It’s worth remembering that Kill Bill was conceived of as a single film. If studio pressure and the marketing ploys behind it had not forced Tarantino to divide the film into two parts, then we probably would not have ended up with the slightly schizophrenic tone and feel of two separate films. Vol. 1 is a technically dazzling film but it’s essentially hollow at heart, all style and no substance. Its saving grace is that it never pretended to be more than the gratuitous action extravaganza that it is, an over-glorified cartoon that pays homage to all of Tarantino’s childhood influences. This is best epitomized by the pretentious opening credit, "Quentin Tarantino’s Fourth Film" that sets the tone for the whole movie.
That tone is distinctly different in Vol. 2. Gone are the Hong Kong credits and dramatic music. They are replaced by a bizarrely touching opening scene between The Bride and Bill. The slow build of this black-and-white scene filled with affection, disbelief, and tightly-veiled hostility immediately lets the viewer know that Vol. 2 will be a different film altogether. When the Bride (whose real name I shall not divulge) informs us that the "Massacre at Two Pines" was often mistaken for a wedding, when in fact it was only a wedding rehearsal, we get the sense that Vol. 1 was also Tarantino’s rehearsal; Vol. 2 is the real thing.
Uma Thurman is a luminous actress, but she shines brightest under Tarantino’s direction. Vol. 2 allows her to stretch her acting range beyond the tagline: "Sexy chick with samurai sword seeks revenge." Yes, she’s a cold-blooded assassin, but she’s also a dutiful student, a woman who believes the delusion that she can make a clean slate of her life with record store owner Tommy from El Paso, Texas. She is also a mother, and her first encounter with her daughter makes you want to rip Tarantino’s heart out for his clever manipulation of our emotions. Indeed, after taking care of the two remaining names on her list (Budd and Elle Driver), not without difficulty, her much-anticipated showdown with Bill defies all expectations.
"Because I’m a bad person," the Bride tells Bill in their moving final scene. Kill Bill is filled with bad people, people with no moral conscience, people whose driving motivation is revenge and retribution. Yet this does not prevent the viewer from feeling compassion for these lowlife characters such as Budd, Bill’s brother, who’s retired from the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad to lead a pathetic existence as a bouncer in a seedy bar. We love to hate Elle and her vicious streak. (Her Amazonian fight sequence with the Bride is worth the price of admission.) And of course, there’s Bill.
Craggy relic David Carradine is resuscitated in the character of Bill. Perhaps most famous for his role in the series Kung-Fu, Carradine returns in a blatant turnaround of his benign Grasshopper days. Vol. 2 has the air of a tired Western, and Bill is the old gunslinger with more than one trick up his sleeve, who waits in his polished Mexican home for his former lover to find him. Carradine is marvelous as Bill, the weathered lines on his face giving him the credibility he needs to tell the tall tales that underscore the mythology of the Kill Bill movies. With his panpipe in hand, he recounts the tale of Pai Mei. While fixing a drink he intones the virtues of Superman. Bill is always deadpan and suave, reminding one of a sinister version of Charlie in Charlie’s Angels if Charlie slept with his blonde assassins and had bad blood with his siblings.
True to the mythology of the wandering (anti) hero, the Bride’s journey takes her across the landscapes of barren Texas to snowy Japan to the hidden temple of Pai Mei, and finally to the breezy haciendas of Mexico. Her journey ends with her four-year-old daughter who is neither angel nor devil but who has been raised on a diet of Shogun Assassin and clearly has her mother’s nature lying dormant within her.
For all its craft and subtlety, Kill Bill Vol. 2 is still a glorified cartoon. To truly appreciate Tarantino’s achievement, one should view both films as a single whole, possibly the world’s longest prologue followed by a rewarding main course. However, I cannot help but wonder what could have been, if Tarantino had been allowed to cut a single film of broad ambition. After The Lord of the Rings, it’s clear that audiences do have the stamina to sit through a three-hour marathon. Would Tarantino have created his Oscar-worthy masterpiece, transcending the boundaries of the genres that he works within? We will never know, but what Tarantino has given us is the most satisfying of revenge fantasies.