Kill Bill Vol. 2
Quentin Tarantino

Graham Barnfield

In the furore surrounding violent Vol. 1 – a roaring rampage of revenge – critics took a sledgehammer to an expensive yet insignificant nut. The ageing enfant terrible ate his way through millions in Miramax dollars and was treated like a threat to civilisation for his troubles (see ‘Killing Kill Bill’ on spiked) .

While happy to stick up for QT against the Spectator, this critic also questioned the wisdom of spending a small nation’s GDP on re-enacting the chop-socky flicks of the 1970s. On reflection, self indulgence was only half the story: Kill Bill Vol. 1 plays like a glorious folly, a magpie mimicking other movies to the point where it could play just as well as an installation in a conceptual art gallery. For audiences unfamiliar with Takeshi Kitano or Battle Royale, the piece played well as a counterpoint to the staid routines of most action thrillers. As ‘the Bride’, Uma Thurman instructs fading action stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger to stick to their political careers. It was fitting that Bill whupped the generic actioner The Punisher at the US box office on their mutual opening weekend.

Kill Bill Vol. 2 picks up where its successor began, rather than left off, due to the usual skewed timelines and narrative of a Tarantino outing. The director has characterised it as the centrepiece of his own Dollars trilogy, and this is not far from the truth, given that the movie riffs off and lifts mercilessly from Sergio Leone’s multiple masterpieces. Indeed, Vol. 2 is a film about film: time and again a freeze frame will lead you to an iconic production still from another movie (try it at home when the DVD comes out). The trademark pop culture speech is from Bill (David Carradine, on slithering good form not seen since Animal Instincts) on his preference for Superman over other comic strip heroes. This cod philosophical moment is a nice synopsis of the movie as a whole, in which each character is both cast and created to seem iconic, bristling with backstory and fresh from other some flicks.

Tarantino is fond of saying that when the characters in Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs go to the movies, it’s to see the likes of Kill Bill (presumably both volumes on the inevitable double bill). Perhaps the charm of this particular outing it that it lets the viewer send their fictional persona to the pictures. A triumph of surface and style over anything else, and a scary re-invention of Daryl Hannah, all make for a great popcorn night out. But like the popcorn, don’t expect Kill Bill Vol. 2 to last much more than five minutes after leaving the cinema.