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

James Bs review..........

http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/mo...ill_bill2.html

And from DH....

"DavisDVD reports that filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has some major plans for his latest opus, Kill Bill. While promoting the second volume of the series, opening theatrically on April 16th, Tarantino revealed that he plans to recut both films together for a special theatrical release later in the year.

"We did a special version [of Volume 1] for Japan that's only been shown in Japan and Hong Kong, and I kept the rights to that," Tarantino said. "I'll put the Japanese version together [with Volume 2] like I would if it was one complete movie, and then I'll release that throughout America and Europe in arthouse engagements."

Tarantino also promises more extensive DVD plans for the revenge films. "I'm going to do a special collector's edition of both of them once I'm finished with both of them," he said. Also in the talking phase, Tarantino is considering the possibility of releasing stand-alone supplemental discs. "One of the things that I saw that I liked... was what the American Pie guys did with their 'Beneath the Crust' documentaries. I want to do the same thing [for Kill Bill]."

Poland over at the Hot Button really lays it on KB2 today.

Lou,
I just read that. To be fair, he didn't like the first one much, but I give him the props for digging in on #2, in light of the overwhelming praise it's getting.

He certainly isn't gentle.

Take care,
Chuck

Sounds like sour grapes to me. I don't think I have seen any proof of critics giving a good review to a film just so the director does more work. His comments about Carradine may be right but then I have heard countless reviews saying the contrary, that he should get oscar consideration. Is there a mass critic conspiracy of Kung Fu fans to get Carradine more work that he just wasn't apart of? It sounds like he just wants to go against the grain and get noticed. Its easy to critisize a film that everyone loves because you get more attention for it. He didn't like the film, thats fine, opinions, I respect his opinion. What I don't care for is when people write reviews of films and don't even talk about the film for half of the review. Reminds me of a time when I read a Return of the King review and about 80% of it was the reviewer critisizing New Line and Jackson for releasing multiple versions of the film

Jon,
Dave doesn't seem the kind of critic to be contrary just to be contrary.

That said, I do believe he has a real hard spot with splitting one film into two for profit, and he has that first and foremost on his mind when he watches the film. I feel it might color his opinion. As I stated, he disliked the first movie was well. And I loved the first film, so I'll be seeing the second regardless.

But based on his comments (putting all the action in #1 to establish a fanbase), and James B's review mentioning what should have been culled, I wonder it DP isn't right about Miramax's plan. No matter. I do think this could have been a legendary 3 hour film. Maybe it will be in one of it's DVD iterations.

Take care,
Chuck

Well when I say contrary I guess I mean that a critic gets excited for a film and doesn't think its that good but then everyone else around him likes it and that makes him hate it even more. Like when I saw Donnie Darko I thought it was a pretty OK movie, nothing great. But all these people around me kept singing its praises like it was the best film of the last decade and that made me dislike the movie a little bit more. All the hype and reviews arond the Kill Bill franchise I'll bet affected his review in some way which turns into him critisizing other critics.

I think Poland's vehemence comes from two places - first of all, he is very pissed that QT and Miramax are taking us to the bank with two "volumes". It does smack of greed (or at least trying to best cash in on an overbudget film), and I see his problem. Didn't keep me from enjoying Vol. 1.

But, I think the other problem gnawing at Poland is that this FILM (that is, in one volume) should have been great. Like Chuck said, I think it would have been a LEGENDARY 3 hour vengeance/genre epic if the "volumes" had been combined and about an hour of garbage trimmed. I do believe him when he says he really wanted to like it. He's a big "Pulp Fiction" fan, and this film could have challenged PF as QT's best, if it had been one big badass.

I personally wouldn't have wanted anything in Vol.1 edited out, and I'm sure the same is true for Vol. 2, and it's LONGER than Vol.1 at over 2 hours...so we're actually talking about a 4 hour film when it's all stitched back together. NO WAY you can expect to release that and make any money, not even if it were called "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Kills Bill".

I think 4 hour films are for hard core fans (very small %) and for DVD (regular fans and everybody else)

-Dennis

If anything I think that Miramax took a risk. There was no guaruntee that people would show up for vol 1, I thought it was gonna flop. He seems mad after the fact that vol 1 made money. Yeah it sucks but I would rather have it this way then 2 hours on the cutting room floor.

Something kind of interesting, I was going through some of my old Entertainment Weekly mags and... what? No I don't subscribe, really I don't, it got delivered to my house by accident, yeah, yeah that's the ticket. Anywho, they did a story on Kill Bill Vol. 1 on there October 3, 2003 issue. Here is an interesting blurb in the article...




It doesn't really give any definite clarification as to who had the idea of splitting it up first. Tarantino, or Harvey? I just thought that is was an interesting blurb.

As for Inglorious Bastards ( I know it is off topic). It will be interesting to see if Harvey will greenlight a three picture deal for Tarantino, when they wanted to condense Lord of the Rings to one movie.

Exactly so, Quentin.

Off topic....

"As for Inglorious Bastards....."

Tarantino over writes everything. I think both Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown would be tighter films if they trimmed about 10 minutes of each,especially in the Bruce Willis story in PF.

Anyway, QT has already said he had to throw Bastards in a drawer and forget about it because he couldnt stop writting it.Hes said he wanted to write a War Epic, and ended up writting enough for 3 movies.

If Kill Bill had to be split up for time, I can only imagine what theyll do with his 300+ page Blastards script (that isnt even finished yet)

To the 2.4 of those who were asking for it here's my Kill Bill: Vol. 2 review.

Enjoy the movie, everyone!

Scott, nice review !I have 2 questions for you ,does this film start in the first 5 minutes with as big a bang as volume 1 ?Also my next question you might have to answer in spoiler tags, does the bride die ?

Ebert gave it 4 stars and said

"Of the original "Kill Bill," I wrote: "The movie is all storytelling and no story. The motivations have no psychological depth or resonance, but are simply plot markers. The characters consist of their characteristics." True, but one of the achievements of "Vol. 2" is that the story is filled in, the characters are developed, and they do begin to resonate, especially during the extraordinary final meeting between The Bride and Bill -- which consists not of nonstop action but of more hypnotic dialogue and ends in an event that is like a quiet, deadly punch line.

Put the two parts together, and Tarantino has made a masterful saga that celebrates the martial arts genre while kidding it, loving it, and transcending it. I confess I feared that "Vol. 2" would be like those sequels that lack the intensity of the original.

But this is all one film, and now that we see it whole, it's greater than its two parts; Tarantino remains the most brilliantly oddball filmmaker of his generation, and this is one of the best films of the year."


I can't wait to see it. I just watched vol 1 for the first time a couple of days ago and I've watched it two more times since.

Good review Scott. One really good movie packaged into 2 average/good movies depending on your personal preferences.

I'd love to see that dream cut of the 2 volumes into 1 movie.

Back from the first showing of the day, my butt was there at 11 AM. I agree with Scott W. that there's some stuff that could have been cut without losing much of anything, but I guess I didn't feel like there was as much of it as Scott did. The stuff with Budd at the bar/strip joint stands out as something that I wouldn't have missed, although it was somewhat entertaining. But there's not much stuff I would have cut, nor did I think there was in Vol. 1 either.

Anyway, on to some of my favorite details. The whole climax with The Bride, Bill, and the kid was really awesome, even better than I could have hoped for. I absolutely identified with a lot of what Bill was saying as he explained his actions to her. And all the re-union moments with Beatrix and B.B. were great, I was completely moved by that.

Several great touches in the final credits, which were very long, but well worth it. Bill's operational nickname (like Cottonmouth for O-Ren, Copperhead for Vernita) is revealed as "Snake Charmer," which certainly makes sense! And I was wondering what happened to Elle Driver--was she dead, just blinded with no eyes, what? When the names of the actors come up in the black-and-white part of the credits, over the image of Uma in the car, the other actors' names (Lucy, Vivica, Madsen) are crossed off as they come up, but Daryl Hannah gets a big question mark! So it really is a mystery. And I loved the last little bit with Uma's credit--aka The Bride, aka Beatrix Kiddo, aka Black Mamba, and...aka Mommy. Very nice touch.

Another funny bit was Budd saying, "She cut through 88 bodyguards with that sword?" and Bill answering, "there aren't really 88 of them, they just use that name because they think it sounds cool."

Yes, worth it. The best bit was David Carradine's credit as Bill. While everyone else's credit showed nice flashback moments, Carradine's credit showed only his corpse!

And wow, what a way for Bill to "exit stage left...."

8^B