Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

December 29, 2019 11:22 AM

The Bride unwaveringly continues on her roaring rampage of revenge against the band of assassins who had tried to kill her and her unborn child. She visits each of her former associates one-by-one, checking off the victims on her Death List Five until there's nothing left to do but kill Bill.
posted by ruben (6 comments total)

I suppose I went into KBv2 expecting more of the dazzle of v1, so it took me a bit to adjust. And, I confess, when Bill was finally revealed I was lulled into thinking "he's not that bad". But, of course, he is. In fact, he's worse. Again, the Superman speech was diverting at the time, but as one becomes more familiar and sees the mind behind it... Bill is someone who thinks he's a nice guy really, even his bullet in the brain was a kindness, no really, but no - that's all spin, and he's a monster (and he never realises he's a monster - he goes to his death without confronting that, which is ... it gives the scene a strange unresolved quality). As a claustrophobe (one of my large collection of phobias), there are parts of the film I find difficult, of course.

But, again, Tarantino is a strange man - the juxtaposition of the Bill reveal with the scene with Bill's "father" shows that we are supposed to know Bill is a monster, and Tarantino knows we know, and he doesn't seem to think "well, maybe a lot of the audience just aren't that smart".

I'd quite like to see the combined version, but it's not something I'd go out of my way for.
posted by Grangousier at 12:22 AM on December 30, 2019 [6 favorites]

I don't have particularly deep thoughts about this movie, but there was an interesting projection problem the first time I saw this movie.

Basically, in the scene where the Bride gets shot with rock salt and buried alive, the projector bulb or something went out right as the Bride's casket gets covered with dirt. So the whole sequence where she escapes from her own grave played out in total darkness, with just the audio. I honestly thought it was just a bold stylistic choice until it was obvious from the audio that she had made it out of the grave but the screen was still dark.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:56 AM on December 30, 2019 [8 favorites]

So the whole sequence where she escapes from her own grave played out in total darkness, with just the audio.

That's wild! Was it dark for the whole Pai Mei interlude?
posted by carsonb at 8:43 AM on December 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

Yeah. Actually, I might have misremembered slightly and that's where it became obvious there was a problem. I might also be misremembering whether the image ever came back. It's possible it didn't. At any rate, the theater stopped the showing and gave us all vouchers, which of course I used to come back and watch the movie properly, and that's probably confusing my memory a little bit.
posted by tobascodagama at 8:48 AM on December 30, 2019

"Take a hit. Be somebody, baby."
posted by rocketman at 12:48 PM on December 30, 2019

This seems more personal than the freewheeling action of v1, and even the more actiony parts--the Bride breaking out of the coffin, she and Elle Driver fighting in the trailer, even when she's immobilized by the truth serum--have a claustrophobic feel to them. Driver has a really personal grudge against the Bride--maybe because the Bride has the sort of relationship with Bill that she wants--but also curses Budd for being unworthy of his own Hattori Hanzo sword. She literally kills Bill by stopping his heart with a touch.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:20 PM on January 1, 2020