Incredible jetsetter that I am, I saw Kill Bill Vol. 1 in Vancouver, with Andy. The cinema was a bit small and the floor was ten times stickier than any I’ve seen in Australia, but the film was fantastic. Crazy, genre-crossing, lightning fast, cool, and with marvellous action sequences. Leaving the cinema afterwards reminded me in a vague way of seeing The Matrix for the first time, back in Melbourne with Andy.

Kill Bill Vol. 2 isn’t the same at all. While it’s possible it’s just because I didn’t see this one with Andy, I suspect the answer is more that it’s a completely different type of film. Vol. 1 was an action film. Vol. 2 seems to be more of a character study, telling us the story of Bill and the Bride. Which is quite interesting, and well-acted. David Carradine speaks slowly, but carries a big pipe. And he’s tremendous fun — even if in later scenes his character comes across as having the emotional maturity of a fourteen year old. This might well be on purpose, but it undermines the films for me a tad if they were really the story of some lame high-school break-up.

However, by and large, all the Bride/Bill sections are fabulous to watch. Tight dialogue, good direction, and a great little Tarantino waffle about Superman that is actually reasonably relevant to the story. Also interwoven is the story of the Bride’s tutelage under Pai Mei, a wise old martial arts master complete with superhuman reflexes and strength, corny camera zooms, and an eminently strokable beard. Well, perhaps a little too strokable. I confess to being a little bored of the same joke after the eighth time. Regardless of over-stroking, these scenes are also tremendous fun, and the closest we get to the delightfully crazy action of Vol. 1.

And you’ve got to take those bits when you can get them, as unfortunately, there’s this huge boring bit in the middle of the film. It’s about Bill’s brother Bud, who’s a bit of a loser. I say he’s a loser, because we spend about twenty minutes of screen time establishing the fact. Over and over again. See Bud walk. See Bud get yelled at by his boss. See Bud clean the toilet. Bud is Glum. Aw. The plotline of course gets somewhat more exciting when the Bride turns up, in the middle of her rampaging revenge, but Bud can even make her boring — in a scene too reminiscent of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode for me to provide an objective opinion on.

I should point out that I didn’t have a problem with Michael Madsen, who does a good job — but he just hasn’t had the luck of getting a fun and crazy character. Darryl Hannah has though — and what an evil, evil bitch she is. Delightfully fun to watch — and no matter what horrible end fate has in store for her, it hardly seems enough. I’m not spoiling anything by telling you that Elle Driver and the Bride fight, and it’s a goody.

However, while the film suffers from a few cases of the boring and pointless, as well as from a good surprise being wasted on last film’s cliffhanger, it is good, and surprisingly thoughtful, and regularly silly, and touching in a way I really didn’t expect. I’d love to see a version of volumes one and two together, some of the extraneous boredom snipped, and the crazy action scenes mixed neatly with the talkiness. Perhaps I’ll get it. I’m not shelling out my DVD money until I know for sure…

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This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Wednesday, June 16th, 2004. It concerns such pressing issues as . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.