Kill Bill, Vol. 2

April 18, 2004

After the relentless action of the first half of Kill Bill, I came into the second expecting more of the same. Quentin Tarantino takes a little detour though, and settles into a more familiar QT groove of talk-talk-ripoff. I don’t say that disparagingly, as the best part of Kill Bill, Vol. 2 is “The Cruel Tutelage of Pai-Mei,” an extended homage to Shaw Brothers kung-fu flicks. Gordon Liu gets to ham it up with his great fake white facial hair, and the dialogue and camera works are perfect. When the camera snap zooms on Pai-Mei so hard that it has to backup and refocus, the love and attention to detail is obvious.

The problem with the movie doesn’t really start until the end, and then it just tends to drag on and on until its destined conclusion. It’s called Kill Bill, we all know she’s going to Kill Bill and jesus, can you just get to the part where she Kills Bill? In this case, delaying the inevitable doesn’t ramp up the tension or add depth, it just dulls a movie that was so finely honed before that. The last half hour really killed the fun for me, but it’s still a plenty good ride and it’ll be fun to watch it all in one sitting when that DVD comes out.

Posted in Moving Pictures