Kill Bill: Volume 2


Kill Bill: Volume 2 is a 2004 American martial arts 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 and their leader Bill, who tried to kill her and her unborn child.
Tarantino conceived Kill Bill as a homage to "grindhouse" cinema including martial arts films, samurai cinema, blaxploitation films, and spaghetti westerns. Volume 2 is the second of two Kill Bill films produced simultaneously; the first, , was released in 2003. The films were originally set for a single release, but the film, with a runtime of over four hours, was divided in two. Like Volume 1, Volume 2 received positive reviews and was a commercial success.

Plot

Four years before the events of , the pregnant Bride and her groom rehearse their wedding. Bill, the Bride's former lover, the father of her child, and the leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, arrives unexpectedly and orders the Deadly Vipers to kill everyone at the wedding. Bill shoots the Bride in the head, but she survives and swears revenge.
In the present, the Bride has already assassinated Deadly Vipers O-Ren Ishii and Vernita Green. She goes to the trailer of Bill's brother and Deadly Viper Budd, planning to ambush him. Budd has been warned by Bill of her approach; 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 the Bride's unique sword for $1 million. He seals the Bride inside a coffin and buries her alive.
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 Mei refuses to teach his students; the technique that supposedly kills any opponent after they have taken five steps. Bill takes the Bride to Mei's temple for training. Mei ridicules her and makes her training a torment, but she gains his respect. In the present, the Bride uses Mei's board punching technique to break out of the coffin and claw her way to the surface.
Elle arrives at Budd's trailer and kills him with a black mamba hidden with the 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 Mei, taunts Beatrix by revealing that she killed Mei by poisoning him in retribution for him plucking out her eye. An 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 a hotel, and discovers that their daughter B.B. is still alive, now four years old, spending the evening with them. After she puts B.B. to bed, Bill shoots Beatrix with a dart containing truth serum and interrogates her. She recounts a mission in which she discovered she was pregnant and explains that she left the Deadly Vipers to give B.B. a better life. Bill explains that he assumed she had died and mourned her for three months; he ordered her assassination when he discovered she was alive and engaged to a "jerk" that he assumed was the father of her child. Beatrix disables Bill and strikes with Mei's Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, which she had kept secret. Bill makes his peace with her, takes five steps and dies. Beatrix leaves with her daughter.
The next morning Beatrix is shown crying as she still loved Bill, but at the same time she laughs uncontrollably; a collateral effect of the truth serum, Bill's last gift for Beatrix, so B.B. couldn't see her in tears. Understanding his gesture, Beatrix whispers "thank you" to the late Bill and starts a new life with her child.

Cast

As with Tarantino's previous films, Kill Bill features an eclectic soundtrack comprising many musical genres. On the two soundtracks, music ranges from country music to selections from the Spaghetti Western film scores of Ennio Morricone. Bernard Herrmann's theme from the film Twisted Nerve is whistled by the menacing Elle Driver in the hospital scene. A brief, 15-second excerpt from the opening of the Ironside theme music by Quincy Jones is used as the Bride's revenge motif, which flares up with a red-tinged flashback whenever she is in the company of her next target. Instrumental tracks from Japanese guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei figure prominently, and after the success of Kill Bill they were frequently used in American TV commercials and at sporting events. The end credits are driven by the rock and roll version of "Malagueña Salerosa", a traditional Mexican song, performed by "Chingon", Robert Rodriguez's band.

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 1s 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 2s opening weekend gross was higher than Volume 1s, 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 to 29 years old. Volume 2s 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 Lifes 1999 record. Volume 2s 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 2s 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 release

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.
Both Volume 1 and Volume 2, were released in High Definition on Blu-ray on September 9, 2008 in the United States.

''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 received a score of 84% based on reviews from 238 critics, and an average rating of 7.8/10. 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".
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

Uma Thurman received a Golden Globe Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama nomination in 2005 for her role. David Carradine also received a Best Supporting Actor nomination in the same year. Kill Bill: Volume 2 was placed in Empire Magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Films of All Time" at number 423 and the Bride was also ranked number 66 in Empire magazine's "100 Greatest Movie Characters".

Possible sequels

In April 2004, Tarantino told Entertainment Weekly that he was planning a sequel:
At the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con International, Tarantino stated 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. Details emerged around 2007 about two possible sequels, Kill Bill: Volume 3 and Volume 4. According to the article, "the third film involves the revenge of two killers whose arms and eye were hacked by Uma Thurman in the first stories." The article adds that the "fourth installment of the popular kung fu action films concerns a cycle of reprisals and daughters who avenge their mother's deaths".
At the 2009 Morelia International Film Festival, Tarantino stated that he intended to make a third Kill Bill film. The same month, he stated that Kill Bill 3 would be his ninth film, and would be released in 2014. He said he wanted 10 years to pass after the Bride's last conflict, to give her and her daughter a period of peace.
In December 2012, Tarantino said there would "probably not" be a third film." However, in July 2019, Tarantino said that he and Thurman had talked again about a possible sequel, and added: If any of my movies were going to spring from my other movies, it would be a third Kill Bill." In December, Tarantino said he had spoken to Thurman about an "interesting" idea for a new film: "It would be at least three years from now. It is definitely in the cards".