Kill Bill: Volume 2 (spoilers)

Cafe Society
1

I have to admit, I am completely Quentin Tarantino’s bitch. I love everything he does.

KBV2 was a great second half to a great story. I love how QT was able to get some real dramatic resonance and emotion using only the vocabulary of B movies.

Pai Mei owned this movie. I want to grow a beard like that just so I can stroke it like he did.

Other great scenes:

-The Bride buried alive, really tense, claustrophobic and scary, even though you know she can’t die becuaes she hasn’t killed Bill yet.

-The fight between Beatrix and Elle, and the way that it ended. Elle is still out there, man…she’s blind but she’s alive.

-Michael Madsen’s performance was interesting nuanced. He made Budd self reflective, and almost sympathetic yet ultimately sociopathic

-This is a small bit of casting but the creepy little friend who helped Budd dig the grave was very memorable. You wanted to slug the guy after two seconds of screen time.

-Darryl Hannah was also good and damn sexy even with that eye patch. The fight with Uma kicked ass.

David Carradine was as good as he’s ever been. I was almost sad when Beatrix finally killed bill
I was moved by Beatrix’s reunion with her daughter but that’s partially because I have a daughter that age of my own.

The music rocked and that’s one of QT’s strengths. He always has good music.

I really want to watch both volumes together. Hopefully there will be a DVD package with both movies on it.

2

I just want to emphasize that point. Come on, a trip-hop mix of She’s Not There actually working? And brilliantly?

My favorite scene was probably one in the coffin.

Awesome.

3

I am with you on this. QT has far outstripped himself from his previous high of Pulp Fiction.

The score was done by RZA who also did another of my favorite movies, Ghost Dog.

My wife and I just got the DVD of Volume 1 last night, and got to watch it tonight finally. As the credits rolled I jumped up and said “Lets go see Volume 2!” So we did. 20 minutes after the first film finished, we watched the second. VERY COOL!!!

I so want a long beard…

4

I found out during a conversation with my wife, that RZA produced the soundtrack (as he did with Ghost Dog, along with original songs) not the score.

5

Wow, I’m actually kind of surprised by the good reviews. I absolutely loved the first one; I saw it twice in the theatre and rented it Wednesday, Volume 2 however…

Well, did…anyone…notice…the…slow…dragged…out…dialogue…that…didn’t …seem…to…go…anywhere?

The whole movie seemed like little bits of good ideas that never really grew wings. I was wholly dissapointed.

Also, I could not believe I waited 6 months for:

a 5 second fight with Bill

On a lighter note: did any Terry Pratchett fans think Pai Mei should have had a broom?

6

I’m with you Cisco. Every single time some old guy opened his mouth, I knew I was in for 5 minutes of dialog that was going no where. I felt like Watching Kill Bill 1 after seeing clips of it from the credits. It would have been nice if KB 2 had more action.

7

Not unless that snake got her. :wink: Sofie Fatale’s still out there too.

That said, I didn’t seem to enjoy Volume 2 as much as the first one. I still loved it, of course, and will likely see it a second and possibly a third time in the theatre. And there’s always the possibility that, after repeated viewings, I might come to like Volume 2 more than Volume 1.

Budd was also my favorite character. He was very intriguing. Though I was somewhat disappointed that we didn’t get to see him show off any of his fighting skills, with or without a sword (though he’d likely be quite rusty).

To me, Volume 2 seemed very different in feel than Volume 1. Which is somewhat surprising, considering they were filmed together as one movie. (Correct me if I’m wrong about that.) Editing them into two films could have had something to do with that. But I can’t wait to see them both back to back as one piece.

And as others have said, the music was as excellent as usual for a Tarantino film. And I was surprised find out in the credits that that was Samuel L. Jackson playing the role of the chapel piano player.

Tarantino has been talking about doing a third film somewhere down the line. It would be more of a first sequel really, and would be about the Viviva A. Fox character’s daughter, all grown up, going after The Bride for her own revenge. Kill The Bride, perhaps?

This could lead to a cool showdown between the two daughters - Nikki vs. B.B.

Of course, Tarantino’s always full of ideas. He’s also talked about doing animated spin-offs, and I believe prequels about both Go Go Yubari and O-Ren Ishii.

One last thing. Last night, Daryl Hannah (Elle) was on the Jimmy Kimmel show and recounted a scene in which she was driving her Trans-Am - fast - while Quentin was directing from the passenger seat, and the cameraman was in the back. Quentin suddenly told her to turn onto an ungroomed dirt track off the main desert road.

With a cloud of dust obscuring her view, Hannah suddenly noticed she was heading straight for a large ditch, and brought that to Quentin’s notice. Quentin, undeterred, simply shouted for her to jump it, and that nothing bad will happen because it’s just a movie. Needless to say, Hannah stopped the car.

Now that is proof positive that Quentin Tarantino is a movie fan before anything else. :smiley: You gotta love him!

Anyhoo…

8

Let me elaborate slightly (I have a feeling I’ll be back to this thread a couple times.)

The scene with Bill and Beatrix at the wedding chapel seemed forced and pointless; like it was going somewhere but it never did. Ditto with the scene where Budd goes into work and gets fired, and double ditto with the scene involving the old Mexican. The only thing that scene did for me was make Bill seem weaker by giving him a father figure.

I was dissapointed that the loose ends with Sophie were never wrapped up, considering that’s where we left off.

I was also dissapointed that Budd seemed to do such an instant 180 as soon as the bride showed up. He was a sympathetic guy that was tired of killing and thought he deserved to be shit on for awhile until he saw Beatrix. Then he was just an uninteresting piece of shit redneck. I was also dissapointed (like another poster mentioned) that we never got to see him fight. I was thinking the whole point of his boss treating him bad was to show him kick some ass, but that scene seems to have been pointless.

I do have one question though: what kind of car was Bill driving in the scene where he showed up at Budd’s place?

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Kill Bill (counting it as one movie) is definitely at least as good (imho) as Pulp Fiction.

Did you notice that:

*Several times in the movies The Bride had been referred to as “Kiddo” (which of course turns out not to be an endearment)

*Pai Mei was played by Gordon Liu, who also played one of O-Ren’s bodyguard Johnny Mo

*Michael Parks, who played the sheriff in the first movie (and whose son played the sheriff’s son in the first movie) played the old mutilating Latino pimp in this one?

Was Pai Mei supposed to be the same Pai Mei from the 1000 year old story?

I loved the final seated sword fight between Bill & Beatrix and thought the anticlimactic brevity of it was perfect. It’s also amazing how you forget that Beatrix is a murdering biatch herself for whom live burial really wouldn’t be that terribly sympathetic an end when you see her with her daughter.

I love the way Tarantino gives faded stars the chance for great comebacks: Travolta, Pam Grier, Michael Parks, David Carradine (at one point he was reduced to very very bad syndicated TV series and now he not only appears in one of the biggest movies of the year but is perfectly cast), etc…

The trailer for Iron Monkey looks great as well.

Is it me or did the dates on Paula Schultz’s headstone keep changing? At one point I’d have sworn they said 1823-1898, another time 1825-1895, another time 1828-1893. It’s not at all unlike Tarantino to do this.

So connections twixt Bill and other Tarantino-verse productions: I don’t think Jackson was supposed to be Jules in this, but I can almost guarantee that the sword in the pawn shop in Pulp is a Hattori Hanzo sword (though obviously not Budd’s as he was only hecking off his “brother”, who couldn’t possibly have been his biological brother since he’s obviously much younger and it was said that Bill never had a father). The Crazy 88s dress exactly like Marsellus’ henchment. Mia is clearly not Beatrix, but as usual some really really dark underforces that could connect the movies.

10

I thought it was brilliant.

The dialouge went nowhere? I thought it was funny the way these people talked to each other, and it always developed their characters.

Beatrix and Pai Mei = best master/disciple scene I’ve ever seen in a kung-fu movie. Not only is Pai Mei badass, he knows he is badass and has an attitude.

Wasn’t it amazing when Bill was retelling the story of B.B. stomping on the fish? That is good cinema.
When QT cut to the classroom of young children, raising their hands’ for role call, they call the name Beatrix and we see a full grown Uma in the classroom. Was this taken from Annie Hall?

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(All this should have posted last night, but it seems like the board doesn’t work for me at all past 0100 PST.)

Tarantino definitely delivered as promised. Vol 2 is an excellent complement to the action-packed, fantastically campy action film that was Vol 1. I especially liked Bill’s deadpan storytelling, “He tried to console Mai Pai only to find that he was inconsolable”, “The five point palm heart exploding technique”. This movie was much more like Tarantino’s other movies in that he concentrated quite a bit on the dialogue and the interaction between characters; it made for a nice contrast to Vol 1.

As for memorable moments, that whole fight scene with Elle, whoo, that looked painful as all hell.
And Donnie Yen as Mai Pai was freaking awesome. That part was great. And even considering how campy it was, QT still managed to get some meaningful scenes in there.

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And even though I had a whole day to fix the post, I still manage to screw it up. Not Donnie Yen, (I guess the trailer for Hero was kinda still ringing around in my head), but Gordon Liu did a damn good job as Pai Mei.

As for conversations that went nowhere…, I felt that a lot of the conversation helped to bring out a little more in each of the characters. However, I do wish they had done more with Budd. It felt like he could have done a fair amount more besides catching the Bride and then getting bitten by the Black Mamba.

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There are spoilers in this post, but since it says spoilers in the header, I hope it’s OK. If you don’t want to see spoilers, don’t read this post.

Anyone else notice this? After that kick-ass, down and dirty fight scene when Elle was plucked by Beatrix, and was flopping around on the floor, wasn’t that eerily reminiscent of Daryl Hannah’s death scene as Pris in Blade Runner? It was so similar it must have been on purpose. Also, it’s amazing to me how Daryl Hannah can look so hot in some scenes and so snarlingly nasty in others.

I worry about what kind of kid BB is going to be-- deliberately killing her fish, watching Shogun Assassin, having Bill as a dad. I think a show-down between her and Nikki could be quite interesting…especially if Nikki were raised by Sofie and Elle. Bwahaha!

As for the final showdown between Beatrix and Bill, I thought it was actually quite long–it began with the dart in Beatrix’s knee. Now, how many times, after a particularly horrible and inexplicable break-up, have you wanted to shoot your ex up with truth serum and find out WTF was going on in his/her head? I actually started feeling somewhat sympathetic towards him during that interrogation, which dissipated rather quickly when I found I entirely agreed with Beatrix’s logic in leaving Bill.

Loved the scene with Karen Kim in the hotel room… hilarious. Also, I especially loved that Kiddo killed Bill without ever drawing a sword, after all the ado about the Honzo swords. And the scene of Beatrix crying/laughing/thanking God on the bathroom floor was the perfect denouement.

Overall, I liked this movie a hell of a lot, but I’ve always loved Tarantino, so no surprise there.

14

All of Tarantino’s movies have back-stories that are never resolved (which actually makes for some cool 2 a.m. conversation). My favorites from this one:

-What did Bill do that made Hattori Hanzo hate him enough to come out of retirement (and how did Hanzo, who clearly didn’t need the money, become a sushi bar owner? and was that his lover who refused to make the tea?)

-Did Bill’s gang totally split up after Twin Pines? Evidently he allowed Copperhead to leave and do the stay-at-home mother thing without any real problem (though he evidently didn’t have a romantic fling with her).

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And what was the deal with bleeping out Uma’s name in the first one. The only reason I can think is that she ends up being a character referred to in another Tarantino movie, but Beatrix doesn’t ring a bell.

16

I think this was a great ending to the story. It perfectly contrasted Vol 1. It makes the whole story less of a… mindless action story and a much more deep and meaningful flick.

Although I can see that Vol 2 isn’t going to have the same affect on others as it did me. Of my friends that I went to go see it with, all but one said it was a terrible movie, simply because there wasn’t enough action and too long of dialogue. But I believe that the dialogue just added on to the characters, rather than be pointless.

I am also somewhat puzzled by the bleeping of beatrixes name in earlier parts of the movie. I think QT just did it to add more of a suspense and mystery to it. And because, he wanted to. QT does some weird stuff in movies, and most are unexplainable except that he just felt like doing it.

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I think the reason the name was bleeped in the first movie was to keep the Bride as an archetype rather than a person. She is simply an “avenger” in revenge movie. The plot is stripped to a bare minimum and so are the characters. The second volume pulls back from the action and the archetypes become real people. “The Bride” becomes Beatrix, the storylines are fleshed out and the archetypal revenge story becomes more of a real drama.
As to criticism about the lack of action, I think it should be remembered that both volumes were originally shot as one film. The first half is all visceral action but I think that it would have been too mufch to try to maintain that pace and intensity for four hours. It was necessary to pull back some and calm down. Remember, as originally shot, the Two Pines scene would have come immediately on the heels of the Crazy 88/ O-Ren Ishii brawl from the first film. That was like a thirty minute sequence wasn’t it? It would only make sense for QT to cut in a quiet flashback scene after that one.

There were still some good tense sequences in KBV2, including the burial and the fight with Elle and I though there were onl two scenes which seemed to drag a little bit…the Wedding chapel scene and the scene with the Mexican pimp. If those scenes are snipped you have a damn good movie.

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I liked this one better than Vol. I. I do wish that some of the fight scenese went on longer, but maybe Tarantino thought the battle with the Crazy 88s was enough to cover both movies.

I could tell Sam Jackson was the organ player as soon as he spoke. I even said so (in a low tone of voice), but as I saw the movie alone, no one was really paying attention to me.

I had read the script so I knew the black mamba was going to be in the money and I kept trying to cover my eyes for the upcoming jump scene. When it did happen, pretty much the entire audience gasped.

The only other audience-uniting moment I can think of is when Beatrix plucks out Elle’s eye. Then they cheered. I loved out Elle went from being a tough bitch to such a panicked person. I thought Elle’s character was interesting–she seemed to feel some sort of sisterhood with Beatrix, but that didn’t prevent her from wanting to kill her. Also, the reading from the website? Genius delivery. “I’ve always liked that word but never got the chance to use it in a sentence.”

I assume Elle lived with B.B. and Bill. I wonder what her relationship with B.B. was.

If you stayed for the end credits, as Vivica A. Fox et al. are listed, their names are crossed out. Except for Darryl Hannah’s–her name has a question mark drawn over it.

I also thought Bill was an intriguing character. Although you get a bit of the nasty undercurrent in him in the scene in El Paso, when he, B.B., and Beatrix are all together he seems more normal. Of course, you get reminded of the fact that he’s a cold-blooded killer when he starts shooting at Beatrix. Their relationship seems very complicated, to say the least.

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Oh, one other question–did one of the prostitutes have a cleft lip, or was her face cut up by the pimp?

20

I believe the pimp did it-- remember what he said to Beatrix? I paraphrase as best I can: “So Bill shot you in the head? I wouldn’t have been so cruel-- I just would have cut your face.” Then a moment later, we see the girl with the deformed lips. Looked more like a burn than a cut to me, but it seemed fairly clear that he did it.