Barnes & Noble

The adventures of the Bride (Uma Thurman) continue in Kill Bill Volume 2, the second half of Quentin Tarantino's audacious homage to Hong Kong cinema and the wildly outré potboilers of the drive-in era. Originally intended as the second half of one long film, the sequel picks up where Kill Bill left off, with two members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad dispatched and two more standing between the vengeance-seeking Bride and her former lover and mentor, the quietly philosophical Bill (David Carradine). Volume 2, while not quite as action-packed as its predecessor, is every bit as entertaining in the same over-the-top manner, yet full of the pop culture-spouting dialogue that was missing in Volume 1. The standout sequence is the much-anticipated showdown between the Bride and Elle Driver, the eye patch-wearing assassin played with delicious malevolence by Daryl Hannah. It's a set piece that literally brings the house down. Hannah is absolutely terrific, as is the willowy Thurman, who looks better than she ever has on film -- when she's not drenched in blood, that is. But the top acting honors go to Carradine, whose lengthy banishment to the cinematic outlands of direct-to-video schlock made people forget how good he could be. Tarantino's writing and direction is predictably self-indulgent, but every frame of Kill Bill: Volume 2 is suffused with his love of cinema -- and not just cinema spelled with a capital C. Mr. Q is nothing if not egalitarian, cinematically speaking, and the movie's baroque styling reflects influences you'll never find cited by stuffy academics. This is joyfully exuberant filmmaking at its least restrained, a free-form triumph of style over substance -- and very likely the most exhilarating disc you'll see for some time. Ed Hulse

All Movie Guide

Quentin Tarantino's sprawling homage to action films of both the East and the West reaches its conclusion in this continuation of 2003's ultra-violent Kill Bill Vol. 1. Having dispatched several of her arch-enemies in the first film, The Bride (Uma Thurman) continues in Kill Bill Vol. 2 on her deadly pursuit of her former partners in the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, who, in a furious assault, attempted to murder her and her unborn child on her wedding day. As The Bride faces off against allies-turned-nemeses Budd (Michael Madsen) and Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), she flashes back to the day of her deadly wedding, and we learn of how she was recruited to join the DiVAS, her training under unforgiving martial arts master Pai Mei (Liu Chia-hui), and her relationship with Squad leader Bill (David Carradine), which changed from love to violent hatred. Originally planned as a single film, Kill Bill grew into an epic-scale two-part project totaling more than four hours in length; as with the first film, Kill Bill Vol. 2 includes appearances by genre-film icons Sonny Chiba, Michael Parks, Larry Bishop, and Sid Haig; Wu-Tang Clan producer and turntablist RZA and filmmaker and composer Robert Rodriguez both contributed to the musical score. Mark Deming

Product Details

• UPC: 786936295436
• Source: MIRAMAX
• Region Code: 1
• Time: 2:17:00

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