Movie Review
'Kill Bill Vol. 2': A full-on Tarantino blowout and Uma love fest

By Mark Rahner
Seattle Times staff reporter

	ANDREW COOPER/ MIRAMAX FILMS David Carradine, left, stars with Uma Thurman in "Kill Bill Vol. 2."
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"Kill Bill Vol. 2" is the second movie this year that's left me wondering about the filmmaker's sanity.

This one isn't filled with fetishistic torture and crucifixion. But it's got a fetish for Uma Thurman, a fetish for cult cinema, even a fetish for itself. It's flawed but so audaciously unique that I can't imagine missing it if you love movies.

"Vol. 1" of Quentin Tarantino's hyperactive and hyperviolent revenge opus followed "The Bride" (Thurman) as she sliced her way through ex-colleagues who left her for dead, along with dozens of sword-fodder minions. "Vol. 2" is a total change of pace. For instance, it's got a story. That is, the story, character and Tarantino dialogue that was missing from the first one, not to mention some unexpected heart.

Movie review Showtimes and trailer *** "Kill Bill Vol. 2," with Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen and Gordon Liu. Directed by Quentin Tarantino, written by Tarantino and Thurman. 136 minutes. Rated R for violence, language and brief drug use. Several theaters.

It's also long and slow. Not just ritual, majestic, Spaghetti Western slow. Sometimes it's dream-slow, moving into I-dare-you slow, and then What's-going-on-in-this-guy's-head? slow.

The Bride is still working through her death list of teammates in the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, on the way to their lethal pimplike leader, Bill (David Carradine).

There's Bill's brother, Budd, aka "Sidewinder" (Michael Madsen), a burnout who lives in a trailer strewn with nudie magazines and works as a strip-club bouncer. Budd knows he's got payback coming, but that doesn't mean he's going to lie down for it.

There's the ruthless, eye-patched Elle Driver, aka "California Mountain Snake" (Daryl Hannah). Her trailer-demolishing brawl with The Bride shatters the quiet with a jolt of adrenaline like the amazing fight with "Copperhead" Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) in "Vol. 1."

An extended black-and-white flashback fleshes out the wedding rehearsal where Bill and the DiVAS massacred everyone and left The Bride with a bullet in her head. In one of Tarantino's endless pop-culture nods, she first hears the sound of Bill's flute from outside the chapel. ("Kung Fu" star Carradine used it in his Bruce Lee collaboration, "Circle of Iron.") A grainy flashback to "The Cruel Teachings of Pai Mei" looks ripped right out of a '70s chop socky flick and chronicles The Bride's torturous student years under a beard-stroking martial-arts master (Gordon Liu).

And then there's Bill. Barely more than a voice in "Vol. 1," he owns this half. As Bill puts it, he is the man. Carradine's performance is a revelation, both comforting and menacing. The cliffhanger in "Vol. 1" revealed that The Bride's unborn child survived and that Bill was the father. Here he tells the truth of it while methodically constructing sandwiches for the mother and little girl, and cutting off the crusts. But he's lightning-quick with a gun when The Bride makes a move. Chalk up another Tarantino rediscovery, along with John Travolta and Pam Grier. He also gives Carradine a monologue about comic-book superheroes that fans will be memorizing alongside anything from "Pulp Fiction."

If the "Kill Bill" saga is a kitchen sink of '70s exploitation movies, this half is heavy on the cheesy emotion of Hong Kong crime flicks and the absurdity of martial-arts grinders. If you're doubting his sanity, the way he comes full circle with a "five-point exploding palm hand technique" will make you see that he's reeled you out only to reel you back in.

Maybe Tarantino does have too much of a thing for Uma and just needed an editor. His camera lingers on her obsessively, in a way that would turn a conversation awkward. In one scene, The Bride is buried alive, and he stays with her for so long during the painstaking escape that it feels like watching raw footage. One way or the other, it's unmistakably his movie, an exercise in stylish self-indulgence that would be unbearable with most other directors. Here, Tarantino's quirks are inseparable from the cavalcade of glorious excess.

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259 or mrahner@seattletimes.com

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