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Reunited
Vol. 2 makes Kill Bill whole again
by Coury Turczyn
To recap our story from last fall, here’s a quick flashback...
It ended with a darkened screen and David Carradine’s craggy, creepy voiceover: “Does she know that her daughter is still alive?” Together, audiences around the world held a single thought foremost in their minds: “WTF?!” Thus, Kill Bill—the kung fu action movie cleaved in half by its maker in a fit of creative hubris—unleashed one of the great cop-out endings with “Vol. 1.” Not since the height of Republic serials has so much action led to so little pay-off.
But Miramax’s slight to the audience—making them pay full price for literally half a movie—was barely noted in the furor over Vol. 1’s graphic depictions of what happens when a samurai sword swings into someone’s neck. Long before the Guardians of All That is Decent had Janet Jackson’s semi-naked breast to gleefully condemn, they attempted to whip up a national outrage over the fact that Quentin Tarantino’s martial arts flick was actually... violent. Despite the fact that this violence was (for the most part) ridiculously cartoonish, many film critics agreed with the Vanquishers of Depravity and rushed to moral judgment. (For example, here’s the San Francisco Chronicle’s reasoned critique: “Let’s just call it pornography. And let’s just admit it’s indefensible.”)
Now, six months later...
We finally have the last half of Kill Bill in theaters, and can answer all the cliffhanger questions of 2003—not so much whether Uma Thurman’s “Bride” will wreak her vengeance (guess what: she does!), but whether Vol. 2 would really be worth the wait. Was there so much imperative stuff in Kill Bill that it couldn’t have possibly been edited down to single theatrical release? Do Volumes 1 and 2 stand on their own as great films? And is Kill Bill truly a sign of our society’s imminent descent into Satan’s lascivious lap?
The answer is “yes,” Vol. 2 is worth seeing... but “no” on the other questions. Miramax could’ve released an edited (if long) Kill Bill last year that would’ve been a fine piece of entertainment without compromising Tarantino’s vision (especially in this age of “director’s cut” DVDs). The halves don’t stand alone since, well, one is the beginning of a movie and the other is the ending. Kill Bill is no more a sign of the Apocalypse than a glance of a pierced nipple. It is, however, a really good big-budget take on the traditional Hong Kong action movie.
For those who skipped Vol. 1, the story is a simple one: Kill Bill’s main character, former assassin the Bride, wants revenge on those who have done her wrong. At her wedding rehearsal in deepest Texas, the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad slaughters all of her friends and her husband-to-be. She herself is left for dead by the group’s leader, Bill (Carradine), who places a bullet into her head shortly after she tells him that she’s carrying his baby. Four years later, she awakes from a coma and vows to take her vengeance. What follows is a cult-movie fan’s tribute to ‘70s karate movies, utilizing the actual actors, soundtrack music, and title cards, yet without the mockery of an out-and-out parody. It’s mixmaster filmmaking, with Tarantino as a cinema DJ sampling forgotten treasures and putting his own spin on them.
No doubt about it, Kill Bill is trash—but it’s genuine trash. These days, Hollywood has usurped B-movie plots and “elevated” them with A-list talent. But the result is never satisfying. By attempting to transform exploitation flicks into “quality” multiplex films, studio executives have released an unending stream of joyless, pointless serial-killer movies starring Ashley Judd. The only objective of a trashy movie should be to entertain and surprise audiences.
Tarantino, on the other hand, is in it only for the audience. “Art” is a label applied to his movies by critics or academics who have a hard time admitting that simple trash can be enjoyable. Sometimes a decapitation is just a decapitation, and that’s the case with Kill Bill. This can be both good and bad. While all of the elements of Volumes 1 and 2 individually sparkle, the story itself doesn’t quite hold things together. Perhaps it’s just because we were forced to watch Kill Bill in a divided state, but the Bride’s personal mission often doesn’t seem as compelling as the characters she comes across along the way. For instance, Gordon Liu as the Bride’s martial arts master Pai Mei pretty much steals the show in Vol. 2 with his traditional kung fu movie performance and fanciful costume.
For fans of karate cult movies, that’s but a quibble. Amazing action scenes, cool characters, and outrageous dialogue are the main requirements. As a whole, Kill Bill delivers those needs in abundance. But I’m afraid that as a stand-alone film, Vol. 2 still feels lacking... Here’s looking forward to that special-edition DVD set.
Coury Turczyn is the publisher of PopCult Magazine.
April 21, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 17
© 2004 Metro Pulse
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