Kill Bill. Sure dude, but who in the name of sweet Jesus is Bill? So far he has been lurking in the shadows pulling the strings in the background. Not for long though. The Bride has him on the menu and she’s coming to get him. Five months ago the bad boy of Hollywood Tarantino launched an emphatic return and now he’s back with the final installment KBV2
Director: Quentin Tarantino (QT)
Leading stars: David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen, Samuel Jackson, Uma Thurman (UT)
Duration: 130 min
Content: 18
The Making: What inspired the Kill Bill movies is clear by now. The production faced a few challenges though, most important of which, how to train a predominantly western cast in the ways of eastern combat. They decided to set up a training camp in Los Angeles where celebrated martial arts choreographer Yuen Yoo-Ping (Matrix) trained them in combat and wire work. Sony Chiba (Hattori Hanzo) taught the crew samurai sword fighting (Kenjutsu) and also I’m told lessons in Japanese. [The sword fighting was disgusting according to the Japanese bad boy Beat Takashi, but we’ll talk about him in a different review] UT followed the most rigorous training regime for obvious reasons and the results speak for themselves.
Having done all that, QT however, still felt that to get the aesthetics of a true kung fu film into Kill Bill one had to shoot a good portion of it in its ancestral home. Thus KBV1’s climatic fight was shot in the Bejing Film Studios. The creative inputs from Japanese, Chinese and western crews make this a formidable venture. KBV2 this time around chooses China and Texas as its playground and just like the prequel, KBV2 too turns out to be a classic case of East meets West.
The Plot: The plot is clear as daylight to anyone who watched KBV1. Even if you didn’t, let me clear up the suspense. Both KB movies are based on the basic premise of revenge. As simple as that! Funny as it may seem, everything that’s about to happen in both the films is pretty much clear after watching 10 min of the first film. No secrets remaining, the only question that remains for the audience is how well QT handles the film(s) itself. QT, of course, never gives a lot of importance to meaning and purpose and all that humanistic rubbish. As has been said before, for QT and his fans, his films are a bundle of cool moments and iconic looks. This works brilliantly for him most of the time and yet sometimes?
KBV2 opens with the lovely Bride addressing the camera directly and reminding viewers of how keen she is on putting Bill out of his misery. Then a black and white recap to KBV1, the wedding (or was it?) in the small El Paso chapel before the massacre takes place. The circumstances under which the massacre took place are underlined. The Bride then hunts down the remaining D(i)VAS who put her into the coma, dealing with them one by one before the final showdown with Bill. Alongside we are introduced to the unforgiving Chinese bearded monk Pai Mei (Gordon Liu), who instructs the Bride and has at some point trained the rest of the D(i)VAS too.
Highlights:
# The Bride’s ’’claustrophobic’’ encounter with the Sidewinder (Madsen).
# The showdown between Bride and the California Mountain Snake (Hannah)
# Bride’s training with Pai Mae. (Gordon Liu)
The Players: Hannah looks like the reincarnation of the famous B’wod vamp Lalita Pawaar, if you ignore the age factor. She is pretty much, well.. Evil. Madsen is much older now and seems to have put on quite a bit of weight, but that killer charm still weaves its magic. As far as Carradine goes, he is exceptionally cool. He delivers his performance with utmost conviction and panache. I sincerely hope this movie really puts him out on the map and goes a long way towards building his movie career. His touching and tense reunion with the bride before the El Paso massacre is a cinematographic treat, a moment where QT truly shines. UT, the Bride, is g-o-r-g-e-o-u-s. I think she has really grown in stature. Her feistiness, charm, style and deadly looks just bowled me over.
Analysis: KBV1 moved at an alarmingly frantic pace laying down thousands of lives to waste in its path. It was an unrelenting extravaganza of blood and gore. KBV2, on the other hand, is not as violent or visceral and strives to impart certain emotional depth to its characters. The relationships between characters are developed adding the much-needed weight to the film. Having said all that, QT still seems keen to have maximum fun with this flick. Weird color schemes, spoofy melodies, inspired looks. Its all there.
The regular zoom-ins and zoom-outs akin to those wonderful kung fu flicks of yesteryears, especially QT’s beloved Shaw brothers. This time around QT has considerably cut down on the violence quota. There are hardly any sword fights. In spite of all this it is obvious that at the end of the day the D(i)VAS and their sidekicks are just a bunch of baddies waiting to be cut down as he pleases. There is much more emphasis on dialogue in this flick compared to its predecessor.
The Verdict: What I’m gonna say here might come as a shock to many QT fans, but that’s how one of the most die-hard QT fans, yours truly, sees it. I think KBV2 was almost unnecessary. The full 247 minutes of the KB drama could have very well been compressed into a single film. If KBV1 was fast and stylish, KBV2 is equally obese. KBV2 contains moments (FAR too many for my liking), which serve absolutely no narrative purpose. I have no space to quote examples here but the film seems to drag hopelessly at times. I am willing to forgive QT that. I can understand that he was under pressure from Miramax to make it into 2 movies. Maybe for profit, maybe other reasons, we’ll never know. But there are scenes in the film where QT totally seems to have lost his way.
The Brides encounter with another killer and the whole drama about blue and pink stripes, Bill’s long and laborious take on comic book heroes and so forth.. In the former case, you begin to wonder. Is this QT ’’the savior of modern cinema’’, pop culture and retro, one of the wittiest filmmakers ever? Sadly, this effort disappointed me. Also KBV2 doesn’t ultimately succeed as a true revenge film but ends up being a gangster love story, one of the partners in which must die, because he wronged the other one more. Having said, that just like KBV1, KBV2 is not your day-to-day film.
The advertisements dub it as Furiously stylish, vividly imagined and breathtakingly audacious. And I agree that the film, for the most part, tries its best to live up to that promise.
Hence I definitely recommend it.
A piece of advice: Don’t expect too much and try and have as much fun as possible, just like QT.
Adios
© Vikas