Less than brilliant, overlong, some pointless scenes

Rating: Null/10 (9 May 2004)

For those of you that have already seen (and enjoyed) the first film, this film may be a disapointment.While the first film was full of frantic action, and super-human kung fu moves, this film is definitely waay slower in execution.
First things first. This film is far too long.**** SPOILERS AHEAD****
I don't understand why the spanish pimp was in this film at all. He seems to talk very slowly, and neither his words nor his actions have any consequence on the film at all. Likewise, the same with Bill's last scene. He seems to talk at length about, well not much at all really.
While one complaint of the first film was the lack of dialogue, in Volume 2, there is simply too much to handle. Long, drawn-out passages from Bill try to illustrate the depth of his character, but by the end of the feature, its clear that's he a pompous ass. Bud is a loser, and we are not told why his scene in the bar was included, as it has no bearing on any of the other characters.
The one saving grace is Gordon Liu's character, providing some comic relief. His character (Pei Mai) is a ridiculous parody of nearly every 'master' character that ever existed, and Liu seems to relish the role.
On balance, I think Volume 2 is a slightly better film than the first, as Tarantino does not seem intent on showing off his cool film collection every 5 seconds (this was one thing that really riled me through Vol 1), but the pacing is too slow. The camerawork is great, the fight scenes are superbly choreographed, the sound track is cool ( and Daryll Hannah is brilliantly vampish ), but for reasons cited above, this movie is less than brilliant.