OH, THERE'S THE PLOT!

Rating: Null/10 (15 April 2004)

Let's cut right to the chase: Kill Bill Vol. 2 effin' rocks so I suggest that you stop shooing the flies away from your greasy grand-pappy, get off of your ass and storm the local multiplex right now. This flick delivers the goods in spades and you won't find a more entertaining film out at the moment. So here come the spoilers, kiddies!
For those of you who may have missed the first film, the story involves the quest for vengeance by the Bride (Uma Thurman) against a group of international assassins - lead by the nefarious Bill (David Carradine) - who brutally murdered her entire wedding party yet failed to kill her knocked-up ass and ended up plunging her into a four-year coma. Upon waking, our heroine is understandably unamused by this turn of events and proceeds to get herself back into fighting shape, obtains a forged-by-a-master samurai sword that makes weapons aficionados go weak in the knees, and hands out bloody ass-whuppings like they were complementary after-dinner mints. During the course of the over-abundantly film-referenced bloodshed she dispatches two of the five scumbags who conspired to make her take the premature dirt nap (namely Viveca A. Fox and Lucy Liu) along with a small sword-wielding army of yakuza cannon fodder, and does this without much benefit from a plot - but what the hey; when you have such a surplus of bloodshed and action, to say nothing of appearances by beloved grindhouse stars from days gone by, you're bound to make all of the old-school exploitation/martial arts film junkies happy anyway. At the end of the first installment, the audience is let in on a vital piece of information that our blonde warrior doesn't have: her presumed-dead daughter is still alive.
When Vol. 2 starts off, the Bride is en route to stuff her trusty sword where the sun don't shine in Bill's alcoholic redneck loser of a brother, Budd (Michael Madsen), make monocular blonde bombshell Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) deader than Steven Seagal's career, and settle Bill's evil hash once and for all. Yet in a surprising turn of events, whereas one might have been lead to believe that this half of the film would be nothing more than another, non-stop stream of beheadings, limb-removals and whatnot, Quentin Tarantino returns to form not seen since the criminally-underrated Jackie Brown and provides us with a seriously character-driven story full of fascinating looks into the heads of the remaining players. To reveal more of the plot would be as criminal as Bill himself, so I'll leave you with a few thoughts:
-Uma Thurman's performance intensifies with each encounter, and the final half hour is enough to test even a badass like the Bride (who is finally called by name).
-Old-school Shaw Brothers kung fu movie addicts will be happier than Liza Minelli at singles night at the Stage Door Canteen when they witness `The Cruel Tutelage of Pai Mei.' I herewith beg Quentin to expand on his use of the legendary character of Pai Mei in a future film since Gordon Liu completely steals this sequence NOTE: if you are unfamiliar with Liu's impressive body of work in Shaw Brothers kung fu epics of the seventies and eighties allow me to recommend Shaolin Master Killer, Shaolin Challenges Ninja and The Pole Fighters. Winners all, and not hard to find at rental stores, although you may want to look them up on the IMDB since they go by a number of titles.
-Fair warning: claustrophobics beware!
-The battle between the Bride and Elle Driver (Darryl Hannah) is the most violent, jaw-droppingly ass-kicking throwdown I've seen in a long time and instantly joins the ranks of the best cat-fights in film history; it had an audience full of hardened New York City exploitation movie veterans jumping out of their seats, cringing from blows that you practically feel and shouting out every shocked expletive known to man.
-Bill may be a murdering son of a bitch, but he has his reasons for what he did to the Bride.
-Stay through the end credits for a little behind-the-scenes fun.
Whereas the first Kill Bill was Tarantino shamelessly shoving his world-class film geekery down our throats and basically indulging in what amounted to a cavalcade of directorial masturbation, Vol. 2 is a lot more sure of itself and stands as a solid piece of storytelling. The fact that Miramax saw fit to halve the film is proof that there are still occasional examples of sound thinking from a major film studio; if released as a whole work, Kill Bill would have clocked in at close to four-and-a-half hours and been examined to death with a probable diagnosis as a schizophrenic piece, unsure of whether it wanted to be a mindlessly violent thrill ride or a well-written action film with a lot more surprising depth than one would expect. Few directors can make such a lengthy film work, and Tarantino sure as hell is not Kurosawa, so as two volumes it works quite well, with Vol. 1 being the full-length setup and Vol. 2 serving as the extremely satisfying payoff to the origin of a character who may go on to become one of the defining female heroes in cinema. Well done, Q.T., and though the two films may be the most blatant love letter to a favorite leading lady (and her feet) ever released, your love for Uma sure as hell ain't sappy. Let's see what you've got for us next, you crescent-moon-faced lunatic!