Kill Bill Vol. 2

''Kill Bill: Volume 2'' is a 2004 American martial arts action film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Uma Thurman as the Bride, who continues her campaign of revenge against the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Liu, and Michael Madsen) and their leader Bill (David Carradine), who tried to kill her and their unborn child.

Tarantino conceived ''Kill Bill'' as an homage to low-budget cinema, including exploitation films, martial arts films, samurai cinema, blaxploitation and spaghetti westerns. ''Volume 2'' is the second of two ''Kill Bill'' films produced simultaneously; the first, '' Volume 1'', was released six months earlier. The films were set for a single release, but the film, with a runtime of over four hours, was divided in two.

''Volume 2'' received positive reviews and grossed $152.2 million worldwide on a production budget of $30 million. Tarantino had planned to make further ''Kill Bill'' films in the following years, but abandoned those plans by 2023. Like its predecessor, ''Volume 2'' is listed as one of the greatest martial arts films of all time and one of the best kung fu sequels of all time.

Plot

The pregnant Bride and her groom rehearse their wedding. Bill − the Bride's former lover, and the leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad − arrives unexpectedly and orders the Deadly Vipers to kill everyone at the wedding rehearsal. Bill shoots the Bride in the head, but she survives and swears revenge.

Four years later, the Bride, having already assassinated Deadly Vipers O-Ren Ishii and Vernita Green, goes to the trailer of Bill's brother Budd, another Deadly Viper, planning to ambush him. Having been warned by Bill beforehand, he incapacitates her with a non-lethal shotgun blast of rock salt and sedates her. He calls Elle Driver, another former Deadly Viper, and arranges to sell her the Bride's sword for $1 million. He seals the Bride inside a coffin and buries her alive.

In a flashback to years earlier, Bill tells the young Bride of the legendary martial arts master Pai Mei and his Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, a death blow that Pai refuses to teach his students; properly used, the attack is reputed to leave an opponent able to take only five steps before dying. Bill takes the Bride to Pai's temple for training. Pai ridicules and torments her during training, but she eventually gains his respect. In the present, the Bride uses Pai's techniques to escape from the coffin and claw her way to the surface.

Elle arrives at Budd's trailer and kills him with a black mamba hidden within the case full of money for the sword. She calls Bill and tells him that the Bride has killed Budd and that she has killed the Bride, using the Bride's real name: Beatrix Kiddo. As Elle exits the trailer, Beatrix ambushes her and they fight. Elle, who was also taught by Pai, taunts Beatrix by revealing that she killed Pai by poisoning his favorite meal in retribution for him plucking out her eye after she called him "a miserable old fool". Enraged, Beatrix plucks out Elle's remaining eye and leaves her screaming in the trailer with the black mamba.

In Acuña, Mexico, Beatrix meets a retired pimp, Esteban Vihaio, who helps her find Bill. She tracks him to his home, and discovers that their daughter B. B. is still alive, now four years old. Beatrix spends the evening with them. After she puts B. B. to bed, Bill shoots Beatrix with a dart containing truth serum and interrogates her. She explains that she left the Deadly Vipers when she discovered she was pregnant, in order to give B. B. a better life. Bill explains that he assumed she was dead; he ordered her assassination when he discovered she was alive and engaged to a "jerk" he assumed was the father of her child. The two begin to fight, but Beatrix traps Bill's sword in her scabbard and strikes him with the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique. Surprised that Pai taught her the attack, Bill reconciles with her, then falls dead as he walks away. Beatrix leaves with B. B. to start a new life.

Cast

Production

The ''Kill Bill'' films were inspired by exploitation films that played in cheap US theaters in the 1970s, including martial arts films, samurai cinema, blaxploitation films and spaghetti westerns. ''Kill Bill'' ''Volume 1'' and ''Volume 2'' were planned and produced as a single film. After editing began, the executive producer, Harvey Weinstein, who was known for pressuring filmmakers to shorten their films, suggested that Quentin Tarantino split the film in two. The decision was announced in July 2003.

Tarantino said he saved most of the Bride's character development for the second film: "As far as the first half is concerned, I didn't want to make her sympathetic. I wanted to make her scary." He said he "loves" the Bride and that he "killed himself to put her in a good place" for the ending.

Music

Release

Theatrical release

''Kill Bill: Volume 2'' was released in theaters on , 2004. It was originally scheduled to be released on , 2004, but was rescheduled. ''Variety'' posited that the delay was to coincide its theatrical release with ''Volume 1''s release on DVD. In the United States and Canada, ''Volume 2'' was released in and grossed on its opening weekend, ranking first at the box office and beating fellow opener ''The Punisher''. ''Volume 2''s opening weekend gross was higher than ''Volume 1''s, and the equivalent success confirmed the studio's financial decision to split the film into two theatrical releases.

''Volume 2'' attracted more female theatergoers than ''Volume 1'', with 60% of the audience being male and 56% of the audience being men between the ages of 18 and 29 years old. ''Volume 2''s opening weekend was the largest to date for Miramax Films aside from releases under its arm Dimension Films. The opening weekend was also the largest to date in the month of April for a film restricted in the United States to theatergoers 17 years old and up, besting ''Life''s 1999 record. ''Volume 2''s opening weekend was strengthened by the reception of ''Volume 1'' in the previous year among audiences and critics, abundant publicity related to the splitting into two volumes, and the DVD release of ''Volume 1'' in the week before ''Volume 2''s theatrical release.

Outside of the United States and Canada, ''Volume 2'' was released in 20 territories over the weekend of , 2004. It grossed an estimated and ranked first at the international box office, ending an eight-week streak held by ''The Passion of the Christ''. ''Volume 2'' grossed a total of in the United States and Canada and in other territories for a worldwide total of .

Home media

In the United States, ''Volume 2'' was released on DVD and VHS on August 10, 2004. In a December 2005 interview, Tarantino addressed the lack of a special edition DVD for ''Kill Bill'' by stating "I've been holding off because I've been working on it for so long that I just wanted a year off from ''Kill Bill'' and then I'll do the big supplementary DVD package." The United States does not have a DVD boxed set of ''Kill Bill'', though box sets of the two separate volumes are available in other countries, such as France, Japan and the United Kingdom. Upon the DVD release of ''Volume 2'' in the US, however, Best Buy did offer an exclusive box set slipcase to house the two individual releases together.

''The Whole Bloody Affair''

At the 2008 Provincetown International Film Festival, Tarantino announced that the original cut of ''Kill Bill'', incorporating both films and an extended animation sequence, would be released in May 2009 as ''Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair''. Screenings began on March 27, 2011, at the New Beverly Cinema.

Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, ''Kill Bill: Volume 2'' holds an approval rating of 84% based on 244 reviews, with an average rating of 7.80/10. The website's critical consensus states, "''Kill Bill: Volume 2'' adds extra plot and dialogue to the action-heavy exploits of its predecessor, while still managing to deliver a suitably hard-hitting sequel." At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 83 out of 100 based on 41 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, a grade up from the "B+" earned by the previous film. Each film's score can be accessed from the website's search bar.

Roger Ebert gave the film 4 stars out of 4, writing: "Put the two parts together, and Tarantino has made a masterful saga that celebrates the martial arts genre while kidding it, loving it, and transcending it. ... This is all one film, and now that we see it whole, it's greater than its two parts." In 2009, he named ''Kill Bill'' one of the 20 best films of the decade.

Accolades

Thurman received a Golden Globe Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama nomination in 2005. Carradine also received a Best Supporting Actor nomination. ''Empire'' named ''Kill Bill: Volume 2'' the 423rd-greatest film and the Bride the 66th-greatest film character.

Cancelled sequels

In April 2004, Tarantino told ''Entertainment Weekly'' that he intended to make a ''Kill Bill'' sequel at least 15 years after the second film. He planned that the character of Nikki would seek revenge on the Bride for killing her mother, Vernita Green, in ''Volume 1''. At the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con, Tarantino said that, after the completion of ''Grindhouse'', he wanted to make two anime ''Kill Bill'' films: an origin story about Bill and his mentors, and another origin starring the Bride. In 2007, ''Bloody Disgusting'' reported that ''Volume 3'' would involve two killers attacked by the Bride in the first films, and that ''Volume 4'' "concerns a cycle of reprisals and daughters who avenge their mother's deaths". At the 2009 Morelia International Film Festival, Tarantino reiterated that he intended to make a third ''Kill Bill'' film. That month, he said that ''Kill Bill 3'' would be his ninth film and would be released in 2014. He said he wanted 10 years to pass to give her and the Bride and her daughter a period of peace.

In December 2012, Tarantino said there would "probably not" be a third film." However, in July 2019, he said that he and Thurman had talked again about a sequel and that "if any of my movies were going to spring from my other movies, it would be a third ''Kill Bill".'' That December, Tarantino said he had spoken to Thurman again about the film, and was "definitely in the cards". In June 2021, Tarantino said he was excited about the possibility of Thurman and her daughter, Maya Hawke, playing the Bride and B.B. He also said the characters of Driver, Sofie Fatale and Gogo's twin sister, Shiaki, could appear. Later that month, Tarantino said he did not want to take on more ''Kill Bill'' films following the fatigue he endured making the first two. In July 2023, Tarantino said a sequel would not be made.

See also

* Zoë Bell
* '' Lady Snowblood''
* '' Kill Buljo''
* Quentin Tarantino filmography

References

External links

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{{Authority control

Kill Bill
2004 action thriller films
2000s feminist films
2004 films
2004 martial arts films
A Band Apart films
American action thriller films
American films about revenge
American martial arts films
American nonlinear narrative films
American sequel films
Films about secret societies
Films directed by Quentin Tarantino
Films produced by Lawrence Bender
Films scored by Robert Rodriguez
Films set in China
Films set in Los Angeles
Films set in Mexico
Films set in Texas
Films shot in Beijing
Films shot in California
Films shot in Los Angeles
Films shot in Mexico
Films with screenplays by Quentin Tarantino
Girls with guns films
Kung fu films
Miramax films
Miramax franchises
Films scored by RZA
Saturn Award–winning films
2000s English-language films
2000s American films
2000s Japanese films
English-language action thriller films