Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) Review: Swords Give Way to Words

Is Kill Bill: Vol. 2 worth watching?

Yes. Kill Bill: Vol. 2 is the more thoughtful and better-written half of Quentin Tarantino’s revenge saga, and it gives the story the emotional weight Vol. 1 deliberately held back. Where the first film was a breathless blast of stylised combat, this one slows down, lets its characters talk and turns a cartoon of vengeance into something closer to a sad western. That shift is its great strength and its one real risk: anyone expecting another House of Blue Leaves will find long stretches of dialogue where the sword fights used to be.

What is Kill Bill: Vol. 2 about?

The Bride (Uma Thurman) is still working through her Death List Five, the band of assassins who left her for dead at her own wedding rehearsal along with her unborn child. With two names already crossed off, she heads after the remaining members: Budd (Michael Madsen), a washed-up killer living out his days in the desert; Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), the one-eyed rival with a grudge of her own; and, finally, Bill (David Carradine), her former lover and the man who ordered the massacre.

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 is written and directed by Tarantino, an American production in English that runs 136 minutes. It was released in April 2004, six months after the first volume; the two were conceived as a single film and split in two for release, which is why this one opens mid-story rather than starting fresh.

A western after an eastern

Vol. 1 borrowed its grammar from Hong Kong martial arts films and Japanese samurai cinema. Vol. 2 swaps much of that for the spaghetti western: dusty roads, a lonely chapel, wide landscapes and long silences. The black-and-white prologue at the chapel sets the tone, a scene of mounting unease built almost entirely on conversation, and it tells you immediately that this is a different kind of film.

The kung fu is not gone, it has simply been moved into memory. A flashback to the Bride’s training under the merciless master Pai Mei, played with gleeful severity by Gordon Liu, is the film’s most purely entertaining chapter, shot with the scratchy zooms and grain of old Shaw Brothers movies. It is funny, affectionate and physically punishing, and it pays off beautifully later in the story.

Carradine and Thurman make it personal

What lifts this volume is that Bill finally becomes a person. David Carradine plays him softly, almost tenderly, a charming talker whose menace lies in how reasonable he sounds. He makes Bill an adversary the Bride once loved, and the film is braver for letting that history complicate the revenge.

Uma Thurman meets him with her best work in the saga. In Vol. 1 she was a force of nature; here she is allowed exhaustion, grief and flashes of humour, and she makes the Bride’s single-mindedness feel like something that has cost her dearly. Madsen’s weary, self-loathing Budd and Hannah’s vicious, theatrical Elle add two very different flavours of villainy, and Michael Parks turns up in a memorably seedy supporting role.

When talk outstays its welcome

Tarantino’s love of dialogue is the film’s engine, but it also slows the momentum. Several scenes run past the point where they have made their point, and the final act is built around a long conversation rather than a showdown in the Vol. 1 sense. Some viewers find that a masterstroke; others feel the saga runs out of energy just when it should peak. Watched on its own, without the adrenaline of the first volume, the pacing can feel especially indulgent.

Who should watch Kill Bill: Vol. 2?

Anyone who has seen Vol. 1 should finish the story here; the two only make full sense together. It suits viewers who enjoy Tarantino’s dialogue as much as his violence, and fans of westerns and old martial arts cinema will spot a wealth of affectionate references. It is adult viewing, with brutal fights, bloodshed and strong language, though it is less gory than the first film.

Worth pairing with:

• Kill Bill: Vol. 1, the required first half, faster and bloodier, with the saga’s most famous set pieces.
• Pulp Fiction, Tarantino’s earlier crime landmark, for the same pleasure in long, strange conversations.
• John Wick: Chapter 2, a modern assassin-underworld action sequel that owes a clear debt to the Bride’s code-bound world.

The verdict

Kill Bill: Vol. 2 turns a revenge spree into a story about loss, loyalty and the people we once belonged to, and it is the half of the saga that lingers. Its patience will frustrate some, and a few scenes are longer than they need to be, but the performances, the Pai Mei chapter and Tarantino’s western-inflected craft make it an essential companion to Vol. 1.

Rating: 4/5