it referred to as a cinematic mix tape, and that's accurate to some extent, but the thing is, he alters everything he takes, particularly in Volume 2. Rather than just have her kill Bill, he makes Bill a sympathetic and interesting character. It's a film unto itself, that you don't need a background in Kung-Fu movies or Westerns to enjoy.

That said, I do agree with you that Volume one was the bestter film than volume two.
 
 
The Natural Way
15:15 / 29.04.04
I pointed that out to my mates down the pub. Very important point, that. "Not realistic", I said.

Quickly ejected from pub and friendship with mates.
 
 
Baz Auckland
15:48 / 29.04.04
There's an interview with David Carradine at The Onion:

O: Do you see Kill Bill as one film?

DC: Yeah, it's one long film. Back before they split it into two parts, it was one film, and that's how you should think about it. And I don't think it will take very long—you'll be seeing it that way, because there are enough Tarantino fans who want to see it that way, and all you need to do is remove the credits in the middle. It holds together. Wham, it's a three-and-a-half-hour epic fucking masterpiece of exploitation moviemaking.

which makes me hope that not only will it be released as one movie soon enough, but that Tarantino will edit it to flow more as one movie...
 
 
The Strobe
21:05 / 29.04.04
The slower pace seemed to reflect that the remaining three were worthier adversaries of The Bride

Basically, bar Vernitia Green, up until O-Ren, we've only seen the Bride fight Mooks. The DiVAS are basically the boss characters of Kill Bill.
 
 
Quimper
00:38 / 01.05.04
More worthy adversaries, yes. But also *family*. Bill, Beatrix's former love. His new love, Elle. And his brother Bud.

It's crucial that the family element be recognized as the pacing/style of both Vol. 1 & 2 is whatever alter ego of Uma is at the forefront. We have her "superhero/secret identity" alert ego in Vol. 1, a necessary persona for the stealth missions she needs to accomplish.

Then she tells Sophie, "Tell them I'm coming."

So she sheds the superhero "The Bride" for Volume 2 to become Beatrix Kiddo. Because in Volume 2, it's personal. It's family. It's Bruce Wayne going after his parents' murderer and ripping his mask off. And that culminates in the dramatic shift in the film the second she sees her daughter with Bill. The final alter ego, as listed in the credits, "Mommy" is forced to rear her head and take over the film. Hell, she kills "Daddy" at the dinner table. And it's "Mommy" that succumbs to joy on the john floor. That personal element in volume 2 eradicated the flashy superheroics of volume one. Love it. But, I'm a comics fan. I love volume one more.
 
 
wembley can change in 28 days
05:14 / 03.05.04
Oh, Jack the Bodiless! I wonder if those who liked the first are doomed to hate the second? I admire your conviction, at least. However,
The fight scene between Elle And Beatrix? Looks fantastic, really enjoyed it - but how is Elle fighting with both sides of her body when she has one eye?

Dude, she was trained in practically ninja-levels of stealth and awareness. I've no doubt that in upcoming fanfiction, she'll be a formidable blind warrior.

I actually went to see Vol.2 a second time, and I think I'm in danger of becoming obsessed with it. I find it just about the most romantic story I've ever seen. There are so many simple archetypes that I can see why it might strike some people as infantile or just plain boring, but they all struck chords with me. Someone said that the violence between Bill and Beatrix is actually an expression of love, and read that way, the final scenes look just beautiful.

And the opposites of Elle and Beatrix are strikingly archetypal. One the dutiful, pure warrior; the other a twisted, evil killer. Elle feels regret when she thinks it's all over; Beatrix is shown laughing and crying tears of relief. Analyse more, ad nauseum, etc.

David Carradine isn't better the second time around, though. His "comic" timing is a little too hammy sometimes to survive repeated viewings. And! It drove me nuts that every single actor in the film (stylistic choice) spoke... so slowly... rarely...saying more than three... words at a time.

What was the headline on the newspaper in the scene with Esteban? It was one of those cuts that your brain automatically filters out as unimportant, but this time I noticed it was focussed on obviously long enough for folks to read it. Something about Europe and the US?
 
 
Yotsuba & Benjamin!
12:29 / 03.05.04
Unfortunately Quimper, while I do like your theory on the nomenclature bleeping, they bleep it out once in Vol. 2 as well, so that doesn't 100% fit. The delineation between egos isn't between volumes, but really just a set up for a badass name reveal.

It's really just there, I thought, so you can go back and gasp quietly at all of Bill's "[blank], Kiddo." and O'Ren and Beatrix' tag team, "Trix Are For Kids." when you see them again.
 
 
wembley can change in 28 days
12:35 / 03.05.04
omigod. Trix are for kids. That line irritated me to no end in the first one. Now I'm irritated by Tarantino's need to irritate me.
 
 
Quireboy
14:22 / 04.05.04
Quimper - Elle as a blind assassin? I hope not. I thought leaving her alive and blidly stumbing around a trailer in the middle of nowhere with a black mamba still in it was a perfect way to finish off such a deliciously nasty bitch.
 
 
_Boboss
14:48 / 04.05.04
question mark over her name at the end tho innit. she gets hold of the wee girl from vol 1 and trains her up for the sequel which we'll watch when we're forty.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
20:11 / 04.05.04
Didn't think much of Vol 2. Bored, unconvinced, let down. Ah well.
 
 
Issaiah Saysir
20:41 / 04.05.04
Hope you don't mind if I join in the conversation:

Pulp Fiction Suit: Kill Bill Volume 2

Now, I have to admit that I am at a bit of an advantage. I work in the projection booth at the cinema, giving me several viewings of the film. I admit that at first, I detested the film. I felt that it lacked the action of the first and if they had released it as a full movie, it would have failed. 'Too wordy' was the phrase I have heard quite a bit. After near 30 viewings of the film [which for some reason I can not stop watching] I contribute this:

1. The 'split screen' bit was inserted into the film to make viewers scream at the projectionist and to draw interest back into the movie. Thanks,QT.

2. This is an imaginary tale taking place in the mind of the little girl we identify as B.B. ( obviously Bill and Beatrix ) Cmon...Kiddo? First clue.

3. That Bill was introduced at the wedding as her 'Father' (yes, I understand the reason behind it, but stick with me.)

4. The scene showing Beatrix Kiddo in school, raising her hand for attendence in class (dead giveaway)

5. The eyeball = The fish BB stepped on.

6. Bill's speech about Superman. Clark Kent is Superman's perception of the world, Beatrix is BBs 'fictionsuit' as influenced by the martial arts movies. This is the point Bill is trying to make... and the reason behing the truth serum [because when it comes to Bill, she never tells the truth] Think of how many times we saw a child in the two films, confronted with the murder of a parent.

7. The idiosynchrocies throughout: Swords on airplanes, baby being born while in coma,etc. These are the perceptions of a child influenced by media, not knowing the intiricies of the world.

8. Bill played by David Carradine - nuff said.

The media differences from chapter to chapter could be perceived as location based but I believe it to be media base.

Or,I could be wrong.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
07:49 / 05.05.04
I think it's the geeky Wu-Tang homages I enjoyed best. Yes, I know these are all actually homages to the same kung-fu movies the Clan watched, but it's more specific than that: the intro from 'Liquid Swords', "Let's match your Tiger Crane against my Eagle's Claw", "You're not a worker bee, you're a renegade Killer Bee" (another KB for BK), all the aliases (the cooler you are, the more A.K.A.s you have)...

I'm surprised so many people who liked the first one didn't like this. Sure, the House of Blue Leaves / Crazy 88 fight is probably the most exhilirating bit of either half (and that snatch of it at the end of Vol. 2 does make you want to watch Vol. 1 again, f'sho), but Vol. 1 also contains the only really problematic segment of either half for me, namely the coma rapists. Somehow the tone of Kill Bill allows for eyeballs to be gouged out and squished underfoot but not for two guys explicitly discussing the 'etiquette' of coma rape - it's just so horrible, the dialogue is handled with such questionable Tarantino relish, that it threatens to upset the balance of the whole film. Yeah, it's all set-up for scumbags getting their comeuppance, and to emphasise how hard as nails Kiddo is and what horrors she has to survive, but I thought the buried alive segment did that much more effectively.

I really liked way Tarantino sets it up so that you've probably guessed that Bud never sold his Hanzo sword, but all that talk about it makes you expect a very long and spectacular Kiddo/Elle duel once it's found... Instead, it's all over in a flash.

Again, the actual B/B fight is much shorter than you might expect - and again, I'm sure I'm not the only person who had money on Bill being finished off with the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart technique - but that doesn't make it any less fitting a way for the old dirty bastard to go. Plus I cannot get next to anyone who didn't love love LOVE that bit where he knocks her sword away and she catches his sword with the scabbard and kills him with the other hand - I mean, c'mon! Fuck off, Freud.
 
 
wembley can change in 28 days
08:45 / 05.05.04
I heart flyboy.

But seriously, I very much agree with the coma rape scene - for me it was much too "let's think of the most offensive thing we can do and then do it for offensive things' sake."

I'm not the only person who had money on Bill being finished off with the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart technique - but that doesn't make it any less fitting a way for the old dirty bastard to go. Plus I cannot get next to anyone who didn't love love LOVE that bit where he knocks her sword away and she catches his sword with the scabbard and kills him with the other hand - I mean, c'mon!

Actually, I was too involved in the story to think ahead of time that Bill was going to go with the 5PPEHT, but that wouldn't have made it any less fantastic. I just can't get over the look on his face when he says "Pai Mei taught you the five point palm exploding heart technique?" -- he looks like he's never been more in love in his entire life.

Sothis, an interesting theory but I'm not sure it passes the KISS test. Why, for instance, would B.B. want to kill her father (after having slept with him, too)? I think the child's fantasy and a parent's death themes resonate throughout, but I don't think I'd give it that overarching reading.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
10:36 / 05.05.04
I think the thing I like best about the 5PPEHT is that it requires the person who's been hit with it to take those five steps in order to actualise their own death. Sure, the heart exploding is the obviously symbolic bit, but having to walk to your own death is even better. To me, this is how you reconcile the vicious bastard Bill from the first volume with the tragic lover from the second: yes, he is that evil vicious son of a bitch. But when it's his time go, he goes. He accepts the fact that dying by the sword, so to speak, is his destiny, and you could argue that at the point where he walks out onto the lawn he has more honour than at any other point in the film. It's much like when Beatrix tells the daughter of the woman that she's just killed that if she wants to come and seek revenge, she'll be ready. Bill is ready: that doesn't redeem him, but it makes him harder to hate.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
15:57 / 07.05.04
There is no vicious bastard Bill in the first volume. There's a gap where Bill would have been - and that's deliberate, setting you up for his appearance in the second movie. And the 'five steps' thing is a martial arts movie/anime staple - the Ultimate Killer Death Move which, bizarrely, has an amusingly delayed reaction. Bill the character doesn't need to take those steps to die in the context of the plot dynamic - Tarantino the writer/director needs to have him take those steps to satisfy the demands of that particular cool reference...
 
 
Triplets
17:23 / 07.05.04
Fist of the North Star perfected it by having a stopwatch on the screen counting down to the villain's exploding death sequence.
 
 
rizla mission
12:25 / 08.05.04
I love the completely implausible weird kung-fu logic of the five-paces-backward thing.. you naturally assume that it means it takes the time it takes one to step five paces to work, but then the discovery at the end that you LITERALLY have to take the paces for it to work.. had me laughing out loud during what should have been a heavy, emotional scene. I mean, what if you stood still? Would you get away with it? What if you walked five paces forward?

But, er, anyway, random thoughts:

1. An obvious point, but nevertheless I feel the need to make it; The complete change in tone between the two films is due less to the subject matter, and more to the directoral style. I was really surprised that the style of part.1 (hyperkinetic modern action movie) was entirely replaced with that of an old school spaghetti western - complete with all the widescreen panoramas, extreme close-ups, long silences etc. I suppose it makes perfect sense given part.2's concentration on the epic showdowns and the culmination of the revenge storyline, but to do the WHOLE FILM in that style is quite daring, ihmo, given the audience's expectation of more easy-to-watch merry bloodshed and pop culture gags..

2.RE: discussion of Kill Bill's artistic relevancy given that it's basically a non-stop homage to a bunch of other stuff - I think the thinking behind it's legitimate right to exist goes something like this:
All the B-movie/exploitation genres it makes reference to contain huge amounts of crazy ideas and cool imagery, but - !crucial point! - the original films themselves were rarely able to fully explore them, simply because they were so cheaply and quickly produced, and in the purely technical sense were always basically quite shoddy films. Thus Tarantino uses his position as a popular mainstream filmmaker to exploit the untapped cool potential of these genres with a big budget, long running time and the latest technology. This = a pretty fucking good reason to exist, in my opinion.

3.The coma-rape sequence in Vol.1; yeah, it was a bit much wasn't it? But we are dealing with Quentin Tarantino here, and his films have always had a gleeful and slightly unhealthy fixation with OTT nastiness and suffering - by this point it's expected really, and I think in this case he has enough charm and intelligence to get away with it.

4. One minor aspect of Vol.2 that annoyed me:
The fact that Bud buries Beatrice alive and simply assumes she'll die, despite the fact that she's a master warrior who's presumably survived equally tough situations with ease in the past. I know the film isn't supposed to be realistic or anything, but I love the whole kung-fu atmosphere where everybody's such a high-level ninja master that they think at super speed and anticipate their opponent's moves ten steps in advance and so on, and giving her such an obvious oppurtunity to escape when he could have killed her instead betrays this atmosphere by just being plain dumb.. I know Bud's supposed to be a fairly sloppy character, but he's still presumably as highly trained as the rest of 'em and wouldn't have made such an obvious comedy villian style blunder.. (Unless he did it on purpose of course - he does give Bill that line about "maybe we deserve to die", and deep down he doesn't appear to have much of a drive to continue his rather miserable, alcoholic life..)

Phew. For a film about 'nothing', we all seem to be finding an awful lot to say about it.. more musings soon if I get a chance..
 
 
Gypsy Lantern
14:56 / 08.05.04
Liked the fact that in the first film she kills loads of people all the way through it, but in the second film the only person she actually kills is Bill.

Also liked the way that the deadly viper assasination squad, painted in the first film as a formidable team, turn out to have imploded in on themselves and be in the decline before Beatrix gets anywhere near them. Bud falling out with Bill, working in a strip club, letting his skills atrophy. Bill playing the role of suburban dad. Elle giving up the game and missing it. O Ren fucking off back to Japan to be a gangster. Not what you really expect after the build-up from Vol.1
 
 
Source
15:12 / 08.05.04
A couple of months ago, I eagerly downloaded the Kill Bill Vol. 2 trailer and watched Uma Thurman in black and white, overacting as she spoke to the camera and listed her intentions for Vol. 2. And because of that clip, I thought the film was going to be terrible.

But Quentin Tarrentino has done such an excellent job in combining so many genres and making it all fit together seamlessly - despite their differences. There are some truly obscure and hilarious moments that wouldn't seem right in any other film, but they work so well in this one.

The Sensei Mastah is hilarious and the strange and eclectic cast in this film somehow work perfectly together. David Carradine is especially good as Bill.

I'd recommend it.
 
 
Keith, like a scientist
15:49 / 08.05.04
Bill IS in Vol. 1 and he's pretty vicious at that. The anime sequence about O-Ren? That's definitely Bill with the long hair, ring, and demon head sword.
 
 
wembley can change in 28 days
05:35 / 10.05.04
btw:

saw it a third time. the newspaper headline in the Esteban scene reads European leaders declare support for U.S. on Iraq. My friend and I nearly died laughing while the rest of the theatre wondered what the hell was so funny.
 
 
Seth
08:36 / 10.05.04
About the only thing I really liked about this movie is that Bill dies of a broken heart.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
12:02 / 10.05.04
Which is all very nice, and all, but as the guy's basically a sadistic, megalomaniacal fuckhead who lvoes the sound of his own voice, why the fuck should we care?

And Kiddo as 'pure warrior' - please. The films make it very clear that her only motivations are 1) taking care of her daughter and 2) revenge. To quote Seth Gecko, she's a fucking bastard, just like her targets. Makes for a great revenge-exploitation movie (like Volume 1), but not an emotionally-driven slow-burning spaghetti epic, which is what Volume 2 thinks it is. And for a spaghetti western-style movie, the location shooting is shite. Trailer. Outside trailer. Trailer. Strip-bar. Trailer. Outside trailer. Graveyard. Pai Mei's temple. Trailer. Coffin. And over and over and over, all close-ups, conversational and boring as hell.

Almost no fights. Less than no tension. No drama. Nothing to hang your hat on. Misplaced, badly thought through.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
12:12 / 10.05.04
Almost no fights?

Volume 2 has precisely three fight sequences:

BK v. Pai Mai (we'll count this as one, see below)
BK v. Elle
BK v. Bill

As does Volume 1:

BK v. Vivacia Fox
BK v. Crazy 88 (which can be counted as one or many, but I think you have to apply the rule to Pai Mai sequence if so)
BK v. Lucy Liu

I'm sure many people who enjoyed Vol 2 would agree that the House of Blue Leaves battle is the best action sequence in either half, but I really don't think it's as unbalanced as you're suggesting.
 
 
CameronStewart
14:19 / 10.05.04
Keith:

>>>Bill IS in Vol. 1 and he's pretty vicious at that. The anime sequence about O-Ren? That's definitely Bill with the long hair, ring, and demon head sword. <<<

Nope. I thought it was at first too, but on closer inspection, it's not the same ring, it's not the same sword, and most damning of all, in the closing credits that character is identified as "Pretty Riki."

Plus it doesn't really contribute anything to the narrative to have Bill take part in the murder of O-Ren's parents.
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
11:48 / 11.05.04
Almost no fights? Volume 2 has precisely three fight sequences:

BK v. Pai Mai (we'll count this as one, see below)
BK v. Elle
BK v. Bill

As does Volume 1:

BK v. Vivacia Fox
BK v. Crazy 88 (which can be counted as one or many, but I think you have to apply the rule to Pai Mai sequence if so)
BK v. Lucy Liu

I'm sure many people who enjoyed Vol 2 would agree that the House of Blue Leaves battle is the best action sequence in either half, but I really don't think it's as unbalanced as you're suggesting...

Dude, that's lame. Realy lame. You're counting individual numbers of fight 'sequences'? The House Of Blue Leaves sequence actually contains several individual fight 'sequences', if you're being picky - the individual sequence of moves as she takes on the first four or five '88s, a reorientation beat for the audience to build tension - then the big one, the massive rush of the rest of the '88s (which you can certainly count as one fight sequence, as that's what it is, albeit a long one with several 'movements' and several visual styles incorporated into it). Then there's an entirely separate (asnd excellent in its own right) fight sequence with the creepy little Gogo Yubari, followed by the closing, much shorter, fight with O-Ren Ishii. Even if you refuse to separate the Crazy 88s, that's Vernita Green, the Crazy 88s, Gogo Yubari and O-Ren Ishii, all of which rock, and, with the exception of the O-Ren fight, all of which are long, involving, exciting sequences.

But numbering 'fight sequences' and getting involved in semantic arguments about what constitutes 'fight sequences' isn't what I had in mind when I said there were "almost no fights". In Volume 2, the only fight worth a damn in the context of a revenge movie like this is BK vs. Elle Driver, which I loved. BK vs Pai Mei? You can count it if you want, I wouldn't bother. And BK vs. Bill? Beautifully shot and put together, but it's bathetic, and deliberately so - what, less than 20 seconds of action for a build-up lasting four hours, the last two of which have been slow (and for me, painful)? It's clear why Tarantino set it up this way - he thought the emotional pay-off was superior to the expected violent payoff. I believe he's grossly missed the point, and badly fudged his movie, but I understand some disagree.

The point is that, Volume 2 has, with the exception of the excellent BK vs. Elle Driver scrap, nothing but incredibly short, bloodless fights or scenes that evoke very little in terms of tension. Compare that to Volume One, in which almost the last third of the film is a sequence of epic fights. In addition, earlier on we have the Bride vs Vernita Green; the stunning and violent anime O-Ren Ishii origin story; the brutal beating of the Bride in the church massacre; the escape from the hospital... how anyone can say Volume Two isn't horribly unbalanced compared to Volume One is, frankly, beyond me.
 
 
Catjerome
22:37 / 31.05.04
Just saw this film. Not too bad, but somewhere in my life I think I lost my ability (or my willingness) to suspend my disbelief or at least allow for movie logic.

Yes, it's supposed to be an archetype western kung-fu homage film whatever, but still: Beatrix kills people by going in through their _front doors_ with a sword? Beatrix shows up for her final showdown in a big froofy get-in-the-way skirt? Highly paid professional assassin, my ass. If I hired her I'd keep the receipt.
 
 
Jackie Susann
07:13 / 16.06.04
Am I the only one who found the whole of Vol 2 painfully misogynistic? It seems like one long spectacle of battered women, beautifully shot - Uma seems to spend most of her time squirming silently, in agony. No male character in either part suffers anywhere near as much as Uma, or, for that matter, Darryl Hanna or the secretary from vol 1 whose name I've forgotten. Not to mention the gratuitous mutilated prostitute. I mean, I realise it's a revenge movie, but didn't that just feel kind of gross to any of you?
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
18:10 / 18.08.04
I've just watched it and enjoyed it. It's not brilliant, I must prefer compressed-film-one to decompressed-film-two and the relationship between Bill and Bea is to my mind the best relationship that Quentin Tarantino has ever written and, perhaps, the only truly adult one he's ever written, even if they are ridiculously overblown top-class assasins.

Yes, I too saw the telegraphing of the method of Bill's death right at the start, but it doesn't matter. For me, the powerful thing was Bill knowing it was over and standing up to walk off and die, presumerably he could have done a Charlie Xavier and staid in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Even though he considered himself the wronged party, so killing the Bride was his revenge just as her killing Bill was hers, when he found out why she did what she did he as much accepted he had to die as she actually killed him. And it's nice that it's so brief, less than a minute in length I think.

But, though I like the scene with the Bride in the coffin, hysterical and not much different from her coma in part one, the scenes leading up to that were somewhat overlong and self-indulgent, not so much the wedding rehearsal but everything between that and the coffin. The whole pointless thing with Budd at his place of work, if it had been trimmed we'd never cared.

I loved the way it felt like a different movie though, I disagree with I think it was Mink who seemed to disparage Tarantino's chopping around of the times, just as with Pulp Fiction, the story wouldn't have made much sense in any other way than it did, the long scene with Bill meeting the Bride, reminiscent of one of those long scenes from a spaghetti western, had to happen in the second, slower picture, just as the Bride's training wouldn't have fitted in in the first film.

Yep, me likey, and it's not often you read those words on the 'lith is it?
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
20:30 / 18.08.04
Actually, ruminating and all, the length of film two is important. At the end of film one, all adrenalised and all, I was thinking "Wow, Bill's reason for why he shot the Bride had better be fucking amazing!". Film Two brings you down for the quieter, more emotional, more heartfelt reason that Bill gives. It wouldn't have worked at the end or even the start of film two, we need to have that reining in effect that decompression gives you to get us in the frame of mind to accept it.

Which, I realise, to sceptics is suspiciously close to the "Well it's shit on purpose" argument...

The ending also reminded me somewhat of the path of Jules and Vincent in 'Pulp Fiction'. Tarantino allows his characters to do heinous, awful things, but if they repent at the end they live. Jules gives up his guns and, we assume, gets to live happily ever after. Vincent stays as a gangster and gets killed by Butch. The Bride is going to give up being a killer, so gets to live, Bill, we assume, isn't, so dies.

What's messy, and what I'm not sure about, is whether Bill lets the Bride win. I think that's the dual purpose of his interrogating her, not just to find out why she left him, but also whether she'll be a fit mother to their child. Does anyone else get the feeling that if she hadn't done what she'd done for the sake of the baby he'd have just shot her again in the living room? I saw his walking to his death as very much an acceptence that, no matter what else, he was happy that his daughter would be in good hands.
 
 
Haus of Mystery
21:19 / 18.08.04
The film was too damn in love with Carradine. His, frankly, boring monologues and - hah!-flute playing were given too much time. I know a lot of people liked the tonal shift, but I simply felt incredibly let down by the actualisation of Bill. And the whole mothership riff - unconvincing. Sure there were moments I enjoyed in the movie, some bits I loved, but on the whole it was very much a 'pppppttthhft' after the anticipation set by the first. I had similar issues with Jackie Brown, another film a lot of people rate highly. Diss'pointin.
 
  

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