Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: KILL BILL VOL. 2

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Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 04-16-2004, 03:32 AM:

Been waiting for this for a while.....

These films (VOL.1 and 2)will definately go down as cult classics. Just try and see how many scenes/background music/allusions to other films (mostly 70's films) you can make out during the movie.

Anyways. I wish Miramax would have released them as one continuous film. This one is a bit more 'draggy' than the first one. Some people getted knocked off in some pretty cool ways though. The editing and action sequences do not flow as well as the first film (which adds to the 'dragginess').

However. I liked it and will see it again.

Posted by Aaron Garman (Member # 1653) on 04-16-2004, 04:07 AM:

Great film, and just as good as Vol. 1. I can't wait to see a cut of both volumes together, but I think I can see a reason for splitting them: they are different in tone. The first volume felt more like a kung fu/samurai film whereas this felt more like a western. Either way, both rocked! Also, crank this baby up: this mix blew me away. Very versatile! The black and white reel on B&W stock looked, I dunno, weird. It wasn't out of focus, but it just seemed fake and digital. I'm guessing that whole scene was shot on color stock and then made into black and white.

AJG

Posted by Jennifer Pan (Member # 2035) on 04-16-2004, 04:22 AM:

OMG!!! This movie sucked... Vol. 1 sooooooooo much better... If I came to see a drama I would have seen Jersey Girl or something. Like 90% of the movie was just really slow talking or fast sub-titles. The actions scenes were awesome! But the movie as a whole was really really slow.

Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 04-16-2004, 05:30 AM:

I enjoyed it just as much as Volume One. The action and fight sequences weren't as extended this time, though. This one tugs on the heartstrings a bit more.

And with some back story needing to be filled in, and unanswered questions answered, and whatnot, I expected a little slower pace and more talking, anyway. So, it's not as RE-watchable: once you find out some answers, some scenes would probably just be boring at a second viewing. I don't have a desire to see it again immediately ... even though I'm going to, when we run it at midnight this weekend in the IMAX auditorium. (It's good that now I know all the killer parts at which to witness audience reaction. That should be fun.)

I love the film style homages, especially all the footage in Pai Mei's parts of the story. I liked his character a lot. (Everyone on our projection staff now wants to grow their goatees out really, really long; just so they can stroke it when they say cool stuff. Well, maybe not EVERYone. [Razz]

)

I'll say I most likely will get the big, double feature, extra-super-deluxe, director's cut, collector's edition DVD when it comes out ... which, by my estimation, will be coincidentally released during ... hmmm, yeah ... it just may be the Christmas season. Fancy that.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 04-16-2004, 05:44 AM:

Pai Mei's eybrows are AWSOME!

Posted by Wolff King Morrow (Member # 2226) on 04-16-2004, 06:16 AM:

Some people out only for volume-one type action will no doubt find volume-two a little dull and slow. As has been pointed out, if you know to expect this, you'll enjoy the film more.

I also noted this film series was sort of QT's take on Yin-Yang, with the first movie being decidely japanese and fast, while the second movie being decidedly chinese and slow. All and all, I thought the project as a whole was better than the parts by themselves.

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 04-16-2004, 08:52 AM:

* * * - S P O I L E R S - * * *

This movie needed more action to live up to the first one. Everyone I know who wanted to see this movie has said "I can't wait to see <insert whoever here> fight. That's gonna be great!" For me it was Bill & Black Mamba. But when that didn't really happen despite all the four hours of build up from both films, I felt extraordinarily cheated. I thought it was an extremely anti-climactic ending, which I saw coming a mile away. But I'm sure Q.T. fans will say it was a great film, and I just don't understand it.

Posted by Dean Kollet (Member # 1789) on 04-16-2004, 01:47 PM:

I saw this @ 1am this morning. People fail to realize that Volume 1 and 2 are the same movie. I can't wait to see the whole thing in one sitting. I loved it

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 04-16-2004, 02:52 PM:

quote:
I saw this @ 1am this morning

I saw it at 10:30 pm last night, although I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

quote:
People fail to realize that Volume 1 and 2 are the same movie

Let me rephrase...

Like Full Metal Jacket, the first half of this movie was awesome, and the second half sucked. [Razz]

Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 04-16-2004, 10:58 PM:

OK, finally saw it at Regal Perimeter Point 10 in Atlanta. Same auditorium where i saw Walking Tall and the same annoying slight jittery and flickering problem with the picture that was very obvious in the B&W opening scenes, but not obvious to the casual moviegoer in the color parts. The manager claims the movie looked fine to him in a prior showing. It's a shame because ROTK looked very good in this same hall.

Verdict? I thought Vol1 was an A and Vol2 a B. If you take out 20 minutes from Vol2 and combine it with 98% of Vol1, you will have an A grade for a nearly 200 minute movie. I agree with those who said that Vol2 did not flow as well as Vol1, and by flow, I don't mean the slow pacing. The buildup was not as effective for me. While the fight with Hannah rocked, and there were some interesting scenes with Madsen, i found their segments to be a tad off compared to the VOl1 segments. We really don't learn anything more about their psychology despite the increased screen time.

Biggest reason for the lower grade - the awful child actress who played the daughter. If you saw the tv ad and said "what the f***? is that really all there is to the daughter's scenes?" Well, yeah. The final slow sequence with Bill has some good verbal interaction, but the overall quality of the final chapter was ruined for me by the girl who played the daughter. I just hated her every utterance.

Madsen does a good job with his decent but not great dialogue. Hannah who is normally bad shines in this movie with a very fun performance.

David Carradine was majestic and earned his right to a comeback with this movie. Just be warned, he has virtually no action scenes. They should have not deleted the michael jai white scenes with Carradine. He pulls off the final scene very well.

Pei Mei scenes were the liveliest parts of the movie. Richardson did some great old style HK style camera work in the Pei Mei scenes.

By the way, I loved both parts of Full Metal Jacket. I just think some people couldn't handle the split structure of that movie. Kill Bill is like that as was the entertaining From Dusk Till Dawn. But KB2 has a bigger problem. It is coming out 6 months later and the viewers will expect a dose of what made vol 1 tick and justifiably so. So even though the change of pace is refreshing, it didn't work for me as well as it would have if it were part of one movie because the time lapse has made me wanting more of the same vol1 ingredients mixed in.

Also the editing wasn't as good in Vol2. Tension wasn't built as much as it should have in certain scenes. Even the Ironside theme doesn't work as effectively as it did in Vol 1.

Overall, a good movie, but it is essential that you view this as a continuation of the first movie instead of as a self contained movie with its own dose of action.

EDITED TO REMOVE MY HARSH COMMENTS ON THE GIRL WITH AN ANALOGY to the 12 Monkeys recasting of a boy who was replaced eventually. Reason? I saw the movie again and I think the reason I judged her too harshly was some of her initial lines, the way she said MOMMY. She was actually pretty decent during the fish story scene. I raise my grade to a B+ with the potential of an A if they just reedited this movie. The Madsen bar scenes are still too long and are more DVD extra worthy. Also a lot of the scenes have one extra pause too long(typical example : after she gets up for air after the paula schulz scene, the camera just lingers on too long. Or the pregnancy test scene).

[ 05-16-2004, 03:06 AM: Message edited by: Pravin Ratnam ]

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 04-17-2004, 02:37 AM:

I just thought of something:

If this movie played in chronological order (chapters in order) -I wonder if the pacing would change and make the movie 'flow' better.

I know QT did it out of order on purpose - but it sure jumps around alot in both films.

Posted by Dave Williams (Member # 299) on 04-17-2004, 10:14 AM:

IF anything, VOL 2 is a better film than VOL 1. I think the crowd only looking for blood and action are never into films that have story and plot. No offence intended, but that's why so many action films truly suck, because they have not one ounce of story or charachter development.

Yes this film flows differently than the first one. Since it is actually one continuous film, could you really sit through three hours of non stop action and no story? All of you would have gotten bored, left the movie to go theater hopping, or started macking on your significant other in the back of the theater.

It was a superior film. On it's own, better than the first, but put the two together, and you have a very great piece of work.

When the DVD special edition comes out, it will contain both films as one movie as they were handed to Mirmax by QT. Excited about that.

Ciao

Dave

Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 04-17-2004, 12:25 PM:

With the exception of Bill, I doubt you can say this movie has any more depth for the supporting characters. Hattari Hanzo, Oren ishii and Vernita Green were more interesting to me than the supporting characters in Vol2. What you find about Madsen and Hannah is essentially what you already know about them in Vol1 , well except for the nice little relevation about how Hannah's character got to look the way she is. Uma's dialogue was no less inferior in Vol 1(the wicked life speech, the "square" reference with Vernita, the hanzo conversation) despite all the talk about Vol 2 having much better dialogue. Hell, vernita's daughter has a better screen presence than the Bride's daughter in VOl 2. Vol 2 had more dialogue but I can't really remember too much of it other than the stuff by Bill. While I was glad nothing much was going to be cut out because of the split, now I regret that. Menke should have edited Vol2 tighter. Considering what was kept in, I wonder how irrelevant Quentin found the Michael Jai White scenes to delete them?

But it will be fun to speculate after a few weeks, how one would rearrange and redit the chapters for one's personal taste to make the combined movie a better movie.

Posted by Michael Gonzalez (Member # 593) on 04-17-2004, 08:37 PM:

For good or bad QT made the decision to cut each in a way to make them flow different making it seem like two seperate movies. This works when viewing the movies seperately but it wont work if you were going to watch them combined. It is probably safe to say that if he instead where to have just made one three hour long movie, he would have cut it differently to mix up the action. It wouldn't suprise me that if they do come up with a combined Special Edition that the films are going to be mixed together and not just a disk 1 Volume One disk 2 Volume Two.

BTW what was the Michael Jai White scene(s) with Carradine supose to have been about anyway?

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 04-19-2004, 10:55 PM:

With the first one I had to keep going back to see the fight scene over and over again. With this one I don't feel the need to go back to see one scene again. I will wait till it's available as a set on DVD and watch it straight through.

I did have to go to the bathroom in the middle during the training scene. I missed how that ended. I liked how Quentin changed film stock and technique to show a different time period. The training scene looked just like those grainy, over exposed 1970 Hong Kong films.

I was disappointed by the Michael Madson/Darryl Hanna story lines. But Bill more than made up for it. I was surprised by the turn of events. There is an arc to the story that only will get stronger as we are able to view it in one piece. I think Tarantino should re-release Volume One in limited markets. Some people would gladly pay for it twice to see it whole; I would.

One note about the theatre: During the dark scene (you know what I mean) the interior of the Coronet has a lot of ambient light. So the screen was gray instead of black. It would have been more effective to have seen it in a darker theatre.

Other than that I think Quentin Tarantino has done a pulp masterpiece.

[ 04-21-2004, 01:42 PM: Message edited by: Ian Price ]

Posted by Richard Greco (Member # 2032) on 04-19-2004, 11:31 PM:

Not much to say except that this movie filled in a lot of holes for me. I liked it alot. It is a great piece of work.

Posted by Mike Olpin (Member # 1115) on 04-20-2004, 04:06 AM:

Could have been worse, Ian, You could have seen at a theatre which has a policy of playing movies with lights still partially on, making the dark scene look orange.

I think we all know which chain I'm referring to.

Posted by Bill Bright (Member # 1998) on 04-20-2004, 10:11 AM:

Alright, this movie rocked. The fact is when i say this movie i mean vol.1 and vol.2, becuase they were originally one movie. So if you look at it in the sense that what vol.1 lacked vol.2 made up for and vice versa. I.E. making this movie awesome. That's all i got.
-Cheers

Posted by Ron Keillor (Member # 1790) on 04-20-2004, 02:05 PM:

from the New York Times April 20, 2004

"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.

Posted by Aldo Baez (Member # 790) on 04-23-2004, 11:00 PM:

Please, no one is forcing you to buy all the different versions. They are telling you BEFOREHAND what is going to be released.

That being said, great movie. Complements perfectly with vol 1. **SPOILER** The only thing that annoyed me was there was such a brouhaha about the five fingered exploding heart thing and it seems that he takes *six* steps?

Posted by Brian Michael Weidemann (Member # 2243) on 04-24-2004, 09:05 PM:

SPOILER

I saw it twice, and the second time I counted the steps he took. He places one foot or the other down five times and it's while he lifts the last time just before six that he wobbles and is unable to complete that sixth step. It did seem a little anti-climactic, and I figured that would have been how she'd get him once they showed the scene of him telling her the Pai Mei story, when the technique is first mentioned. You see enough movies, you tend to spot the foreshadowing more often than not.

Posted by Ian Price (Member # 14) on 04-25-2004, 01:57 PM:

What do the steps have to do with it? He should have died sitting there having that long winded conversation. [Roll Eyes]

Posted by Pravin Ratnam (Member # 1417) on 04-25-2004, 02:37 PM:

aaah Ian, you see, those longwinded conversations don't result in much blood going to the heart. and hence, the 5 steps were needed. Heh.

When I went to see the Punisher, KB2 was playing in 3 screens at this multiplex(Regal Hollywood 24). one screen had the jittery flickering problem, one screen didn't, and another was tolerable. that's pretty bad projection percentages for a multiplex that is supposed to be one of the better ones. I think that B&W flashback really exposes the bad projections.

Posted by Jamie Glossop (Member # 2180) on 05-04-2004, 07:04 AM:

I saw kill bill 2 the other night at my local cinema. thought this film was great. But i was waiting to see uma kick bills butt with a sword fight but she did her 5 finger move on him. But apart from that. I totaly enjoyed it. Just wish the projectionist at our cinema whould put the film in focus. I also noticed it was abit out of rack.

Posted by Angel Hultzsch (Member # 1058) on 05-10-2004, 06:19 PM:

Hi, to me kill bill vol 1. is the best film by Tarantino, is the first time in a movie where two woman have a really good fight with katana´s, im amazing [Eek!]

,and the story of the bride is interesting, but the Vol 2 dont have nothing of action, only when the master Pai Mei teach Beatrix to fight, and the final is logical she get something unexpected, but David Carradine is too old to do this roll, he suck [Mad]

, i still like the Vol 1 in the classic fight whit the c razy 88 [beer]

Posted by Thomas Procyk (Member # 1170) on 05-13-2004, 10:03 AM:

I thought it was great! Although I do believe that Volume 1 has more re-watchability. The flow and pace of the two got me thinking of Gone With The Wind, and how that worked as one film. The first half is where all the introduction, action, and excitement happen. After intermission, it's more drama and dialog with Scarlett and Rhett. Blah blah blah, nobody gives a damn! [Smile]

It would be cool if they released it back into theaters as one film, and used the "Psychedellic Intermission" tag (like the "Our Feature Presentation" one at the head of Vol1.) instead of the credits after the first half. (Anyone else notice the same songs were played during the credits of 1 & 2? And how "plain" the credits were in 1 compared to this one? Hmmm)

=TMP=

Posted by Daniel Alt (Member # 2303) on 05-17-2004, 11:40 AM:

quote: Thomas Procyk
It would be cool if they released it back into theaters as one film, and used the "Psychedellic Intermission" tag (like the "Our Feature Presentation" one at the head of Vol1.) instead of the credits after the first half. (Anyone else notice the same songs were played during the credits of 1 & 2? And how "plain" the credits were in 1 compared to this one? Hmmm)

Well, we have a copy of that intermission snipe in our booth, so we're all set, right?

I thought 2 was OK IF you'd seen 1. By itself, I think it wouldn't have been of much interest.

David Carradine was definitely one of the best parts. I hope this film does for him what "Pulp Fiction" did for John Travolta. (No, not "Battlefield Earth". Just a kick in the pants for his career)

Posted by Nicole Halper (Member # 2299) on 05-18-2004, 07:16 PM:

I agree that on its own it was not as awesome as the first, but that's not the point. It's one movie as Bill stated several posts back- which as a whole is simply AmAzinG! [thumbsup]

--An interesting fact- I took a friend to see it opening night, and she hadn't seen the first. Believe it or not, she loved it just the same (minus the utter confusion)! And is almost as obsessed with the feature as I am. (She even ordered a set of 3 samurai swords....I wouldn't even go that far!)
Any way- I think Tarantino lived up to his classic style through the entirety of the 2 Vol. saga.