While there is plenty to love in Volume 2, the iconography that springs to most folks’ minds when they hear “Kill Bill” is of Uma Thurman clad in Bruce Lee’s banana-yellow tracksuit from Game of Death, katana in hand as she stares down the entire might of the Crazy 88. Granted that is just one of many of the slick images in Tarantino’s slickest 111 minutes on celluloid. There is also Lucy Liu assuming the water stance in a snow-strewn garden; Darryl Hannah whistling Bernard Hermann’s otherwise forgotten theme from Twisted Nerve as she stalks the Bride in the greatest De Palma montage that De Palma never made; and just the fact that gore was so spectacularly over the top that large portions of the movie needed to be rendered in black and white to avoid an NC-17 rating. (Seriously, you still laugh when you see the fire hydrant of red corn syrup erupting from Julie Dreyfus’ “wound,” right?)
Kill Bill: Volume 1 might very well be the apex of QT cool… and Volume 2 certainly marked a decline. Sure, the second volume features emotional resonance, but Kill Bill is all about style, and it was never more stylish than in the half that could spare seven minutes for an anime backstory of O-Ren Ishii.
Alec Bojalad: I already feel terrible. David, you did such a great job of setting this up as a respectful disagreement amongst friends and I immediately have to ruin it. Because, for as great as Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is (Tarantino isn’t capable of making anything less than that), I actually don’t think it even needs to exist! Kill Bill: Vol. 2 captures the entirety of the emotional and visual spectrum that a single, unified Kill Bill film would have. And it does so without use of its gorgeous, yet extraneous, first half.
As you said, Vol. 1 contains some undeniably striking imagery. Who among us isn’t delighted to see human beings turned into fleshy blood sprinklers? But when I think back on my favorite moments in either Kill Bill film, I’m inevitably drawn to the quieter moments of Vol 2. Like the best Tarantino efforts, Vol. 2 is such a vibrantly chatty film. Beatr…excuse me, The Bride has a lot more to say to her victims this time around and the conversations are pure pulpy poetry.
It’s also more of a self-contained, at times literally claustrophobic experience. The world of Vol. 1 is vast and chaotic (shout out to O-Ren Ishii’s anime backstory) while significant portions of Vol. 2 take place in a trailer in the middle of nowhere, and with our lead actually buried alive in a coffin. All of this is not even to mention that Vol. 2 has an ending, and Vol. 1, by definition, does not. I agree that Vol. 1 provides more spectacle while Vol. 2 provides more emotional resonance. Perhaps I’m mistaking personal preference by objective analysis (wouldn’t be the first time certainly) but wouldn’t we want emotion over spectacle 10 times out of 10?
David: You know, Alec, you’re right insomuch as we can agree on one thing: you should feel terrible! Suggesting that Kill Bill: Vol. 2 does not need Vol. 1 is akin to arguing that the catharsis felt in Return of the King makes Frodo and Sam stepping out from the Shire in Fellowship of the Ring irrelevant. While Vol. 2 definitely has an ending, like so many Tarantino movies, the point of Kill Bill isn’t the destination but the journey.
