Kill Bill 2 is actually less violent and the story is told with more verve and complexity. There are sufficient flash backs to what happened in Kill Bill 1 — and before — that part two actually hangs together better as a movie. The only place it drags is in the scenes of Budd’s (played by Michael Madsen) decline and fall in Barstow, California, where he works as a bouncer in a bar, before he is eliminated. Budd or Sidewinder buries his victim alive but gives her a choice between a flashlight versus blinding her with Mace. Hattori Hanzo in possession of one of the two most ultimate swords ever makes Budd. In Kill Bill 1 we saw the Bride polish off her enemies with her magnificent sword that was made especially for her by him in Okinawa.
Elle Driver or California Mountain Snake (Daryl Hannah) is back. She keeps notes in a small book like a journalist and reads back what she has learned. We find out that she too studied with the ancient martial arts master Pai Mei (Gordon Liu) in China, but failed to finish her course. This makes the Bride the most powerful of all of the DiVAS.
In this wrap-up Tarantino gives full vent to all his loves. Movie buffs will take great pleasure in reviewing Kill Bill 2 again and again just to identify where he has borrowed and from whom, and Tarantino pays tribute extensively, not only from previous Westerns, but also from comic books and a variety of music. His friend Robert Rodriquez wrote some of the music. Thus the film has its original aspects. Tarantino honours, to name a few, Budd Boetticher, John Ford, Quincy Jones, Sergio Leone, François Truffaut and Vittorio Storaro.
Bill (David Carradine) is very much alive and present (we didn’t see him in Kill Bill 1). He is laid back, even sweet, and is presented to us a philosophical musician who plays a bamboo flute (as he did when he was Kwai Chang Caine in the TV Kung Fu series in the 1970s). He is the powerful master snake charmer for whom the DiVAS work. Bill is present in the next four chapters: at the wedding rehearsal and the massacre; warning Budd that Bride is at large; in flash backs on Black Mamba’s training in wood breaking with Pai Mei; and in the final chapter where Bride discovers her mothering instincts when she meets B. B. (Perla Haney-Jardine).
In Kill Bill 2, more time is given to dialogue. Bill, Bride and Esteban Vihaio (Michael Parks) are all good at it. This builds on styles Tarantino developed ten years ago in Pulp Fiction. Bill and Bride talk around a campfire. There is a marvelous sequence where Bill explains what character means to him, comparing Superman and Spiderman and the differences in their alter egos.
The Bride calls this her roaring journey on a rampage of revenge. And that it still is.
Kill Bill Volume 2 is two hours and 16 minutes long. It is in colour except for chapter one which is effervescent black and white. It is rated 16 because of language, drugs and violence. Quentin Tarantino both wrote and directed it. The cinematographer was Robert Richardson. Sally Menke edited it. Mary Ramos supervised the music, with contributions from RZA, Robert Rodriguez and Lars Ulrich. The choreographers were Yuen Woo Ping and Sonny Chiba. Visual effects are by Centro Digital. It was filmed on locations in Los Angeles and Barstow, California; Austin, Texas; Carejes, Mexico and Beijing, China.
