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Kill Bill: Volume 2

2004 film by Quentin Tarantino

Kill Bill: Volume 2 is the 2004 follow-up film to Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume 1 in which The Bride continues her quest of vengeance against her former boss and lover Bill, the reclusive bouncer Budd, and the treacherous, one-eyed Elle.

Do you find me sadistic? You know, Kiddo, I'd like to believe that you're aware enough, even now, to know that there's nothing sadistic in my actions. This moment, this is me at my most … masochistic.
Directed by Quentin Tarantino. Written by Quentin Tarantino.
The bride is back for the final cut (taglines)

Bill

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Once upon a time in China, some believe around the year one double-ought three, head priest of the White Lotus Clan, Pai Mei, was walking down the road – contemplating whatever it is that a man of Pai Mei's nearly infinite powers would contemplate - which is another way of saying "who knows?" - when a Shaolin monk appeared on the road, traveling in the opposite direction. As the monk and the priest crossed paths, Pai Mei, in a practically unfathomable display of generosity, gave the monk the slightest of nods. The nod was not returned. Now, was it the intention of the Shaolin monk to insult Pai Mei? Or did he just fail to see the generous social gesture? The motives of the monk remain unknown. What is known were the consequences. The next morning Pai Mei appeared at the Shaolin Temple and demanded of the Temple's head abbot that he offer Pai Mei his neck to repay the insult. The Abbot at first tried to console Pai Mei, only to find Pai Mei was … inconsolable. So began the massacre of the Shaolin Temple and all sixty of the monks inside at the fists of the White Lotus. And so began the legend of Pai Mei's five-point-palm-exploding-heart technique.
  • Once upon a time in China, some believe around the year one double-ought three, head priest of the White Lotus Clan, Pai Mei, was walking down the road – contemplating whatever it is that a man of Pai Mei's nearly infinite powers would contemplate - which is another way of saying "who knows?" - when a Shaolin monk appeared on the road, traveling in the opposite direction. As the monk and the priest crossed paths, Pai Mei, in a practically unfathomable display of generosity, gave the monk the slightest of nods. The nod was not returned.

    Now, was it the intention of the Shaolin monk to insult Pai Mei? Or did he just fail to see the generous social gesture? The motives of the monk remain unknown. What is known were the consequences.

    The next morning Pai Mei appeared at the Shaolin Temple and demanded of the Temple's head abbot that he offer Pai Mei his neck to repay the insult. The Abbot at first tried to console Pai Mei, only to find Pai Mei was … inconsolable.

    So began the massacre of the Shaolin Temple and all sixty of the monks inside at the fists of the White Lotus. And so began the legend of Pai Mei's five-point-palm-exploding-heart technique.

  • Is that not the perfect visual image of life and death? A fish flapping on the carpet, and a fish not flapping on the carpet.
  • I suppose the traditional way to conclude this is we cross Hanzo swords. Well, it just so happens this hacienda comes with its very own private beach. And this private beach just so happens to look particularly beautiful bathed in moonlight. And there just so happens to be a full moon out tonight. So, swordfighter, if you want to sword fight, that's where I suggest. But if you wanna be old school about it, and you know I'm all about old school, then we can wait till dawn, and slice each other up at sunrise, like a couple of real-life, honest-to-goodness samurais.
  • I'm a killer! I'm a murdering bastard, you know that. And there are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard.

The Bride/Beatrix Kiddo

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Looked dead, didn't I? Well, I wasn't, but it wasn't for lack of trying I can tell you that. Actually, Bill's last bullet put me in a coma, a coma I was to lie in for four years. When I woke up, I went on what the movie advertisements referred to as a roaring rampage of revenge. I roared and I rampaged and I got bloody satisfaction. I've killed a hell of a lot of people to get to this point. But I have only one more. The last one, the one I'm driving to right now. The only one left. And when I arrive at my destination, I am gonna kill Bill.
  • Looked dead, didn't I? Well, I wasn't, but it wasn't for lack of trying I can tell you that. Actually, Bill's last bullet put me in a coma, a coma I was to lie in for four years. When I woke up, I went on what the movie advertisements referred to as a roaring rampage of revenge. I roared and I rampaged and I got bloody satisfaction. I've killed a hell of a lot of people to get to this point. But I have only one more. The last one, the one I'm driving to right now. The only one left. And when I arrive at my destination, I am gonna kill Bill.
  • My Pussy Wagon died on me.

Elle Driver

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You know, before I picked that little fella up, I looked it up on the internet. Fascinating creature, the black mamba. Listen to this. "In Africa, the saying goes in the bush an elephant can kill you, a leopard can kill you, and a black mamba can kill you. But only with the mamba—and this is true in Africa since the dawn of time—is death sure. Hence its handle: Death Incarnate." Pretty cool, huh? "Its neurotoxic venom is one of nature's most effective poisons, acting on the nervous system, causing paralysis. The venom of a black mamba can kill a human in four hours if, say, bitten on the ankle or the thumb. However, a bite to the face or torso can bring death from paralysis within 20 minutes." Now, you should listen to this, 'cause this concerns you. "The amount of venom that can be delivered from a single bite can be gargantuan." You know, I've always liked that word, gargantuan, and I so rarely have an opportunity to use it in a sentence. "If not treated quickly with anti-venom, 10 to 15 milligrams can be fatal to human beings. However, the black mamba can deliver as much as 100 to 400 milligrams of venom from a single bite."
  • [lighting up a cigarette after Budd has collapsed from a black mamba bite] I'm sorry, Budd. That was rude of me, wasn't it? Budd, I'd like you to meet my friend, the black mamba. Black mamba, this is Budd. You know, before I picked that little fella up, I looked it up on the internet. Fascinating creature, the black mamba. Listen to this. [reads from a notepad] "In Africa, the saying goes, 'In the bush an elephant can kill you, a leopard can kill you, and a black mamba can kill you. But only with the mamba' — and this is true in Africa since the dawn of time — 'is death sure. Hence its handle: Death Incarnate.'" Pretty cool, huh? "Its neurotoxic venom is one of nature's most effective poisons, acting on the nervous system, causing paralysis. The venom of a black mamba can kill a human in four hours if, say, bitten on the ankle or the thumb. However, a bite to the face or torso can bring death from paralysis within 20 minutes." Now, you should listen to this, 'cause this concerns you. "The amount of venom that can be delivered from a single bite can be gargantuan." You know, I've always liked that word "gargantuan," and I so rarely have an opportunity to use it in a sentence. "If not treated quickly with anti-venom, 10 to 15 milligrams can be fatal to human beings. However, the black mamba can deliver as much as 100 to 400 milligrams of venom from a single bite." [puts out her cigarette and addresses Budd] Now in these last agonizing minutes of life you have left, let me answer the question you asked earlier more thoroughly. Right at this moment, the biggest "R" I feel is Regret. Regret that maybe the greatest warrior I have ever known met her end at the hands of a bushwhackin', scrub, alky piece of shit like you. That woman deserved better.
  • [on the phone with Bill] Let me put it this way: if you ever start feeling sentimental, go to Barstow, California. When you get here, walk into a florist and buy a bunch of flowers. Then you take those flowers to Huntington Cemetery on Fuller and Guadalupe, look for the headstone marked Paula Schultz, then lay them on the grave. Because you will be standing at the final resting place of Beatrix Kiddo.

Dialogue

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Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is there's the superhero and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears – the glasses, the business suit – that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He's weak, he's unsure of himself, he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race. Sort of like Beatrix Kiddo and Mrs. Tommy Plympton.
Bill: Do you find me sadistic? You know, Kiddo, I'd like to believe that you're aware enough, even now, to know that there's nothing sadistic in my actions. This moment, this is me at my most … masochistic.
The Bride: Bill, it's your bab–
[Bill shoots The Bride]
Budd: You're telling me she cut her way through eighty-eight bodyguards before she got to O-Ren?
Bill: Nah, there weren't really eighty-eight of them. They just called themselves "The Crazy 88".
Budd: How come?
Bill: I don't know, I guess they thought it sounded cool. Anyhow, they all fell under her Hanzo sword.
Budd: She's got a Hanzo sword?
Bill: He made one for her.
Budd: Didn't he swear a blood oath to never make another sword?
Bill: It would appear he has broken it.
Budd: Them Japs sure know how to hold a grudge, don't they? [laughs] Or maybe … you just tend to bring that out in people. […]
Bill: I know this is a ridiculous question before I ask it, but you haven't by chance kept up with your sword play?
Budd:[shakes his head] I...umm... I pawned that years ago.
Bill: You hocked a Hattori Hanzo sword!
Budd: Yeah.
Bill: It was priceless.
Budd:[chuckles] Well not in El Paso, it ain't. In El Paso, I got me $250 for it. I'm a bouncer in a titty bar, Bill. If she wants to fight with me, all she has to do is come down to the club and start some shit and we'll be in a fight.
Bill: I know we haven't spoken in some time, and the last time we spoke wasn't the most pleasant. But you've got to get over being mad at me and start becoming afraid of Beatrix, because she is coming, and she's coming to kill you. And unless you accept my assistance, I have no doubt she will succeed.
Budd: [stares hard at Bill] I don't dodge guilt, and I don't jew out of paying my comeuppance.
Bill: Can't we just forget the past?
Budd: That woman deserves her revenge, and we deserve to die. [considers] But then again, so does she. So I guess we'll just see … won't we?
Elle Driver: [into phone] Bill?
Budd: [into phone] Wrong brother, you hateful bitch.
Elle Driver: Budd?
Budd: Bingo!
Elle Driver: And to what do I owe this dubious pleasure?
Budd: I just caught me the cowgirl that ain't never been caught.
Elle Driver: Did you kill her?
Budd: Well, not yet I ain't. I shot her full of rock salt. She's so gentle right now, I could perform a coup de grâce with a rock. Anyhow, guess what I'm holding in my hand right now.
Elle Driver: What?
Budd: A brand spanking new Hattori Hanzo sword. And I'm here to tell you, Elle, that's what I call sharp.
Elle Driver: How much?
Budd: Oh, that's hard to say, being that it's priceless and all.
Elle Driver: What's the terms?
Budd: You get your bony ass down here first thing in the morning, with a million dollars in folding cash, and I'll give you the greatest sword ever made by a man. How do you like the sound of that?
Elle Driver: Sounds like we got a deal. One condition.
Budd: What?
Elle Driver: She must suffer to her last breath.
Budd: [laughs] Well, that, Elle darling, I can pretty much damn well guarantee.
Elle Driver: Then I'll see you in the morning … millionaire.
Bill: [coming down the stairs after talking to Pai Mei] He'll accept you as his student.
The Bride: What happened to you?
Bill: [who has a bruise] Nothing.
The Bride: Get in a fight?
Bill: Friendly contest.
The Bride: Why did he accept me?
Bill: Because he's a very, very, very old man, and like all rotten bastards, when they become old, they get lonely. Which has no effect on their dispositions, but it does teach them the value of company.
[He throws her the baggage]
Bill: Well, just seeing those steps again makes me ache. You're gonna have a lot of fun carrying buckets of water up and down that fucker.
The Bride: When will I see you again?
Bill: That's the name of my favorite soul song of the seventies.
The Bride: What?
Bill: Nothing. When he tells me you're done.
The Bride: When do you think that might be?
Bill: That, my dearest, depends entirely on you. Now, remember: no sarcasm, no backtalk. At least not for the first year or so. You're gonna have to let him warm up to you. He hates Caucasians, despises Americans, and has nothing but contempt for women, so in your case … it might take a little while. Adiós.
The Bride: Master …
Pai Mei: Your Mandarin is lousy. It causes my ears great discomfort. You bray like an ass! You are not to speak unless spoken to. Is it too much to hope … you understand Cantonese?
The Bride: I speak Japanese very well …
Pai Mei: I didn't ask if you speak Japanese … I asked if you understand Cantonese?
The Bride: A little.
Pai Mei: You are here to learn the mysteries of Kung Fu, not linguistics. If you can't understand me, I will communicate with you like I would a dog! When I yell, when I point, when I beat you with my stick! [strokes his beard] Bill is your master, is he not?
The Bride: Yes, he is.
Pai Mei: Your master tells me … you're not entirely unschooled. What training do you possess?
The Bride: I am proficient in Tiger-Crane Style, and I am more than proficient in the exquisite art of the Samurai sword.
Pai Mei: Hmph! The exquisite art of the Samurai sword. Don't make me laugh! Your so-called exquisite art is only fit for … Japanese fatheads! [laughs] Your anger amuses me. Do you believe you are my match?
The Bride: No.
Pai Mei: Are you aware I kill at will?
The Bride: Yes.
Pai Mei: Is it your wish to die?
The Bride: No!
Pai Mei: [laughs] Then you must be stupid … so stupid! Rise, and let me look at your ridiculous face. Rise. So, my pathetic friend … is there anything that you can do well? What's the matter? Cat got your tongue? Oh yes, you speak Japanese. [yells] I despise the goddamn Japs!
Budd: So, which "R" you filled with?
Elle Driver: What?
Budd: They say the number one killer of old people is retirement. People got a job to do, they tend to live a little bit longer so they can do it. I've always figured that warriors and their enemies share the same relationship. So, now that you're not gonna have to face your enemy no more on the battlefield, which "R" you filled with? Relief … or regret?
Elle Driver: A little bit of both.
Budd: Horseshit. I'm sure you do feel a little bit of both. But I know damn well that you feel one more than you feel the other. And the question was, which one is it?
Elle Driver: [pause] Regret.
[Beatrix finds a Hattori Hanzo sword in set of Budd's golf club. She grabs it and partially unsheathes it.]
The Bride: To my brother, Budd, the only man I ever loved. Bill.
[Elle unsheathes The Bride's sword and is shocked to see her with a Hattori Hanzo sword.]
Elle Driver: What's that?
The Bride: Budd's Hanzo sword.
Elle Driver: He said, he pawned it.
The Bride: Guess that makes him a liar now, don't it. Elle?
Elle Driver: Bea.
The Bride: There's something I'm curious about, just between us girls. What did you say to Pai Mei to make him snatch out your eye?
[A flashback reveals Elle getting her left eye plucked out by Pai Mei as her punishment for her insolence in insulting him. She is seen screaming and covering her empty left eye socket.]
Elle Driver: I called him a miserable, old fool.
The Bride: Ooh, bad idea.
Elle Driver: You know what I did? I killed that miserable, old fool.
[The Bride is shocked as another flashback occurred with Pai Mei choking on the fish heads containing poison in them.]
Elle Driver: How do you like the fish heads you miserable, old fool? [Narrating] I poisoned his fish heads.
Pai Mei:(in Cantonese) Elle, you treacherous dog, I gave you my word.
Elle Driver: And I told him, "To me the word of an old fool like you is worth less than nothing."
[Pai Mei dies, the flashback ends and Elle laughs evilly.]
Elle Driver: That's right! I killed your master. And now I'm going to kill you too -- with your own sword, no less. Which, in the very immediate future, will become...my sword.
The Bride: Bitch. You don't have a future.
Esteban Vihaio: Being a fool for a woman such as yourself … is only the right thing to do. What were we talking about?
The Bride: Bill. Where's Bill?
Esteban Vihaio: Where's Bill? Yeah, hm … Bill is on the Villa Quatro, on the road to Salina. I will draw you a map. Bill is like a son to me. Do you know why I help you?
The Bride: No.
Esteban Vihaio: Because he would want me to.
The Bride: Now, that I don't believe.
Esteban Vihaio: Ah! How else is he going to see you again?
Bill: Mommy is still angry at Daddy.
B.B.: Why?
Bill: Well, sweetie, I love Mommy, but I did to Mommy what you did to Emilio.
B.B.: You stomped on Mommy?
Bill: Worse. I shot Mommy. Not pretend shoot, like we were just doing. I shot her for real.
B.B.: Why? Did you want to see what would happen?
Bill: No, I knew what would happen to Mommy if I shot her. What I didn't know is, when I shot Mommy, what would happen to me.
B.B.: What happened?
Bill: I was very sad. And that was when I learned, some things, once you do, they can never be undone.
Bill: I was just admiring your sword. Quite a piece of work. Speaking of which, how is Hanzo-san?
The Bride: He's good.
Bill: Has his sushi gotten any better?
[The Bride shakes her head]
Bill: You know, I couldn't believe it. You got him to make you a sword.
The Bride: It was easy. I just dropped your name, Bill.
Bill: [chuckles] That'd do it.
Bill: Now, when it comes to you, and us, I have a few unanswered questions. So, before this tale of bloody revenge reaches its climax, I'm going to ask you some questions, and I want you to tell me the truth. However, therein lies the dilemma. Because, when it comes to the subject of me, I believe you are truly and utterly incapable of telling the truth – especially to me, and least of all to yourself. And, when it comes to the subject of me, I am truly and utterly incapable of believing anything you say.
The Bride: How do you suppose we solve this dilemma?
Bill: Well! It just so happens I have a solution.
[He shoots The Bride with a dart filled with Truth Serum]
Bill: As you know, I'm quite keen on comic books. Especially the ones about superheroes. I find the whole mythology surrounding superheroes fascinating. Take my favorite superhero, Superman. Not a great comic book. Not particularly well drawn. But the mythology … the mythology is not only great, it's unique.
The Bride: [who still has a dart in her leg] How long does this shit take to go into effect?!
Bill: About two minutes, just long enough for me to finish my point. Now, a staple of the superhero mythology is there's the superhero and there's the alter ego. Batman is actually Bruce Wayne, Spider-Man is actually Peter Parker. When that character wakes up in the morning, he's Peter Parker. He has to put on a costume to become Spider-Man. And it is in that characteristic Superman stands alone. Superman didn't become Superman. Superman was born Superman. When Superman wakes up in the morning, he's Superman. His alter ego is Clark Kent. His outfit with the big red "S", that's the blanket he was wrapped in as a baby when the Kents found him. Those are his clothes. What Kent wears – the glasses, the business suit – that's the costume. That's the costume Superman wears to blend in with us. Clark Kent is how Superman views us. And what are the characteristics of Clark Kent? He's weak, he's unsure of himself, he's a coward. Clark Kent is Superman's critique on the whole human race. Sort of like Beatrix Kiddo and Mrs. Tommy Plympton.
The Bride: Aso. The point emerges.
Bill: You would've worn the costume of Arlene Plympton. But you were born Beatrix Kiddo. And every morning when you woke up, you'd still be Beatrix Kiddo. Oh, you can take the needle out.
The Bride: [does so] Are you calling me a superhero?
Bill: I'm calling you a killer! A natural born killer. You always have been, and you always will be. Moving to El Paso, working in a used record store, going to the movies with Tommy, clipping coupons. That's you … trying to disguise yourself as a worker bee. That's you trying to blend in with the hive. But you're not a worker bee. You're a renegade killer bee. And no matter how much beer you drank or barbecue you ate or how fat your ass got, nothing in the world would ever change that.
The Bride: You and I have unfinished business.
Bill: Baby, you ain't kidding.
Bill: Pai Mei taught you the five-point-palm-exploding-heart technique?
The Bride: Of course he did.
Bill: Why didn't you tell me?
The Bride: I don't know … because I'm a bad person.
Bill: No. You're not a bad person. You're a terrific person. You're my favorite person. But every once in a while, you can be a real cunt.
[The Bride laughs]
Bill: How do I look?
The Bride: You look ready.
[Gets up, turns, takes five steps and falls dead]

Taglines

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  • Revenge is a dish best served cold.
  • The bride is back for the final cut
  • Kill is love.
  • Back with a vengeance.
  • The whole thrilling tale is revealed.

About Kill Bill: Volume 2

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All of the director's musical, film and comic-book loves are on display; he gives much play to the grungy martial-arts melodrama Five Fingers of Death, evoking its use of Quincy Jones's Ironside theme and plucking several of its plot devices. As befits that kind of density, there are more entrances, back stories and origins in Vol. 2 than in the first hundred issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, Leone's Man With No Name trilogy and all the Shogun Assassin movies combined.
But unlike the 100-meter-high hurdles of Vol. 1, Vol. 2 feels like a cross-country run, with hills and long stretches of flatland, as it settles into its casual, carnage-laden pace. It has the wily, extended cadences of Leone's movies, with the first 15 or so minutes filmed in loamy, luscious black-and-white and set in what could only be called exploitation-picture Texas. (What the master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro does with shadow, the director of photography Robert Richardson does with light, painting even the interiors with warm, bright flares. His harsh but loving glow permeates this adventure and, like Mr. Storaro's, his signature is instantly recognizable.) ~ Evlis Mitchell
  • Once again, with an insouciant blaze of energy and style, Tarantino has seen off the imitators, detractors and condescenders. True, the Kill Bill films do not have the dialogue riffs of his earlier work co-scripted with Roger Avary, apart from one small verbal arabesque here about Superman and Clark Kent. But as any screenplay handbook will tell you, writing for motion pictures is not about penning lines of dialogue; it is about fashioning a narrative and constructing an event. Kill Bill just seems to bypass the rational filters which impede the respectable films and attacks the endorphin centres of the brain.
  • O: Do you think of Bill as a sympathetic character?
DC: Performing is one thing. You never see him kill anyone. That's a rumor. What you see is a personality, is a point in the road, is just me hanging out, talking, or romancing a woman, playing with a kid, making sandwiches. That was a brilliant scene, and it was not in the original script. It was supposed to be a banquet, with tuxedos and servants and everything else, bodyguards all around the room. When we finally get down to it, my only bodyguard was a 5-year-old girl with a plastic gun.
O: In a weird sort of way, your character shooting The Bride is almost a crime of passion. There's an element of tenderness to it.
DC: She's cheating on him with another guy, so he shoots her and the other guy. That's typical, really. He is an internationally known assassin. In the script, it says that he's the guy for whom the term "hit man" was invented.
Once he shoots The Bride, it immediately changes his life. He has to look at his actions, and he realizes for the first time in his life that he has to make a moral decision about something he's already done, but it's too late to change. Destiny miraculously gives him the chance. He just takes care of the child and waits for her to come back to him. I think he knows that she's going to come back pretty fucking pissed off, and she's going to lunge at him. But he can accept that, because of the warrior's code and everything. Though she deserved it, he owes her. I think his hope is that she will come back and take the child away from him and go on to have the happy life that she had hoped to have just before he shot her in the head. But he's not going to give that to her.
There's a thing about the story of Theseus. He and his friend are going around being pirates for a while. Theseus is the guy in the story of the minotaur, who became King of Athens. While he was screwing around with his buddy in his ship, he comes upon the Amazons, and he falls desperately in love with the King of the Amazons. She's a woman, but she's the King of the Amazons. But she can only give herself to a man who bests her in hand-to-hand combat. So he has to fight her and make sure that he doesn't hurt her in order to win, because she's trying to kill him. That's sort of the situation with Bill. He's ready to let her win. In fact, he wants her to, but his ethic, he's the animal and she's the man. It's complicated, but that's Quentin. Quentin is so fucking complicated, it's almost silly.
O: Do you think Bill has come to terms with the idea of being killed?
DC: Yeah. There used to be a line in it about that, but Quentin cut it out. He wants to leave some of the mystery of it. He wants the audience to be talking about why he does this forever. A playwright once told me, "Here's what you do. You take situations and you build a perfect globe with the story. The problem is that nobody gets to see inside it. So you cut it in half and you show half the story, then let them make up the rest of it." Because otherwise, it's opaque. If you tell them everything, they'll have nothing to think about.
  • Q: There is a lot of introspection, a lot of character development in VOLUME 2. Tarantino has always described Bill as a pimp of death. But there seems to be more to the man.
A: Yeah, quite a bit. As a professional, that's what he does. He finds these young girls and turns them into assassins, controls them, and he likes to do it with beautiful women. And of course he gives his little brother a job. You gotta do that. And Michael Madsen, isn't he remarkable in this picture?... I've fallen in love with that guy. I'm starting to babble...
  • The movie is a distillation of the countless grind house kung-fu movies Tarantino has absorbed, and which he loves beyond all reason. Web sites have already enumerated his inspirations—how a sunset came from this, and a sword from that. He isn't copying, but transcending; there's a kind of urgency in the film, as if he's turning up the heat under his memories.
  • The movie opens with a long closeup of The Bride (Uma Thurman) behind the wheel of a car, explaining her mission, which is to kill Bill. There is a lot of explaining in the film; Tarantino writes dialogue with quirky details that suggest the obsessions of his people. That's one of the ways he gives his movies a mythical quality; the characters don't talk in mundane everyday dialogue, but in a kind of elevated geekspeak that lovingly burnishes the details of their legends, methods, beliefs and arcane lore.
  • The training with Pai Mei, we learn, prepared The Bride to begin her career with Bill ("jetting around the world making vast sums of money and killing for hire"), and is inserted in this movie at a time and place that makes it function like a classic cliffhanger. In setting up this scene, Tarantino once again pauses for colorful dialogue; The Bride is informed by Bill that Pai Mei hates women, whites and Americans, and much of his legend is described. Such speeches function in Tarantino not as long-winded detours, but as a way of setting up characters and situations with dimensions it would be difficult to establish dramatically.
  • The fight with Elle Driver is a virtuoso celebration of fight choreography; although we are aware that all is not as it seems in movie action sequences, Thurman and Hannah must have trained long and hard to even seem to do what they do. Their battle takes place inside Budd's trailer home, which is pretty much demolished in the process, and provides a contrast to the elegant nightclub setting of the fight with O-Ren Ishii; it ends in a squishy way that would be unsettling in another kind of movie, but here all the action is so ironically heightened that we may cringe and laugh at the same time.
  • 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 "Volume 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.
  • Q: What side of Elle do we see in VOLUME 2?
A: Well, you just get to know her. In VOLUME 1 you only see her in one scene which is in the hospital, and you know she's trying to put The Bride out of her coma and out of her misery, put her to sleep. But in this one you understand a little bit more about her relationship to Bill, how she feels about Budd, how she feels about The Bride. Basically, she doesn't really have very many good feelings for anyone, even the man she supposedly loves. Even her master... I don't want to tell you too much...
Q: And there is a great rivalry between Elle and The Bride that's played out in a small trailer. It does seem like an unlikely location for the showdown between these Amazon blondes.
A: It did seem like an unlikely location because originally it wasn't meant to be in a trailer, it was meant to be outside in the desert, and we were going to have this much more classic spaghetti western... a duel where we turn back to back and take paces away from each other, turn around and choose a stance and do the whole thing, but when Quentin decided to place the whole fight inside the trailer, I was a little bit worried at first, I thought he was gonna cut me off because he had spent so much time in China in The House of Blue Leaves and he had run over schedule and wanted to cut it short, but it turned out that he just wanted a complete mess of a bar room brawl, a sort of Godzilla gone wrong, two cats in a tin can kind of situation; and then that's what it turned out to be, and I think ultimately it was probably the funnier and more entertaining decision.
  • A: Actually, I do use the word 'gargantuan,' I like the word 'gargantuan,' it's a fun word to say.
Q: Since the movie or before?
A: I think I've said it a few times. I think that Quentin actually threw it in there because one of the references that he gave us for our fight sequence was a movie called The War of the Gargantuas.
  • Q: That trailer of Budd's would seem like an unlikely location for a couple of monumental showdowns.
A: Yeah, it does seem very unlikely, but that came out of the mind of Quentin Tarantino. Where he came up with that I have no idea. But I'm telling you, when you walked into that trailer it was like someone really lived there. I mean if you would reach down and open a drawer, the drawer was all filled with stuff that Budd would have. And you never see that on camera. Nobody's filming what's in the drawer. You never see it in the movie. It's just details like that, that they went to that length to create those details. I could have lived in there. All Budd's clothes are in the closet; there was a bed in there with blankets and the bathroom worked; there was a refrigerator and records. When you walked in there, someone lived there. But that's the environment that he created and that's the environment he creates for the actors. It's incredible, it's kind of unsettling sometimes, it's neurotic. You're like, oh my God, why don't I just stay here? I don't want to go back to the hotel.
  • The Mexican and American Southwest settings and use of material from Ennio Morricone’s scores rep the obvious ways in which “Vol. 2” derives from Sergio Leone, but equally important is the influence of the Italian master in pushing Tarantino to expand what could have been perfunctory scenes into hugely elaborated set-pieces; latter detailing is what gives “Vol. 2” its special charge for film buffs or anyone who keys into what Tarantino is up to.
  • All of the director's musical, film and comic-book loves are on display; he gives much play to the grungy martial-arts melodrama Five Fingers of Death, evoking its use of Quincy Jones's Ironside theme and plucking several of its plot devices. As befits that kind of density, there are more entrances, back stories and origins in Vol. 2 than in the first hundred issues of The Amazing Spider-Man, Leone's Man With No Name trilogy and all the Shogun Assassin movies combined.
    But unlike the 100-meter-high hurdles of Vol. 1, Vol. 2 feels like a cross-country run, with hills and long stretches of flatland, as it settles into its casual, carnage-laden pace. It has the wily, extended cadences of Leone's movies, with the first 15 or so minutes filmed in loamy, luscious black-and-white and set in what could only be called exploitation-picture Texas. (What the master cinematographer Vittorio Storaro does with shadow, the director of photography Robert Richardson does with light, painting even the interiors with warm, bright flares. His harsh but loving glow permeates this adventure and, like Mr. Storaro's, his signature is instantly recognizable.)
  • Vol. 2 works like a multimedia mix tape, and Mr. Tarantino rides the tempo of his films like a D.J., abetted in the wheel-in-a-wheel trickiness by the deft fingers of his editor Sally Menke. When one of the characters in Vol. 2 makes an offhand remark about undisputed truth, Mr. Tarantino's actual forebear is clear: the R&B producer Norman Whitfield.
    Mr. Whitfield was the link between Detroit slick (Motown) and funk (Parliament/Funkadelic). While adding a few licks of his own, Mr. Tarantino, like Mr. Whitfield, gets goose flesh from the evil that lurks within.
  • Maybe it is progress of a sort—moral if not cinematic—that in KB2 Tarantino largely eschews the hyper-violence that characterized its predecessor. But rather than replace it with, say, clever dialogue, imaginative plotting, or meaningful Character development, he's substituted the cinematic equivalent of dead air. He intends this to be a nod to the stately, deliberate style of Leone, but it's unaccompanied by any of the elements that made that style great—the use of landscape (both facial and geological), the musical crescendos (Tarantino borrows some Morricone tunes in KB2, but seems afraid of using them in anything other than a minor key), the rhythmic interaction of lengthy buildup followed by momentary violence. (Quentin prefers lengthy buildup followed by lengthy violence; it's not the same thing.) Leone was by nature a mythologizer; Tarantino is by nature a demythologizer. His killer-heroes are not silent, stoic types. They're video store clerks with guns, babblers on every subject from Madonna to French cheeseburgers.
  • The audience has expanded. We have more women this time than we had on Volume 1. There was less violence in this one, and that came out in the publicity and the reviews, which drove more women into the theater. And the movie really stands by itself; you don't have to see Volume 1 to enjoy Volume 2.
  • Vol. 2 makes a compelling case for a more serious interpretation of Tarantino’s talent, and the film justifies the otherwise vapid (and very cool) Vol. 1, which should never have existed as a separate film. The commercial logistics of a four-hour movie aside, Kill Bill would have worked best as a single entity, the second half imbuing the first with a certain weight. Indeed, Tarantino’s lip fetish is itself enough to empower Vol. 2 with far more powerful scenes than Vol. 1: when a tied-up Beatrix must wrap her lips around a flashlight, the degrading image is worth more than any moment in the first volume. Here Tarantino employs the same technique as in Reservoir Dogs, where he subtly focused on his characters’ ears before slicing one off in the end. It’s a cruel trick, but a crafty one—and proof that Tarantino plays more than lip service to the art of film.
  • Q: Uma, how was it to shoot the coffin scene, as a claustrophobic person myself it seemed very scary to watch?
A: Well being buried alive should be scary for anyone whether or not you are claustrophobic, [crowd laughs] but saying that I am claustrophobic and we pretty much did everything that could be done with a girl, a coffin and soil. The sound effects are very good and that added to the tension of the moment, other than that it was just another happy day at the office.
  • We try to appeal to her maternal instincts, and suggest that the ending, in which Beatrix is reunited with her four-year-old daughter, makes the film a kind of love story, a family romance. Did she like that about it? "Yeah, I think it takes a tremendous turn where the character is thrown back into life, because if that hadn't happened she might as well have given herself a five-point exploding palm and died.
  • Uma Thurman doesn’t get nailed to a cross in Kill Bill Vol. 2, but writer-director Quentin Tarantino runs her battered character, called the Bride, through a gauntlet that is gory enough to make Mel Gibson flinch. No matter. You’ll thrill to the action, savor the tasty dialogue and laugh like bloody hell. Tarantino has done more than continue the revenge tale he started in Vol. 1 — the Bride wants payback after being left for dead in her wedding dress by Bill (David Carradine) and four other killers in his Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, of which she was once queen bee. Vol. 2 ties the events of Vol. 1 together, just like The Return of the King did for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. You watch and think, “I get it now.” Tarantino has made the hottest mix tape in the history of cinema. Like a master DJ, he samples every lowdown, B-movie genre that formed him, from kung fu and samurai flicks to anime and spaghetti westerns, then filters it through his imagination to create something totally Tarantino: a blast of pure movie oxygen.

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