*** Official KILL BILL: VOLUME 2 Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[TheLongshot]

Well, Jeffery Wells has his review up..and he didn't like it.

Warning: spoiler filled

Link Removed

As a summary, basically he says it starts off good, and goes downhill from there. He thinks David Carradine was a bad casting decision, and would have liked to have seen what Warren Beatty would have done with the roll.

He does say Uma holds up her end well, but there is little else.

Just as a note, he did like Vol. 1, but it didn't make his best films of the year since it didn't hang with him.

Jason

 

[Bryan Ri]

Paul Scott's post on the previously closed thread; Paul, so glad I checked it out when I saw your name there, my biggest laugh of the day.



Bryan

 

[Haggai]

I had a good laugh at the flashback when Beatrix's name was revealed, with Uma herself sitting in the classroom and answering "Here!" when the teacher called her name. Almost shades of Woody Allen talking to his childhood classmates in Annie Hall. The little stunt with beeping out her name in the first movie (and with Bill when he talks to Budd in this one) was worth it for that funny payoff.

It adds something else, of course, to the scenes where Bill talks to her as "kiddo," like in the opening scene of Vol. 1 (reprised at the beginning of Vol. 2) where he shoots her in the chapel.

 

[John Geelan]

Saw it today and I loved it...its even better than the first one now that we know all the characters and their motives.

Some awesome set pieces in this film...two of them include the Kung Fu Master training segment...absolutely great!

And the showdown between Daryll Hannah and Uma in Budd's trailer out in the desert. Just stunning work done in that scene.

The audience I saw the film with also loved it.

Quentin's great dialogue also makes a comeback in this film.

Bravo!!

 

[JonZ]

I have some REAL problems with the last 1/2 hour of this film.

Its too long,its silly and the dialogue is terrible in parts.
The Pregnacy test/hotel scene should have been cut since she tells Bill few minutes later why she left the squad. I have to agree with James Bs review where he says its needs to be edited down. It annoys me all the more that this was was cut into 2 films becuase wth tighter editing and combining the 2 volumes this could have been stellar.

(Tighter editing also would have allowed for Michael Jai Whites part and the second anime sequence to be kept in).

Loved:
- Mei Pei Training (The close punch training is right out of Shaw Bros films like Shaolin Martial Arts and Invincible Shaolin- including the trouble with chopsticks scene.)
- Everything with Budd and Elle
- Beatrix climbing out of the coffin scene
- Lui and Parks playing 2 roles


LOVED The Elle/Beatrix fight in Budds trailer.

BTW, Bill is wrong. Batman is the real person. Bruce Wayne and the whole conceited,playboy,spoiled rich guy thing is a act or false identity.

 

[Gary->dee]

Ok so in KB v.1 in the beginning when Uma and Vivica say Uma's character's name and it's beeped out they're actually saying "Beatrix Kiddo"?

I'll be seeing KB v.2 this weekend since it's showing down the street from me at the Vista. Looking forward to it!

 

[Haggai]

Not exactly--they're just saying her first name.

 

[Chris]

Fantastic..

Maybe I'll expand later. But that about sums it up.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Color me disappointed. I felt it was overly indulgent and would have gained much by a heavier hand in the editing room.

While the first volume moved at a much better pace (which I watched on DVD before I saw KBV2), the second volume just meanders like documentary footage that was never edited down for the final product.

What's funny is that when Bill calls the Bride by her last name during their early scenes, you think he's just talking down to her a bit, but as it turns out, her last name being "Kiddo" he's just calling her by her last name. Now the bleeping out of "Beatrix" just seems like a silly wink to fans who like a little mystery to their characters (or worse yet, it was done just because Tarantino could, or just wanted to do that indulgent bit when she replies "Here" in a classroom flashback when her name is called).

The Bud/Elle/Bride scene was probably the high point of the film, most of the rest after that went downhill fast (and slow, if you know what I mean). Carradine's quasi-lisp was driving me nuts in spots. The scenes with Ernesto, and Ms. Kim lacked the juice, the hallmark crisp dialogue I had hoped for. The whole truth serum scene at the end was so forced, it was painful to sit through at times. As much as I like comic books, I think Quentin went reaching for something that wasn't there or all that interesting.

BTW, if you stay all the way to the very very end of the credits, you'll see :

an outtake of Uma ripping out the eye of one of the O-ren's 88 in volume 1, and then she quickly admits that she want to do the scene again, with a grin on her face.


BTW, did anyone else flash back to Pris in Blade Runner when the Bride does what she does to Elle in Bud's trailer? Daryl Hannah's got that whole "flailing on the floor" action down to an art.

 

[Gary->dee]

Ah ok, thanks Haggai. That's one mystery solved. I'll have to watch their lips more closely next time I watch vol.1- which should be some time within the next 24 hours.

Btw I'll definitely make it a point to stick around for all the end credits.

 

[Haggai]

In the ever-detailed mind of QT, "Beatrix" probably had something to do with the "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids" exchange with The Bride and O-Ren in Vol. 1. Tarantino said in some interview that he had mapped out the whole backstory with all the characters, and that this was an old joke between those two particular former colleagues, though he didn't explain it (I think it's kinda juvenile as it is in the movie, on its own).

I guess some people haven't liked the standoff scene with Beatrix and Lisa Kim (not 100% sure I'm remembering that character's name right), but I thought it was great. Like a mini-version of the multiple-guns-pointed-at-each-other scenes of Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, somewhat more like Pulp Fiction with the change-of-heart/going-straight aspect for Beatrix. Worked very well for me, and I was laughing all through the little reading-off-the-home-pregnancy-box bit.

 

[George See]

The only thing i'm not buying in the movie is the scene where the Bride throws open buds door and runs in and gets shot. Do we honestly think the "most deadly woman on the planet" would be so dumb as to just open the door and run in there? It just doesn't seem like that action fits her character.

Aside from that minor annoyance loved the movie.

 

[Haggai]

I've read in a couple of reviews now that Tarantino dubbed the voice for Gordon Liu as Pei Mei. Is that really true? Does he speak those languages at all? If that's really him doing the voice, I guess he did a pretty good job, since I never would have recognized that it was him.

 

[Richard_D_Ramirez]

I guess the real question is, was it really Cantonese or Mandarin, or just a bunch of made up pronunciations? (Which would seem QT-like to do...) Can anyone who understands Cantonese or Mandarin and seen the film verify if the language Pei Mei used was authentic?

Another possibility is that only thing QT himself dubbed was the typical, chopsocky "white-beared man" laugh....
8^B

 

[Patrick Sun]

It wasn't Mandarin (which I understand), but it did sound like Cantonese, which shares only a few things with Mandarin, so I did understand just a few bits.

Now, I did crack up every time Pei Mei stroked his wisps of beard hair.

I wanted to know if the Bride wore any protection underneath her shirt when Bud shot her with his shotgun because the way she went on with her business would make it seem like she had Wolverine's healing factor.

 

[Kevin Grey]

It was rocksalt.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Wouldn't it still "leave a mark"? Why rocksalt?

 

[Alex Spindler]

I have to say that it surprised me. Maybe in a good way, maybe in a bad way. I'm going to catch it again before I settle, but it wasn't the film or format I was expecting. I had heard up front that it was going to be a departure from the first, but I was surprised how conventional it was and far less of a back-to-roots exploitation film, especially when I saw several situations that could have been exactly that.

Must ponder it more after a revisit.

 

[Jason Seaver]

Nah, it's more than that. We don't learn anything about The Bride as a person until we've actually heard her name. Indeed, every time she's given a new name, that's how she acts afterward: She's first refered to as "Black Mamba" in Volume 1, and that's who she is all the way through that - an anonymous killing machine, until she says "call me Arlene" in Volume 2. Then, we start to see her as more human, but it's something of a facade until we hear the name Beatrix. That's when we start to learn who she is as an individual.

Finally, B.B. calls her Mommy, and that's who she's going to be. But I think there's power in her not having a name until the point where we learn it.

 

[Matt Stone]

Great post, Jason. I definitely agree.

Man, was anyone else's theater packed? I saw The Punisher with some friends at 2:00 and tried to pick up some tickets afterward for KB2, but every damn show for the rest of the day was sold out. I had to go to a cinema across town to find a non-sold-out show (which was sold out by the time the film started).

I loved the film. I'm not sure if I like it more than Volume 1, but I had a blast. The Pai Mei stuff was hilarious, as was the Elle Driver stuff. Hell, all the stuff was hilarious. I'll have to give it a little more thought before I post a review...but what a classic film.

Also really great seeing Sid Haig