Equally as good as the brilliant Vol. 1, managing to complement it perfectly while also being so different

Rating: 10/10 (27 January 2020)

There are few certainties in life.
The sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
When someone is born, eventually they die.
A person starts Kill Bill Vol. 1, and immediately needs to watch Vol. 2. With that cliffhanger in Vol. 1- where we find out The Bride's daughter is somehow still alive- how could you resist?
I'm not here to talk about which one is best, because in all honesty, I think they're equally good. Is that something of a cop out on my part? I don't think so, because I can rank other classic film stories split into parts with relative ease (Fellowship>Return>Two Towers, and Empire>New Hope>Jedi for a couple of examples). It really is the 100% honest truth that I cannot differentiate these in terms of quality. But with how different they are, you'd think that it would be easy.
Vol. 1 focuses on being a martial arts film homage, with tons of crazy action and violence to satisfy actions fans and provide so much incredible, visceral, extravagant entertainment. Vol. 2 is just as entertaining and engaging but for different reasons. There is violence, but it's certainly less frequent. Instead of extended scenes of action, we get a whole lot of extended dialogue exchanges, which if you go through Tarantino's filmography, is honestly what you get the most out of his films, by and large (despite his reputation for being a filmmaker who packs his films with violence, Kill Bill Vol. 1 in my eyes is his only true action film; that and maybe the second half of Death Proof). The dialogue is fantastically written, and even more impressively, likely wouldn't sound as great if this film wasn't so well cast and acted. This is Uma Thurman's greatest performance; as fantastic and cool as she is in the first volume, Vol. 2 is where she really gets to shine as an actress, as she goes through a whole host of emotions and commits entirely to a role that I'm sure a lesser performer would not take as seriously. David Carradine is also amazing here. I haven't seen much else with him in it, but he brings so much to what could otherwise be a very simple character, and for as terrible as Bill acted, and for as occasionally creepy as he can be, he really feels like a real person. You truly buy the chemistry between him and Thurman (despite the- again, slightly creepy- age difference), and he proves to be an oddly tragic villain. You want The Bride to indeed 'kill Bill,' but at the same time, perhaps you don't. Anytime Thurman and Carradine share the screen, time slips away and the film is utterly captivating.
Despite having less action, many of the things that were fantastic about the first volume are just as fantastic here. The look of the film is breathtaking, with a greater focus on paying visual homage here to old westerns rather than the martial arts references found in the first volume- although there is an extended flashback dealing with The Bride's martial arts training that reproduces and pays loving homage to similar old martial arts movies brilliantly. All the music here is selected and used just as perfectly as the amazing soundtrack in the first part. And there are sequences here that while not as over-the-top as the climactic fight against The Crazy 88 in the first, prove just as memorable. Scenes like a one-on-one swordfight in such an enclosed space that one participant cannot even unsheathe their sword, and a painfully drawn-out sequence that will have you on edge, even if you don't think yourself usually susceptible to claustrophobia. And then there's the surprisingly hard-hitting emotion of the whole thing. Vol. 2 is where the characters left standing after Vol. 1 start to feel like real people, and the whole concept of revenge becomes something less simple and straightforward; something that is perhaps even critiqued. The movie gives its characters time to breathe and speak, not just fight, and that's when the surprisingly deep character traits and frequently relatable emotional dilemmas begin to make themselves apparent.
I could understand Vol. 1 being seen by some as the better film, and honestly I have no ill will against anyone preferring one of the volumes over the other. For me, they'll always remain equal, proving unbelievably satisfying in their own unique ways while also blending together to create a perfect revenge epic that runs for about four blissfully cinematic hours. Vol. 2 has as much artistic merit as the first despite its different approach and focuses, and I believe as long as you're open to the story continuing in a matter you might not be expecting after the kinetic, violent, and relentless Vol. 1, you should come away satisfied.