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topic: Kill Bill - Volume 2 |
ColonelKong
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post #1
on April 16, 2004 - 11:57 PM PDT
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Anyone else seen it yet? I just got back awhile ago (I feel lucky to have seen it tonight since the theater had to be evacuated about 15-20 minutes before the movie started because a kid somewhere pulled a fire alarm), and I thought I'd post a few spoiler-free thoughts. While I had some minor problems with it, I loved it for the most part. I'm curious as to how it will fare with mainstream audiences since I doubt it will win over very many who didn't like Volume 1, and it will probably confuse and/or annoy lots of people who did. Personally, I'm glad that it is very different from Vol 1, some people will probably find it talky (I think that the lengthy B&W sequence at the beginning of the film probably made some audience members squirm), but I think it is the logical extension of Vol. 1 in a lot of ways. (I won't give it away, but I think that Vol. 2 contains the scene that I personally found the most grueling. It would be wrong to even hint at what it is, but the scene in question made me think a little of a certain European film from the 80s.)
Just like Vol. 1, it had beautiful visuals courtesy of Robert Richardson, great performances (I got a kick out the brief appearances by Sid Haig and Sam Jackson), and great soundtrack choices (although I think Quentin might have overdone it just a little with the spaghetti western music, and I love spaghetti western music). How much music did Robert Rodriguez contribute to the movie? Other than a song during the ending credits, it didn't sound like there was a whole lot.
Oh yeah, be sure to stay put through the end credits (a couple of people got up to leave, and then stood in front of me to watch the stuff during the end credits, Roger Ebert coined a term I like for people who commit this breach of movie theater ettiquite: "Cookie Monsters" ["Cookies" are a term for the scenes that play during or after the end credits of some movies])
BTW, has anyone else here experienced a movie theater fire drill lately? It's the first time that it's happened to me in recent memory, but I've heard of it happening to others. It's pretty fortunate that it happened before and not during the movie, and before the theater got crowded (I was probably the first person out). |
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Ayato
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post #2
on April 17, 2004 - 11:48 AM PDT
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Yes, I loved it as well. The fight in the guys trailer and beard petter were my favorite parts. :P
Ive heard alot of people dislikeing it because its slow and not as action packed as the 1st. I didn't feel it was boring at all though.
Fire Drill? Thats strange... |
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sinisterguffaw
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post #3
on April 17, 2004 - 12:44 PM PDT
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As a continuation, it did not disappoint. If I hadn't seen part one, I wouldn't have enjoyed nearly as much, but regardless it was a lot of fun.
The biggest difference to me between the two films was the element of pain. As mentioned elsewhere (by ColonelKong, I believe), Vol. 1 was fun to watch because the violence was painless, so watching The Bride dispatch of the Crazy 88 wasn't a squirmy chore, but rather a bloody delight! In vol 2 it seems they've taken a more humanistic approach to the violence. |
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sinisterguffaw
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post #4
on April 17, 2004 - 12:45 PM PDT
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| maybe humanistic isn't the right word... but I know what I'm talking about. |
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ColonelKong
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post #5
on April 17, 2004 - 3:07 PM PDT
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> On April 17, 2004 - 12:44 PM PDT sinisterguffaw wrote:
> ---------------------------------
> As a continuation, it did not disappoint. If I hadn't seen part one, I wouldn't have enjoyed nearly as much, but regardless it was a lot of fun.
>
> The biggest difference to me between the two films was the element of pain. As mentioned elsewhere (by ColonelKong, I believe), Vol. 1 was fun to watch because the violence was painless, so watching The Bride dispatch of the Crazy 88 wasn't a squirmy chore, but rather a bloody delight! In vol 2 it seems they've taken a more humanistic approach to the violence.
> ---------------------------------
I don't think I said that, and I wouldn't agree that all the violence in Vol. 1 was painless, but I thought that the Crazy 88 massacre existed on a pretty much cartoon violence level. I think it's kind of intersting that one of the most cringe-inducing things in Vol 2 (spoiler mode) was Budd threatening to mace Beatrix right in the eyes, since the Pai Mei and Elle Driver eye-gouging scenes didn't bother me nearly as much (anyone else notice that Lucio Fulci was added to the "RIP" section in the end credits?") and I thought that it existed on the same kind of cartoon violence level of reality as the Crazy 88 battle. I also thought that it was kind of interesting how likeable these extremely evil people were, if I were in Beatrix's place, I'd want to do some pretty nasty things to Budd, but I was kind of sorry to see him go all the same. I think that I would've also been about ready to poison Pai Mei's fish heads too (no, I'm not going to sing that song), but it's very easy to understand Beatrix's rage at Elle for killing her mentor. (end spoiler mode)
Even though it's not based on a comic book, I think Kill Bill is one of the best comic book movies to come along in a while. I like how it deals with all the different mythologies of the cooler-than-cool professional killer, the "Man (or woman) With No Name", the samurai, the "Avenging Angel", and so on. It's not a story that could take place in the real world any more than Superman could. |
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ColonelKong
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bkirby99
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post #7
on April 17, 2004 - 6:25 PM PDT
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| thank you for masking the spoilers, CK. i haven't seen vol 2 yet, but plan to do so soon. i'll wait until i have seen it before i read all of your comments. i'm really looking forward to vol 2, even though i hadn't seen vol 1 until it came out on DVD last week. i bought it in the hopes that i'd like it, and i did very much. |
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jross3
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post #8
on April 17, 2004 - 8:58 PM PDT
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I'm just gonna go spoiler mode.
Add one more to the happy customer column, I'm here now. What a cool movie! I missed the special part after the credits, I guess, but maybe I'll have a chance to go see it again before it leaves the theater. Do you know why Elle Driver used a black mamba to kill Budd? Because Calafornia Mountain Snake is a dumb codename, and everyone wanted Bea Kiddo's (what a name) code name. Her description of the black mamba seemed a little but much, though, don't you think? "Only with the black mamba is death certain". Talk about jinxing yourself...
As much as I would have loved the full moon duel on the beach, I didn't find myself too dissapointed with the resolution with Bill. I saw the five-point exploding heart technique coming (didn't you?), but it was still pretty good.
"Samurai Assassin" is not a good bedtime movie. I guess that kind of stuff happens with both your parents are assassins...
Uma Thurman is a good looking lady, but she looked kind of dumb in a yellow jump suit and black ski mask. "Look! I'm a ninja! A bright, sunny ninja!".
I think that's the end of the spoilers.
Oh yeah! The bride's real name is
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Ralsar
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post #9
on April 17, 2004 - 10:16 PM PDT
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The two halves of Kill Bill make for one truly great movie. We had to wait way too long for another Tarantino movie but luckily it was worth it.
Does anyone know why The Bride's name was beeped out during much of Kill Bill? I guess there is a joke or reference that I am missing here because I can't see a reason for it. |
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villain
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post #10
on April 17, 2004 - 10:49 PM PDT
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well, add another happy kill bill vol. 2 fan!
WOW!! what a fantastic movie. my ONLY complaint is that it wasn't long enough. i could've easily handled another forty five minutes or so. i so love the fact that both parts are very different from each other. vol. 1 was mostly kick ass and bloodshed. while vol. 2 gave us the witty and quirky tarantino dialogue.
(spoiler mode) that superman speech by bill was such a great analogy. but "the cruel tutelage of pai mei" was by far my favorite segment of both volumes. (end spoiler mode)
the thing i love so much about tarantino is the fact that he's a movie FANATIC and understands the importance of cinema. that's the difference between him and someone like george lucas who's not even a fan of the star wars series and releases crap and semi-crap "prequels".
both volumes of kill bill have quickly become two of my favorite movies. i saw volume 1 in the theaters three times. and i plan to do the same with volume 2. |
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ColonelKong
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post #11
on April 18, 2004 - 8:38 AM PDT
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> Does anyone know why The Bride's name was beeped out during much of Kill Bill? I guess there is a joke or reference that I am missing here because I can't see a reason for it.
Well, it does sort of explain the "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids" line in Vol. 1, and I guess it's supposed to be funny that Bill calls her Kiddo, and it turns out to be her actual last name. I think there's also some Hong Kong wire-fu movie with a character named Kiddo, not sure which one though (possibly Swordsman II?) I still don't completely get it (that classroom scene with a seemingly adult Beatrix Kiddo answering "here!" seems particularly weird), or why Tarantino seemed to go such a long way for a not-extremely-funny joke. If the bleeping out of someone's name is a reference to another movie, I don't know which one.
I know that it's interesting to keep these characters somewhat mysterious, but I would've liked to have learned just a little bit about Beatrix and Bill. We learn a few things about Bill's origin, but we don't really have a clue about how Beatrix and Bill met, or what her life was like before. That was one of the things that annoyed me about volume 2, but I still liked it a lot. I wonder what kind of deleted scenes are going to be on the eventual Vol 1 & 2 "fans' edition". I know that there was some stuff with Michael Jai White in China, but I don't know what else was cut.
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sinisterguffaw
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post #12
on April 18, 2004 - 10:18 AM PDT
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> On April 17, 2004 - 3:07 PM PDT ColonelKong wrote:
> ---------------------------------
> > On April 17, 2004 - 12:44 PM PDT sinisterguffaw wrote:
> > ---------------------------------
> > The biggest difference to me between the two films was the element of pain. As mentioned elsewhere (by ColonelKong, I believe), Vol. 1 was fun to watch because the violence was painless...
> > ---------------------------------
>
> I don't think I said that, and I wouldn't agree that all the violence in Vol. 1 was painless,
_________________________
Hmmm, maybe it was dwhudson who said it. Maybe it was in the dispatch or something. SOMEbody said it! |
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dwhudson
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post #13
on April 18, 2004 - 11:34 AM PDT
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SG, you're probably thinking of the blurb that appears on the New Releases page, which also popped up in the Dispatch.
Now that I'm looking at it again, you're probably right; it comes a little too close to saying there's no pain in Vol. 1, and that's not really what I meant to say; I cringed a lot in Vol. 1, but not anywhere near as excrutiatingly as in Michael Madsen's ear scene in Reservoir Dogs (which is also mentioned in the blurb as an example of one of Tarantino's most pain-evoking scenes).
As for Vol. 2, it opens over here in a few days and I can't wait. |
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jross3
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ColonelKong
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post #15
on April 18, 2004 - 2:37 PM PDT
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| Anyone know how much music from Vol. 2 actually made it onto the soundtrack album? I liked Vol. 2's music, but I've held off on purchasing the soundtrack because I have a feeling that some of my favorite stuff probably isn't there, and I already have some of the stuff that's on it, like a couple of the Morricone themes, and "Motorcycle Circus" by Luis Bacalov (the piece playing when Beatrix is driving to Bill's headquarters in Mexico. At which part of the movie did the Morricone piece called "Silhouette of Doom" play, and what movie does it come from? ("Silhouette of Doom" is a damned cool title, BTW) Also, what's the piece of music with the Hammond organ playing while Elle Driver is driving the Trans Am to Budd's trailer? I tried to find out by looking up the Kill Bill Vol. 2 album at Amazon, but they only have audio samples of the first five tracks. |
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ALittlefield
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post #16
on April 18, 2004 - 3:55 PM PDT
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| I also loved, in fact quite a bit more than the first. Although the two films were made at the same time, they feel quite different. The first seemed like a Karate/Samurai movie, while the second seemed like a Morricone western(the "harsh tuteledge" chapter not withstanding). I thought the first film had too much repetitive action and not enough of what I love QT for: his dialogue. There's much more here, (Mace vs. flashlight, the deadly mambo snake and Superman)and I adored it. Also, I tend to find scenes where two people have a brutal hand to hand fight more exciting than one person mowing down an army. |
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Eoliano
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post #17
on April 19, 2004 - 10:23 AM PDT
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> what movie does Silhouette of Doom come from?
Il Profilo De Destino/A Silhouette Of Doom is from the Navaho Joe soundtrack.
Btw, Tower Records has 15 audio samples for Kill Bill Vol. 2. |
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ColonelKong
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post #18
on April 19, 2004 - 1:06 PM PDT
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When I was rewatching Vol. 1 on DVD last night, I was thinking that I would've liked a scene with Japanese police investigating the aftermath of the Crazy 88 battle, which would've mirrored the scene with the sheriff at the aftermath of the wedding chapel massacre. (Since I've seen vol. 2, I've noticed that a lot of scenes in Vol. 2 seemed to be mirrored in one way or another.) I know, that scene probably would've killed the pacing and distracted from Vol. 2's emphasis on Bill and Beatrix, but it probably would've been a funny scene, and if nothing else, would've made a nice DVD extra. It's kind of interesting that there seem to be very few cops in the universe of Kill Bill.
When Vol. 2 hits DVD, does anyone else plan to watch both volumes back-to-back in complete B&W? I watched part of Vol. 1 with the color turned off, and it created an interesting effect. (Of course, I also want to see the Crazy 88 battle in full color). |
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Eoliano
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post #19
on April 19, 2004 - 3:57 PM PDT
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This just in from The NYTimes:
Miramax is planning to release a half-dozen different DVD editions related to "Kill Bill."
"This is the beauty of having two volumes," said Rick Sands, chief operating officer at Miramax. "'Vol. 1' goes out, 'Vol. 2' goes out, then 'Vol. 1 Special Edition,' 'Vol. 2 Special Edition,' the two-pack, then the Tarantino collection as a boxed set out for Christmas. It's called multiple bites at the apple. And you multiply this internationally." Mr. Tarantino has also cut an alternate version of the movie for Japan.
So CK, your "Kill Bill" viewing options are going to multiply in the coming months. |
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Ayato
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post #20
on April 19, 2004 - 4:20 PM PDT
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| From what I hear, the asian release of kill bill has the fight scene in color, along with some added gore that was taken out of the US release(sofie getting her arm cut off, for instance) so I guess thats what will be in the special addition for volume 1. Sounds good, since the only thing I really disliked in Kill Bill volume 1 was that part being in black and white. Seemed out of place to me. |
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