A continuation of the avenging of a near-assassination attempt on the Bride

Rating: 9/10 (5 May 2013)

It is good that Quentin Tarantino in the original Kill Bill (vol. 1) used flashbacks, especially the one about O-Ren Ishii's background. Now, in the sequel to this action movie, Beatrix Kiddo, who already had killed 2 assassins and went back home from her Japanese trip, is out to take out 2 more in Kill Bill Vol. 2, because the assassination squad was a quartet of 4 killers. Flashbacks in vol. 2 are almost as similar in number as Vol. 1. One flashback focuses on the squad entering the church--then you hear the machine gun fire, but you don't see what happens. Why? Tarantino did not want to have a cliché of the assassination of the 9 innocent victims of the wedding party...so focus was on an exterior shot, not interior because the give-away of the assassination squad church killing already had happened in Vol. 1.
There are several new things that should point out during this sequel.
Pai Mei was something like a drill instructor in Shaolin kung-fu when he subjected Beatrix to the difficult martial art. So there is an allusion to the "Mortal Kombat" movie that featured an almost similar Shaolin monk character...and some of the other Chinese martial art flicks of the B-variety, especially in the Bruce Lee era.
And then, there was Budd's house. Elle, who is a cross between a pirate and a secretary, comes in with the mob payment to Budd for the burying alive of Beatrix Kiddo..a treasure chest of, I guess, $250,000 in cash. But an ugly surprise came as Budd was going deep into that cash in the box...a black mamba snake bolts out and bites Budd about several times. Budd then tries to fight back at Elle but the venom from the bites quickly do its work and he collapses. Budd slowly falls to his death as Elle explains the facts about the black mamba--which could remind one person about the king cobra snake, which can be as deadly in its bites as the former mamba. So basically, Elle killed Budd so she can run off with the mob money. Then, as Elle calls Bill to lie about Budd's death, saying that it was an accident--Beatrix rushes into Budd's compound and it is a duel to the death--a cat fight filled with martial arts moves. The last part of the fight is in 2 stages. Stage 1 is the flashback where Elle mentions why she killed master Pai Mei..she poisoned the fish that Pai ate, and also--because Pai Mei slashed one of Elle's eyes with his sword. Then Stage 2 comes in, and with Beatrix saying to Elle, "You have no future", the final fight is now with samurai swords...but the fight was brief, Beatrix stops Elle's sword with a holding defense...and targeting Elle's remaining good eye, executes a very fast chicken-beak move (likely inspired by Pai Mei), pulling out that eye and rendering Elle completely blind as she goes crazy, haphazardly destroying things around the house. To add to the insult, she crushes Elle's pulled good eye with her foot, and she even manages to tame the black mamba's provoking stance so that the snake would not bite her...as she leaves Budd's house for good. Elle doesn't die but to Beatrix, the eye take-out is almost like what death looks like, so Beatrix does her job...she did not need to further finish off Elle.
The final conflict in Bill's mansion was something. Just before the vital point coup-de-grace strike on Bill's heart (which would be called "kyushu" in kyokushin karate), the setup for this was several gauntlets that Beatrix had to go through. One of them was Bill's pistol, and then a surprise pistol shot with a truth serum dart that went right in one of Beatrix's legs. Fortunately that serum did not kill her as Bill interrogates her, and finally, Bill lets him take out the truth serum dart. Then, Bill tells Beatrix by verbal intimidation that because she did not kill her child, she will be sentenced to death by Bill himself. Then after a brief samurai sword fight--this set-up that 5-point Pai Mei strike. Bill falls to the lawn and dies after Beatrix's last words to him..."You look ready." Once Bill was gone, I knew that Beatrix's death wishes were in the books...the 4 assassins have all gone to heaven, and Beatrix's baby, B.B., a toddler, is now the new inspiration for Beatrix to get her life back to normal.