Kill Bill: Volume 2
From AwardAnnals
| This creative work has a long or truncated description. Please review the creative work guidelines concerning descriptions and edit down or replace the description. |
 | |
| Director(s) | Quentin Tarantino |
|---|---|
| Subtitle | Volume 2 |
| Distributor | Miramax Home Entertainment |
| Honors | |
| “The Bride” (Uma Thurman) gets her satisfaction—and so do we—in Quentin Tarantino’s “roaring rampage of revenge,” Kill Bill, Vol. 2. Where Vol. 1 was a hyper-kinetic tribute to the Asian chop-socky grindhouse flicks that have been thoroughly cross-referenced in Tarantino’s film-loving brain, Vol. 2—not a sequel, but Part Two of a breathtakingly cinematic epic—is Tarantino’s contemporary martial-arts Western, fueled by iconic images, music, and themes lifted from any source that Tarantino holds dear, from the action-packed cheapies of William… | |
Honors
Reviews
Amazon.com
“The Bride” (Uma Thurman) gets her satisfaction—and so do we—in Quentin Tarantino’s “roaring rampage of revenge,” Kill Bill, Vol. 2. Where Vol. 1 was a hyper-kinetic tribute to the Asian chop-socky grindhouse flicks that have been thoroughly cross-referenced in Tarantino’s film-loving brain, Vol. 2—not a sequel, but Part Two of a breathtakingly cinematic epic—is Tarantino’s contemporary martial-arts Western, fueled by iconic images, music, and themes lifted from any source that Tarantino holds dear, from the action-packed cheapies of William Witney (one of several filmmakers Tarantino gratefully honors in the closing credits) to the spaghetti epics of Sergio Leone. Tarantino doesn’t copy so much as elevate the genres he loves, and the entirety of Kill Bill is clearly the product of a singular artistic vision, even as it careens from one influence to another. Violence erupts with dynamic impact, but unlike Vol. 1, this slower grand finale revels in Tarantino’s trademark dialogue and loopy longueurs, reviving the career of David Carradine (who plays Bill for what he is: a snake charmer), and giving Thurman’s Bride an outlet for maternal love and well-earned happiness. Has any actress endured so much for the sake of a unique collaboration? As the credits remind us, “The Bride” was jointly created by “Q&U,” and she’s become an unforgettable heroine in a pair of delirious movie-movies (Vol. 3 awaits, some 15 years hence) that Tarantino fans will study and love for decades to come. —Jeff Shannon
Barnes and Noble
The adventures of the Bride (Uma Thurman) continue in Kill Bill Volume 2, the second half of Quentin Tarantino’s audacious homage to Hong Kong cinema and the wildly outré potboilers of the drive-in era. Originally intended as the second half of one long film, the sequel picks up where Kill Bill left off, with two members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad dispatched and two more standing between the vengeance-seeking Bride and her former lover and mentor, the quietly philosophical Bill (David Carradine). Volume 2, while not quite as action-packed as its predecessor, is every bit as entertaining in the same over-the-top manner, yet full of the pop culture-spouting dialogue that was missing in Volume 1. The standout sequence is the much-anticipated showdown between the Bride and Elle Driver, the eye patch-wearing assassin played with delicious malevolence by Daryl Hannah. It’s a set piece that literally brings the house down. Hannah is absolutely terrific, as is the willowy Thurman, who looks better than she ever has on film—when she’s not drenched in blood, that is. But the top acting honors go to Carradine, whose lengthy banishment to the cinematic outlands of direct-to-video schlock made people forget how good he could be. Tarantino’s writing and direction is predictably self-indulgent, but every frame of Kill Bill: Volume 2 is suffused with his love of cinema—and not just cinema spelled with a capital C. Mr. Q is nothing if not egalitarian, cinematically speaking, and the movie’s baroque styling reflects influences you’ll never find cited by stuffy academics. This is joyfully exuberant filmmaking at its least restrained, a free-form triumph of style over substance—and very likely the most exhilarating disc you’ll see for some time. Ed Hulse
Find this film
Related works
Kill Bill: Volume 2 Original Soundtrack
In many ways, the soundtracks that director Quentin Tarantino commissions are as iconic as his films, and Kill Bill Volume 2is no different. The combination of dialogue snippets and songs reflect the atmosphere of cold-blooded revenge that’s the central theme of the film. And, as expected from Tarantino’s soundtracks, there’s been some clever digging through the archives once again. Wisely, there are three tracks from legendary soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone, who made his reputation with his spacious Western epics, all of which add some heavy menace.…
Kill Bill: Volume 1
Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill, Vol. 1 is trash for connoisseurs. From his opening gambit (including a “Shaw-Scope” logo and gaudy ‘70s-vintage “Our Feature Presentation” title card) to his cliffhanger finale (a teasing lead-in to 2004’s Vol. 2), Tarantino pays loving tribute to grindhouse cinema, specifically the Hong Kong action flicks and spaghetti Westerns that fill his fervent brain—and this frequently breathtaking movie—with enough cinematic references and cleverly pilfered soundtrack cues to send cinephiles running for their reference books.…
