Introduction

Kill Bill Vol. 2 is an interesting movie in that it delivers the plot set up in Vol. 1 yet manages to differentiate itself at the same time.  Where as Vol. 1 was basically a martial arts romp of revenge and death punctuated with plot.   Vol. 2 is a that plot with revenge and closure punctuated with some serious violence.  It is probably two sides of the same coin, but after viewing Vol. 2 it is very noticeable to the viewer.

I will try to avoid any over spoilers, or at least nothing that could not be read in the general media and professional media reviewers.  For your own movie enjoyment, I would suggest seeing Kill Bill Vol. 2 rather than reading about it.  It is nine bucks well spent.

The Characters

What I like about both movies is that Uma Thurman’s character, The Bride, is not particularly good.  In comparison to some of the characters, perhaps she is (Elle being a notable example).  In fact I would argue that she is doing unto them what they did unto her at the wedding chapel.  Her means are on par, but perhaps to everyone save Bill, her drive is far stronger.  For them it was a job, for her it is a lot more.

The characters you did not see in Vol. 1 are explored in Vol. 2.  In the first film the focus was primarily on The Bride.  .  Tarantino shifts much of the film away from the Bride to the other characters (Bud, Elle, Bill) and you get a feel for the ramifications on their lives after the wedding chapel.  I think some of this was filler, but it was crunchy enough that it did not make the film seem dull.  The lesson learned is once a killer always a killer, no matter what turns their lives take.

The Film

As you might guess Vol. 2 is all about killing Bill.  Not a shocker there.  If that what it was all about, it would have been a 30 minute long film.  Much of Vol. 2 explores The Bride’s vengeance on Bud (the only male of Bill’s assassins), but this comes off as more of a character study than the lengthy bit of revenge on O-Ren Ishii.  This certainly was the harbinger of how Vol. 2 differs from Vol. 1.

The second long bit is the training The Bride received from Pai Mei, which does much to glue many aspect of Vol. 2.  Lastly is the confrontation with Bill.  Tarantino does a good job of fiddling with expectations and the resolution almost becomes farcical with the bloodletting done to get to this point.  There comes a point in many of his movies where a surreal and clever sort of dialogue emerges.

The arc between the movies was covered, but also as a stand alone film Vol. 2 introduces and resolves many of its own plot points.  That said, it probably is not a movie worth seeing unless you have seen Vol 1.  It would be more like Tarantino being weird than trying to make a totally coherent movie.  One item that is most noticeable in Vol. 2 is the chapters are shot in differing styles which did much to set up the mood of the chapters.  There are also a couple if very slap sticky jokes inserted into the movie, which I thought were quite funny (the classroom scene about The Bride’s real name got a chuckle from me).

Summary

Kill Bill Vol. 2 delivers the goods, it just does it in a very different way than Vol. 1.  As a pair of films they are a great example and farce of the action genre as seen through the mind’s eye of Tarantino.  Vol 2. is more of what you would expect from a Tarantino film, much more dialogue and exploration of the various character’s involved.  Much of the action you saw was there, but it was used as much more sparingly and to punctuate the plot points.  Vol 1. was action punctuated by plot points.

As a movie by itself it would be odd to see, as the second part of a series it is a great film and caps off a story arc…at least for the moment.