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Review : Kill Bill Vol. 2
This Saturday I took Kymberly to meet BBQ in Seattle and we all took in a showing of Kill Bill Vol2. We all love the first movie and were rapt to see how the second half of the story would unfold. The biggest misconception about this film is that it is a sequel. It is in fact one whole story that was cut in half and spread out into two trips to the movie theater or video store.
It was a damn fun time at the movies and it is worth seeing in the theater if you were a fan of Kill Bill Vol. 1. If you have not seen part one then it is a necessary requirement before you should consider seeing Vol 2. The first two chapters shown in Vol 2 were a bit of a downer and it would work thematically if you were seeing both volumes in one sitting. After the high of the fight at the House of Blue Leaves in vol1 the first two chapters of Vol 2 was a bit too much of a downer. It succeed in fleshing out the back story and the origins of the characters a bit more. There are some cool fighting in this movie but the vast majority off ass kicking is in the first one. There is a cameo by Samuel L. Jackson but it was so brief that I felt cheated. The parts about Bud's new job slowed down the movie's pacing too much for me.
The fight with Daryl Hannah was especially cool and the training flashback that The Bride did in China was a perfect homage to low budget Chinese martial arts movies of the 60s and 70s. There was some cool camera work in this flick and it can stand up to the other Tarantino projects. In a sequence where The Bride is captured and bound the director added black bars cropping the screen that helped add to the panic and claustrophobia that our heroine was going through. During the flashback to training in China it was shot on old grainy film stock and employed unfocused zooms that was straight out of an 70's Shaolin Monk movie. Kymberly especially loved the Volkswagen Karmon Ghia that The Bride drove. But Kymberly says that the classic movie that the old Mexican pimp makes a reference to did not star the people that he mentioned.
The music was phenomenal in the first movie but it left the theater without about to think about any musical parts that did it for me in this one.
The final confrontation with Bill was over way to fast and I think that it made his character suffer by ending like that. I know what the director was going for but I was expecting a very different final fight. I might go see this in the theaters again but after see all the other movies I want to see this season. It would be great to get both halves of this story and have it on one special edition DVD. It was a good conclusion to an already spectacular cinematic experience.
Jake at April 17, 2004 
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Comments
Ah, I CAN NOT wait to see this film.
Posted by: Jessica at April 18, 2004 10:18 AM
So you live in seattle...east side or actually in city?
great site btw!
cheers!
Posted by: scaleworm at April 18, 2004 7:40 PM
Kitsap actually.
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 18, 2004 9:56 PM
Saw it this weekend, and loved every minute of it.
Posted by: Kevin at April 19, 2004 10:54 AM
I'd rather read the script several times and hire it later.
Posted by: Matt at April 19, 2004 11:35 AM
finally saw the first episode and it was so-so. sorry! =)
Posted by: gringo at April 19, 2004 10:51 PM
I loved the film, but I think I enjoyed the first one a bit more. The second one has all the backstory and character development, which I usually prefer in a film, but I enjoyed all the over the top Kung-Fu action in the first one a bit more. The scenes with Pai Mei in vol. 2 were priceless, though.
Posted by: Jeff at April 20, 2004 7:36 AM
