The die-orama that is Kill Bill

The first Kill Bill was like a pop art open wound–an indulging visual candy that left your senses reeling and queasy. It had both gristle and sheen delivered mostly by good sets, costumes and cinematography. What it lacked in story originality, it made up for in treatment –like a film class project that became all too conscious of style over substance. Not a few must have wondered at the end of the bloodbath (purportedly 450 gallons of it, to be precise) if they had gotten a lot dumber for watching it.

I mean, that loony bunch of samurai wielders named Crazy 88s gave new meaning to the term "painting the town red." Then there were the many wondrous ways to kill – and die. But even if you cursed yourself for sitting through the slice and dicer (which clocked in at almost two hours), you knew then you had to pay, sit, and watch the second volume –just to witness the tale reach its inevitable conclusion.

Forty-one-year-old Quentin Tarantino (screenwriter and director), of course, has been known for senseless violence of the celluloid kind, and for dreaming up the weirdest of characters (think From Dusk Till Dawn and Pulp Fiction) – tempering the outrageousness by not taking himself and his movies too seriously. It’s this otherworldly quality that helps us stomach the gore and, gasp, even enjoy it in context.

So while we tried hard to understand how Rambo could mow down an entire army in First Blood (to say nothing of trying to understand what Stallone was actually saying), we could afford to smile as the lovely Beatrix (Uma Thurman) made short work of the masked marauders in the first movie. Her depiction even earned her a Golden Globe nomination. Thurman was certainly credible as the vengeful bride. One might even say that she wasn’t wanting of inspiration and motivation – what with Ethan Hawke and all.

But moviegoers who expect another endless orgy of death must be forewarned: there is far less bloodshed in Volume Two, although no less graphic. And while the first movie was basically a killing spree in different ways and locations, the second is a little more circumspect in its methods. Here, characters are given the chance to brood; maybe even act a little. Budd (Michael Madsen) tells Bill (David Carradine) that their band of assassins does deserve to die for its transgressions.

We finally are given a glimpse of the church massacre that set off this macabre act of vengeance, although we are left to wonder why this one crucial event remains shrouded in mystery. The camera zooms out as the assassins enter the church with guns a-blazing.

The consequence of all the brooding coupled with the occasional flashback is that the flick plods along dully before gliding to its conclusion. But there are amusing high points: Gordon Liu’s character, a stereotypical kung fu master named Pai Mei who strokes his snow-white beard as lovingly as a shampoo commercial model, is a fervent homage to the genre. And don’t worry, Tarantino manages to tie disparate ends together.

Lest I give away the circumstances leading to the final result (again, you know the ending, right?), suffice it to say that Tarantino has a few surprises up his sleeve — which do not necessarily save the film from its own mediocre fate. I mean, we shouldn’t expect anything profoundly earth-shattering from a movie entitled Kill Bill.

Twelve weeks after its first release, Kill Bill Volume Two has raked in more than $65 million (expect the DVD by August). Not quite a, er, killing but definitely a good, healthy figure.

The most inevitable question was asked by my girlfriend Joyce as we walked out the cinema. "Did you think there was a need to break the movie up into two?" I gave the inevitable answer: "No."

Yup, that was the one chopping Kill Bill could’ve done without.