Vengeance is mined

Noel Vera

With "Kill Bill, Volume 2" Quentin Tarantino completes what, for
better or worse, represents his vision for the new millennium--a
three-hour chick-takes-revenge flick with obscure allusions to
martial arts movies, gunslinger movies, pulpy genre movies of all
kinds. It's Tarantino's encyclopedic knowledge of video rentals,
distilled and summarized and rendered in comic-dramatic form. Kind
of useless trying to decide whether this is or is not an improvement
over "Volume1," a rather meaningless collection of ultraviolent
fight sequences: the one completes the other, the first giving us a
lurid display of the countless colorful ways in which a human being
can be killed, maimed or otherwise injured, physically and
psychologically (decided emphasis on the physical), the second being
a fairly more thoughtful meditation on why someone might want to
commit such acts. The first half is more an exhibition of Yuen Woo
Ping's kickass martial arts fight choreography, with Tarantino
barely able to play catch-up with his camera, the second a more
fitting exhibition of Tarantino's patented clever dialogue, with
prominent use of his one great gift--the casting of a "ready to be
rehabilitated into prime time" character actor, in this case, David
Carradine of "Kung Fu" and "Death Race 2000" fame, playing the
eponymous Bill. Tarantino, for all you could say about or against
him, was right; Miramax erred in spliting this into two movies.

The question, finally, is this--how good is "Kill Bill," the severed
halves taken as a completed whole? The movie references Chang Cheh,
Liu Chia Liang, John Woo, King Hu, and Sergio Leone among others;
you wonder what Tarantino brings into the party that you couldn't
get watching these movies directly, in their original form. Okay,
big screen and stereo sound, if you happen to catch the commercial
screening; more important is the effect of having all these
disparate ingredients tossed into a big pot and letting the flavors
simmer, hopefully to unite and fuse into a palatable whole.

It doesn't happen, I think; it's the same problem I noted in the
first volume, namely that Tarantino has an interesting list of
ingredients and spices, but lacks the skill to bring them together
properly. He's basically a fairly clever scriptwriter with a genius
talent for casting who has lucked into enough clout and boxoffice
success to be able to direct his own scripts; it's the directing
that's his downfall.

Oh, he knows how to pace his movies--he knows how to alternate
scenes of furious motion with moments of tense stillness (he's seen
enough martial arts movies to at least notice the pattern), and he
knows how to use the crucial detail, the bright bit of color, or
sudden sound effect, to startle scenes into life.

He can elicit lively performances--maybe his best work was when he
was directing a script from a real writer, Elmore Leonard's "Jackie
Brown," and the resulting movie had lived-in characters with a depth
of feeling and a sense of genuine hopelessness that you don't see in
any of Tarantino's other movies. Here, the actors appear to be
relaxed and enjoying themselves and ready to give all. Michael
Madsen's Budd inhabits his broken-down trailer as if he had
spontaneously sprouted from its multi-stained carpet, complete with
fuzzy beard growth and unimaginable body odors and drinking-jar
collection and all; Darryl Hannah is even better as the treacherous
Elle Driver, with the sinuous moves, elaborate motives, long
backstory, and one-eyed deadly glare necessary to possibly beat the
Bride in single combat. Then there are the handful of lovely little
supporting performances, from Samuel Jackson (who made it big with
Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction") to Bo Svenson (the "Walking Tall"
sequels and TV series), though my favorite has to be Gordon Liu, he
of "36th Chamber of Shaolin" fame, as the sadistic martial-arts
trainer with the slightly mis-synchronized laugh.

Uma Thurman I've noted before as having a not very complex character
to play, but her role is physically demanding enough that you're
nevertheless impressed (physically speaking, she's no Michelle Yeoh,
not even a Zhang Ziyi, but she does try very hard). Tarantino fills
in the blank spaces in her character, and the resulting portrait,
while definitely more detailed than the blank stare of vengeance
that waded its way through "Vol. 1," remains a cartoon sketch; it's
the punishment meted out to her and that she metes out in return
that gives her Beatrix Kiddo (her name, as it turns out) the
necessary amplitude to stand out--action here literally and
necessarily being character (there isn't much else).

Maybe the most impressive performance in the film is the one lying
in wait at the end of it--namely, Bill. David Carradine, so coyly
glimpsed in "Vol. 1" gives perhaps the performance of his career
(there aren't that many when you think about it--the "Kung Fu"
series, "Death Race 2000," "The Long Ride," "Bound for Glory," "Q:
The Winged Serpent"). His Bill is a lazy serpent of a man,
economical in movement and expression; he's at his threatening best
when he languidly lays himself open to Thurman's Beatrix, offering
her (an exquisitely cruel touch) a taste of the domesticity she
never had a chance to experience--and, if he has anything to do with
it, never will.

But these are all flavorful and interesting chunks of meat and
potatoes in a stew that never quite coheres--that doesn't have a
genuine action filmmaker at the center of it bringing it all
together. I've mentioned Yuen Woo Ping as being a far better
alternative--aside from doing tremendous choreography work, he's an
accomplished director ("Snake in the Eagle's Shadow," "Iron
Monkey"); there's always Tarantino's bosom buddy Robert Rodriguez,
who does have the style to do action properly but always had a
problem with his scripts (which is why the best picture either
Tarantino or Rodriguez have ever been involved in for me was "From
Dusk Till Dawn," a genre-bending collaboration between the two).
This is obviously a labor of love, and I understand Tarantino
wanting to do it himself; too bad what Tarantino wanted wasn't
necessarily what the movie so badly needed.

(First published in Businessworld, 7/9/04)

(Comments? Email me at noelbotevera@...)