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Dom Robinson reviews
Buena Vista Home Video
- Cert:
- Cat.no: D 881274
- Running time: 131 minutes
- Year: 2004
- Pressing: 2004
- Region(s): 2, PAL
- Chapters: 19 plus extras
- Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, DTS 5.1
- Languages: English
- Subtitles: English (and for the hearing-impaired)
- Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Anamorphic)
- 16:9-Enhanced: Yes
- Macrovision: Yes
- Disc Format: DVD 9
- Price: £19.99
- Extras: The Making of Kill Bill Vol.2, Chingon at the Kill Bill Vol.2 premiere, Damoe deleted scene
Director:- Quentin Tarantino
(Jackie Brown, Kill Bill Vols 1 & 2, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs)
Producer:
- Lawrence Bender
Screenplay:
- Quentin Tarantino
Music:
- Robert Rodriguez and The RZA
Cast:
- The Bride: Uma Thurman
Bill: David Carridine
Elle Driver: Daryl Hannah
Budd: Michael Madsen
Tommy Plympton: Chris Nelson
Rufus: Samuel L Jackson
Larry Gomez: Larry Bishop
Pai Mei: Gordon Liu
Esteban Vihaio: Michael Parks
Karen Kim: Helen Kim
B.B.: Perla Haney-Jardine
Reverend Harmony: Bo Svenson
My confidence in Quentin Tarantino as a film-maker is now beginning to wane.
His first three films were excellent, but Kill Bill Vol.1 went too OTT for all the reasons you can read about in that review, while Vol.2 takes the self-indulgence and ups it a level. I figured the longer running time for this part was because The Bride (Uma Thurman) had to kill three people instead of just two from the first one.
Well, she does have more death to dish out to the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, but not as many heads to roll as with the ‘Crazy 88s’ beforehand. The premise of a revenge movie has already been set, but here to eek out the running time it’s inevitable we’re going to see back-story being presented to us. That said, the film runs slowly at first, which initially is its strength, but later on has too many sections that drag on unnecessarily, such as the training with Pai Mei, a weird Chinese master who keeps stroking his beard, the conversation with Esteban Vihaio about where to find Bill and too much of the confrontation between Bill and The Bride, the action of which takes such a short space of time to complete compared to the duration devoted to their final face-to-face meeting.
For me, the best moments were the fantastically brightly-lit opening scene shot in black and white at the church where the massacre took place, a hi-ya! kicking contest between Elle (Daryl Hannah) and The Bride, but how to dispose of Budd? It’s a surprise as to who dishes out the treatment to him, but when it’s about to come you know something’s going to happen right then so the tension is completely lost.
Hannah, Thurman and David Carridine come across the best, at times, but when watching the ‘making of’ afterwards, it’s clear that Tarantino’s doing this mainly for those heavily into kung-fu movies, as well as Carridine’s TV series, and if you haven’t been party to those then this continuation, albeit necessary viewing after the first, does come across as a great disappointment, particularly because I was hoping it would up the ante after Vol.1 and not drag it down further.
For those who want more, it’s rumoured that a complete Kill Bill will be released in the future.
The film is presented in an anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen ratio and is largely perfect, but, although briefly, the DVD’s mastering made the whole picture go completely blank for two very short periods (around a a second each time, as Bill talks about superheroes to The Bride in their final scenes together). I thought this was something Tarantino had done intentionally at first, but the subtitles disappeared too and the picture was viewable when I picture-search rewound it. Very odd indeed, and certainly nothing I’ve seen before.
Again, the sound is in both DD5.1 and DTS5.1, but as there’s less of interest going on, there’s less chance for the sound to shine. The extras are equally small in number as with the first DVD, but it now begs the question as whether we will see two-disc special editions before Tarantino joins the two halves of the film together.
The 26-minute Making of Kill Bill mixes letterboxed film clips with chat from everyone concerned, and Tarantino enthuses about how obsessed he is with kung-fu movies, which proves that the disappointment was intentional; there’s a performance from Chingon at the Vol.2 premiere (11 mins, 16:9 letterboxed), performing music as featured in the film. This works in the film itself, but I couldn’t care less about it outside of that. Finally, there’s a deleted scene (3½ mins, 2.35:1 anamorphic) which shows more of the typical fighting style. I really hope Tarantino gets himself together before releasing his next film.
The main menu is animated with clips and sound from the film, there are subtitles in English (and for the hard of hearing), and once again there are 19 chapters – which was okay for the length of the first film but this longer one could’ve used more.
PICTURE QUALITY
SOUND QUALITY
EXTRAS
OVERALL 
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.