| Kill Bill: Volume 2 | |
|---|---|
Theatrical poster |
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| Directed by | Quentin Tarantino |
| Produced by | Lawrence Bender |
| Written by | Quentin Tarantino |
| Starring | Uma Thurman David Carradine Lucy Liu Vivica A. Fox Michael Madsen Daryl Hannah Gordon Liu |
| Music by | Robert Rodriguez The RZA |
| Cinematography | Robert Richardson |
| Editing by | Sally Menke |
| Studio | Miramax Films A Band Apart |
| Distributed by | Miramax Films |
| Release date(s) | April 16, 2004 |
| Running time | 136 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $55 million (shared with Volume 1) |
| Box office | $152,159,461 |
Kill Bill: Volume 2 is a 2004 action thriller film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is the second of two volumes that were theatrically released several months apart. Kill Bill was originally scheduled for a single theatrical release, but with a running time of over four hours, it was separated into two volumes. Kill Bill Volume 1 was released in late 2003, and Kill Bill: Volume 2 was released in early 2004. The volumes follow a character initially identified as "The Bride", a former member of an assassination team who seeks revenge on her ex-colleagues who massacred members of her wedding party and tried to kill her. The film is often noted for its stylish direction and its homages to film genres such as Hong Kong martial arts films, Japanese chanbara films, Italian spaghetti westerns, girls with guns, and rape and revenge.
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In a flashback, Beatrix Kiddo (Uma Thurman) — the visibly pregnant Bride — and her groom (Chris Nelson) rehearse their wedding. Bill (David Carradine), her former lover and the leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, arrives unexpectedly and wishes her well, and it is revealed that Kiddo had retired from assassination and left Bill in order to give a better life to her unborn daughter. Moments later the other assassination squad members attack the wedding rehearsal on Bill's orders.
In the present, Bill warns his brother Budd (Michael Madsen), a bouncer and former Deadly Viper, that he will be targeted next. Kiddo arrives at his trailer and bursts through the door, expecting to ambush him, but Budd is expecting her and shoots her in the chest with a double-barreled shotgun blast of rock salt, then sedates her. Budd calls Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), another former Deadly Viper, offering to sell her Kiddo's Hanzō sword for a million dollars cash. He then seals Kiddo inside a coffin and buries her alive.
A flashback shows Bill taking Kiddo to be trained by legendary martial arts master Pai Mei (Gordon Liu). She eventually gains his respect and learns a number of techniques, including the art of punching through thick planks of wood from inches away, and a technique, taught to no-one else, of killing using apparently non-lethal touches to pressure points. She uses the former skill to break out of the coffin and claws her way to the surface.
Elle arrives at Budd's trailer for their transaction but has hidden a lethal black mamba with her money, which kills him. She then tells Bill (by phone) that Kiddo has killed Budd by putting a black mamba (the deadly viper that was Kiddo's assassination squad code name) in his trailer, and that Elle has killed Kiddo. As she exits the trailer, she is ambushed by Kiddo, who had arrived there soon after Elle. In the middle of an all-out battle in the trailer, Elle taunts Kiddo with the news that Elle had poisoned Pai Mei in revenge for his snatching out her eye when she called him a miserable old fool. Kiddo then plucks out Elle's remaining eye and leaves her screaming and thrashing about in the trailer with the black mamba.
After finding Bill deep in the Mexican countryside, Kiddo is shocked to find her four-year old daughter B.B. (Perla Haney-Jardine) alive and well. She spends the evening with Bill and B.B. After B.B. has gone to bed, Bill shoots Kiddo with a dart containing a truth serum and questions her. A flashback recalls Kiddo's discovery of her pregnancy while on an assassination mission, and her resulting decision to call off her assignment and leave the Deadly Vipers. Kiddo explains that she ran away without telling Bill in order to protect their unborn daughter from him and his life. Though Bill understands, he remains unapologetic for what he did, explaining that he's a murdering bastard and there are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard. They fight, but although Kiddo loses her weapon, she disables Bill with Pai Mei's fatal pressure point technique, which he secretly taught her. Bill, aware of the technique and that he will shortly die, makes his peace with Kiddo and dies. Kiddo departs with B.B. Later they are seen watching cartoons in a hotel together.
As with Tarantino's previous films, Kill Bill features an eclectic soundtrack comprising many musical genres. On the two soundtracks, music ranges from country music to selections from the Spaghetti Western film scores of Ennio Morricone. Bernard Herrmann's theme from the film Twisted Nerve is whistled by the menacing Elle Driver in the hospital scene. A brief, 15-second excerpt from the opening of the Ironside theme music by Quincy Jones is used as the Bride's revenge motif, which flares up with a red-tinged flashback whenever she's in the company of her next target.[1] Instrumental tracks from Japanese guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei figure prominently, and after the success of Kill Bill they were frequently used in American TV commercials and at sporting events. As the Bride enters "The House of Blue Leaves", go-go group The 5,6,7,8's perform "I Walk Like Jayne Mansfield", "I'm Blue" and "Woo Hoo." The connection to Lady Snowblood is further established by the use of "The Flower of Carnage," the closing theme from that film. The end credits are driven by the rock and roll version of "Malagueña Salerosa", a traditional Mexican song, performed by "Chingon", Robert Rodriguez's band.
Kill Bill: Volume 2 was released in theaters on April 16, 2004. It was originally scheduled to be released on February 20, 2004 but was rescheduled. Variety posited that the delay was to coincide its theatrical release with Volume 1's release on DVD.[2] In the United States and Canada, Volume 2 was released in 2,971 theaters and grossed $25.1 million on its opening weekend,[3] ranking first at the box office and beating fellow opener The Punisher. Volume 2's opening weekend gross was higher than Volume 1's, and the equivalent success confirmed the studio's financial decision to split the film into two theatrical releases.[4] Volume 2 attracted more female theatergoers than Volume 1, with 60% of the audience being male and 56% of the audience being men between the ages of 18 to 29 years old. Volume 2's opening weekend was the largest to date for Miramax Films aside from releases under its arm Dimension Films. The opening weekend was also the largest to date in the month of April for a film restricted in the United States to theatergoers 17 years old and up, besting Life's record in 1999. Volume 2's opening weekend was strengthened by the reception of Volume 1 in the previous year among audiences and critics, abundant publicity related to the splitting into two volumes, and the DVD release of Volume 1 in the week before Volume 2's theatrical release.[5]
Outside of the United States and Canada, Volume 2 was released in 20 territories over the weekend of April 23, 2004. It grossed an estimated $17.7 million and ranked first at the international box office, ending an eight-week streak held by The Passion of the Christ.[6] Volume 2 grossed a total of $66.2 million in the United States and Canada and $86 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $152.2 million.[3]
For Volume 2, review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 85% based on reviews from 227 critics and reports a rating average of 7.7 out of 10. It reported the overall consensus, "Talkier and less action-packed than Vol. 1, Kill Bill Vol. 2, nevertheless, delivers the goods for those expecting a satisfying conclusion to this two-parter."[7] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 83 based on 42 reviews.[8]
Roger Ebert celebrated the films, saying "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.... This is all one film, and now that we see it whole, it's greater than its two parts."[9] In 2009, he placed the film on his twenty best films of the decade list.[10]
Cultural historian Maud Lavin argues that Beatrix Kiddo's embodiment of murderous revenge taps into viewers' personal fantasies of committing violence. For audiences, particularly women viewers, this overly aggressive female character provides a complex site for identification with one's own aggression.[11]
Each part was nominated at the Golden Globe Awards. Uma Thurman received a Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama nomination in 2004 and 2005 for her work in Volume 1 and Volume 2. David Carradine received a Best Supporting Actor nomination in 2005 for his work as the mentor-like titular character in Kill Bill: Volume 2. Uma Thurman was also nominated in 2004 for a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for her work in Kill Bill: Volume 1. The film was nominated for 5 BAFTAs at the 2004 BAFTA awards ceremony.
The film was very popular at the MTV Movie Awards. At the 2004 MTV Movie Awards, Thurman won Best Female performance for Volume 1, Liu won Best Villain in Volume 1, and the fight between The Bride and Gogo Yubari won Best Fight. Thurman also thanked Chiaki Kuriyama (who played the role of Gogo Yubari) during her acceptance speech. At the 2005 MTV Movie Awards, Kill Bill Volume 2 was nominated for Best Movie, Thurman was nominated for best female performance, and the fight between The Bride and Elle Driver in Kill Bill Volume 2 also won Best Fight. Thurman also received the Saturn Award for Best Actress in 2003 for her work in Volume 1. The Bride was ranked number 66 in Empire magazine's "100 Greatest Movie Characters".[12]
In the United States, Volume 2 was released on DVD on August 10, 2004.
In a December 2005 interview, Tarantino addressed the lack of a special edition DVD for Kill Bill by stating "I've been holding off because I've been working on it for so long that I just wanted a year off from Kill Bill and then I'll do the big supplementary DVD package."[13]
The United States does not have a DVD boxed set of Kill Bill, though box sets of the two separate volumes are available in other countries, such as France, Japan and the United Kingdom. Upon the DVD release of Volume 2 in the US, however, Best Buy did offer an exclusive box set slipcase to house the two individual releases together.[14]
Both Volume 2 and Volume 1, were released in High Definition on Blu-ray on September 9, 2008 in the United States.
Tarantino announced at the 2008 Provincetown International Film Festival that a single film version of part 1 and 2 called Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair with an extended animation sequence was to be released in May 2009.[15] Screenings of the complete film began on March 27, 2011 at the New Beverly Cinema.[16] The Whole Bloody Affair version of the film that ran for a week at the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles at the end of March 2011 was verified to be the original print that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2003[17], before the decision was made to split the film into two parts due to the roughly four-hour length. The print shown at the New Beverly even retained the French subtitles necessary for screening an English-language film at the Cannes festival.
Differences in this version in comparison to the separate Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 versions include the "old Klingon proverb" shown at the beginning of Vol. 1 is not present, although a dedication to filmmaker Kinji Fukasaku is in its place; the anime sequence is slightly longer with more gore; The House of Blue Leaves battle is in color (it had been toned down to black and white for the USA release of Vol. 1 only); Sofie Fatale loses both of her arms; the revelation that The Bride's daughter is alive at the end of Vol. 1 is not present, nor is the short black and white scene at the beginning of Vol. 2 where The Bride is driving and sums up the action to that point; in its place is a small musical intermission that leads straight into Chapter 6.
Tarantino told Entertainment Weekly in April 2004, that he is planning a sequel:
| “ | Oh yeah, initially I was thinking this would be my "Dollars Trilogy". I was going to do a new one every ten years. But I need at least fifteen years before I do this again. I've already got the whole mythology: Sofie Fatale will get all of Bill's money. She'll raise Nikki, who'll take on The Bride. Nikki deserves her revenge every bit as much as The Bride deserved hers. I might even shoot a couple of scenes for it now so I can get the actresses while they're this age. | ” |
According to Bloody-Disgusting.com, details emerged around 2007 about two possible sequels, Kill Bill Volumes 3 and 4. According to the article, "Bennett Walsh said at the Shanghai International Film Festival, the third film involves the revenge of two killers whose arms and eyes were hacked by Uma Thurman in the first stories". The article adds that the "fourth installment of the popular kung fu action films concerns a cycle of reprisals and daughters who avenge their mother's deaths".[18]
Quentin Tarantino said at the 2006 Comic Con that, after the completion of Grindhouse, he wants to make two anime Kill Bill films. One will be an origin story about Bill and his mentors, and the other will be an origin starring The Bride. The latter is most likely to be a prequel, but could also follow the rumored (sequel) plot reported in Entertainment Weekly in April 2004.[19][20]
At the Morelia International Film Festival on October 1, 2009, while being interviewed on an Italian TV show after being asked about the success of the two Kill Bill films, Tarantino addressed the hostess by claiming "You haven't asked me about the third one" then asking the woman to ask the question would he be making a third Kill Bill film, which he replied "Yes", and claiming "The Bride will fight again!"[21] On October 3, 2009, he further predicted that Kill Bill 3 would be his ninth film, and would be released in 2014.[22] He said he intends to make another unrelated film before that date as his eighth film. He confirmed that he wanted ten years to pass between the Bride's last conflict, to give her and her daughter a period of peace.[23]
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