Kill Bill Vol. 2

Gosh. It’s so difficult to review Tarantino movies without sounding like a stalker fan-girl who’d blissfully dwell amidst his celluloid garbage. Or worse, his actual garbage. Somewhat predictably, I found Kill Bill Vol. 2 head-trippingly, knee-knockingly fantastic – an orgy of references to what Tarantino terms ‘grindhouse cinema’, namely the finest trash-classics (Switchblade Sisters, The Blood Splattered Bride), the most exotic oriental flicks (Lady Snowblood, Shogun Assassin, Golden Swallow), the more seminal exploitation efforts (They Call Her One Eye, The Doll Squad, Faster Pussycat, Kill Kill!) and the noblest European art cinema (Persona, Pierrot Le Fou). He just keeps pitching quotations at you like artful nunchucks resulting in a grand neurochemical fizz that lights up parts of your movie brain that you’d quite forgotten.
Lest we forget in our excitement, the plot takes up where Vol. 1 left off. Our avenging angel Uma has ditched Bruce Lee’s Game of Death jumpsuit to seek out her three remaining would-be assassins – the always menacing Michael Madsen, the venomous Daryl Hannah and former employer and soulmate Bill, essayed with typical enigmatic relish by David Carradine. Meanwhile, fans of the Shaw Brothers’ finest will be ecstatic to see Gordon Lui reprise his immortal Pai Mei (translation – White Eyebrow) role in a flashback detailing the Bride’s (real name Beatrix – oh, how very Dante and fitting for Tarantino’s muse) tough-love training regime. Those unfamiliar with Gordon’s work – fear not – you will be equally enthralled with his comic genius, and will surely march forthwith to their local video stores to demand a copy of his quintessential Fist of the White Lotus.
Oddly, Vol.2 steps back from the gloriously infantile rush of its predecessor toward something approximating emotional content. This does mean that there’s nothing to top the fabulously fetishised ferocity of Vol.1’s ‘House of Blue Leaves’ bloodletting odyssey, and that there’s no torrid Duel In The Sun climax, but there’s a Daryl-Uma catfight that would make Russ Meyers himself weep for joy and a cinematic playfulness that’s sheer resplendent Quentinese.
A decorous and wondrous sonnet to the movies that spawned him, Kill Bill Vols. 1 and 2 sees Tarantino hypothesise that we will all be made equal someday in the glint of Sonny Chiba’s sword. He’s bloody right you know. Oh, and Quentin, I don’t mind waiting, but don’t get all Terence Malick. You had me worried after Jackie Brown. Bring on the Bill prequel. And ’til then it’ll hurt.

142mins. Cert 18.