Still Killing Bill
Vol. 2 Concludes With a Bang

When last we left The Bride (Uma Thurman), she had just dueled with O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) and left her scalpless in the House of Blue Leaves. The death of O-Ren was the first stop on the Bride's rampage of revenge, but because director Quinten Tarantino avoids linear storytelling the way vampires avoid sunlight it was the last thing we saw in the first half of the story.

As Kill Bill: Vol 2 begins, The Bride reminds us of her quest to hunt down Bill (David Carradine). The facts, however, have been distorted over the years (she tells audience), including the so-called "wedding" massacre. The truth is, it was a wedding rehearsal.

And so the story of Vol. 2 begins more or less at the beginning, with the story behind the massacre that led to The Bride's coma and her condition at the start of Vol. 1. Like I said, no linear storytelling here.

Unsuprisingly, the storytelling of Vol. 2 is very remenicient of Vol. 1. The chapters of the story include multiple flashbacks and various film techniques that pay homage to different Asian films. While Vol. 1 offered a short anime segment for the history of O-Ren, Vol. 2 shows a classic master/student training scene that could have been plucked out of any 1970s Bruce Lee film. With grainy film and natural lighting, the segment includes Chia Hui Liu as a white-haired martial arts master, Pai Mei. After humiliating The Bride, he agrees to be her trainer. He makes her fetch water up a huge stone staircase, eat rice with chopsticks even though her fingers are nearly broken, and he trains her mercilessly.

As The Bride continues her quest for Bill, we learn more about her life and the lives of those she has sworn to kill. While none of the revelations is particularly startling, they do start to make sense in the broader story. For instance, a comment during the Pai Mei story leads to an understanding of Elle Driver's (Daryl Hannah) handicap. We also learn about Budd's (Michael Madsen) connection to Bill.

Compared to Vol. 1, the second half of the story is more compelling. There are still a number of good fight scenes, but nothing like the blood-fest against the Crazy 88s in Vol. 1. Instead, the story focuses more on character, motivation, and ultimately revelation. The inevitable confrontation between The Bride and Bill is not the free-for-all that one may expect. In its own way, however, it is just as interesting.

For the record, the film works as a sequel to Vol. 1, but it isn't hard to visualize the two films as a single work. Without the short intro at the beginning of this film, it would tie seamlessly to the original. When Vol. 2 comes out on DVD, I hope a special "Director's Cut" is made for fans who want to watch Kill Bill in its entirety. Even though I have already purchased Vol. 1, I'd rather watch the whole film now instead of the segmented versions that Miramax forced upon filmgoers.

MY RATING: 8 out of 10.

RATED: R
RUN TIME: 136 min.