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Whistle Stopper - Kill Bill - Volume Two
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List Price: $14.99
Our Price: $5.16
Your Save: $ 9.83 ( 66% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Miramax Home Entertainment
Starring: Larry Bishop, Sid Haig, Samuel L. Jackson, Gordon Liu, Michael Madsen
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: NC-17
Binding: DVD
Brand: THURMAN/HANNAH/CARRADINE
EAN: 9780788855733
Format: Anamorphic
ISBN: 0788855735
Label: Miramax Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Miramax Home Entertainment
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Miramax Home Entertainment
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2004-08-10
Running Time: 137
Studio: Miramax Home Entertainment
Theatrical Release Date: 2004-04-16
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Better than 1; outstanding!
Comment: If you like gross, overly violent, graphic films, then you'll like Kill Bill Vol. 1 more, but this one was way better. I watched the first, and barely could sit through it because it was so gross and sick. However, I found volume 2 much better, with a better story line, and action packed. It completed the story, and thus had more of a story line. If you consider watching people get dismembered and children bleeding out their predators as action and entertainment, you may like 1 better.
I almost didn't watch 2 because of how much I found 1 distasteful, but I was told 2 was less violent, so I watched and I'm glad I did, as this is one of my favorite movies!
I know they are one movie, but if you watch them, you wouldn't think so.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Kill Bill Vol. 2: The Bride's Redemption
Comment: WARNING: This review contains spoilers!
Note: Before reading this review for Kill Bill Vol. 2, please read my review for Kill Bill Vol. 1 to avoid confusion.
Quentin Tarantino (Jackie Brown and Kill Bill Vol. 1) delivers the second half of his epic revenge melodrama, Kill Bill, with his usual stylistic flare. As with Vol. 1, he gives tribute to the many genres* that have inspired him since his childhood. Unlike Kill Bill Vol. 1, Vol. 2 focuses more on human drama rather than gory action but it still packs a punch. The story is more typical of Tarantino's writing, relying heavily on witty banter between immoral characters who suffer the delusion that they are following some strict code of honor. Another difference between Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 is the tone of the film. Vol. 1 is very much an amalgamation of samurai, blaxploitation, and revenge melodrama. Vol. 2 is more of a spaghetti western/kung fu/dysfunctional family drama.
Kill Bill Vol. 2 continues The Bride's quest for revenge against her former boss/lover, Bill, who four years earlier massacred her husband-to-be and her friends during her wedding rehearsal. But Bill has a secret: the daughter that The Bride was pregnant with, whom she believed to have been killed, is alive and happily living with her father, Bill. And for the first we are shown how The Bride became the killer that she is. We see her cruel tutelage under kung fu master Pai Mei, who takes her past the breaking point and keeps pushing her to excel. We see the day that she realized she was pregnant and decided to leave killing behind her. And we see the day that the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (DiVAS) killed her friends before putting her in a coma. With all of these events in mind, The Bride continues down the blood-soaked path to vengeance. #3 on her "Death List" is Bill's younger brother, Budd, who has no intention of becoming just another splatter mark leading to Bill. When The Bride shows up, Budd is waiting with a shotgun and a shovel. He shoots her in the chest and then buries her alive in the desert. Budd plans on selling The Bride's Hattori Hanzo sword to Elle Driver, #4 on The Bride's "Death List" and one of the top members of the Deadly Vipers, but Elle is lethally cunning and she despises Budd for killing The Bride before she had the chance to do it herself. Little does she know that The Bride has escaped from her premature burial site and is on her way to kill Budd (who is already dead thanks to Elle). When The Bride arrives, she and Elle duke it out in an intimately savage fight which ends in an unexpectedly abrupt manner. Without stopping for respite or recovery, The Bride Travels to Acuna Mexico where she looks up an old retired pimp, Esteban Vihaio, who served as a father figure to Bill. It is from Esteban that she finally learns the location of Bill himself. The Bride hits the road once again and it's not long before she reaches her destination where Bill is waiting with their daughter, B.B.. Bill and The Bride hide their vendetta from their daughter but after she's safely tucked into bed they confront one another. After a long discussion about the nature of heroes and dual identities, about leading a double life of mediocrity and intrigue, they fight briefly. In the end Bill is, of course, dead but so is The Bride. She lives on in a new incarnation, not as The Bride, a killer, but as Mommy. Mommy and B.B. drive off into the sunset and live happily ever after.
There have been some critics who have been disappointed with the film's climactic showdown between The Bride and Bill. Most of them complained that either Bill's death was too simple and dignified or that the final duel should have been more of a spectacle like the final battle in the first film. However, upon close examination the ending is entirely appropriate, both emotionally and pragmatically. All this time The Bride has been a stoic and impersonal killer and only when she was with Bill or when she was pregnant was she intimate and human. This duality was necessary in her violent line of work, but when she kills Bill she is released from this shifting imbalance and made whole. Only when he is dead can she become human again and act as a mother to her daughter. It is this removal of evil from the world that gives her the strength to survive and redeem herself. She's no longer The Bride, she's simply Mommy; a woman freed from the cruelties of men, a mother who does not attack but to defend her offspring. It's odd but the film which started off as a tribute to genre films and exploitation is in the end an ironic allegory for feminism and non-violence.
The cast (as always is the case in Tarantino's films) is wonderful especially Uma Thurman as The Bride/Mommy, Michael Madsen as Budd, Daryl Hannah as Elle Driver, David Carradine as Bill, and Gordon Liu as Pai Mei.
Special features include The Making of Kill Bill Vol. 2, a performance by Robert Rodrigez' band Chingon, and a deleted scene.
* Here are some of the films which inspired Q.T. to make Kill Bill:
A Fistful of Dollars
For a Few Dollars More
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly
The Wild Bunch - The Original Director's Cut
Duck, You Sucker
Kung Fu - The Complete Series Collection
Five Fingers Of Death
The 36th Chamber of Shaolin
Customer Rating:
Summary: revenge is best served cold
Comment: I love this movie and I was very happy to find it with this seller. I am very pleased.
Customer Rating:
Summary: taking cr*p so seriously
Comment: And I just feel like laughing at it. KILL BILL. Short simple amusing little title for such a long drawn out oddly serious film. So long in fact that it had to be chopped in two, as we all know. Looking at separate pieces I see nothing to gripe about whatsoever. Most every scene seems perfect. Taken as a whole, I find an overly self-serious, bloated, pretentious film. IMHO, KILL BILL would have benefitted greatly as one film under 2 hours and done more as a comedy rather than a revenge drama.
I guess I wanted a revenge comedy. Or a revenge dramadey. And maybe a little bit more focus on just telling this story instead of on what the project was really about, which was a grand tribute to various genres the director grew on. I like trash, and I like art, but I like my trash best when there is no confusing it with anything other than what it is. I don't have as much love for the cr*p as Tarantino. But who really does? That guy is a mutant, a real life "Cable Guy" that spent his entire youth in a movie theater. So maybe that's why I lack a little bit of appreciation for this homage to cr*p. Don't mean to offend the faithful here. Tarantino is still the man, although I wish he'd quit talking so damn much and work more --I mean, have you ever seen someone as brilliant at self promotion? KILL BILL was six long years after what was that film? And what's he up to now? (I'll look online in a minute.) I still think it's great though, but not as fun (for lack of a better term) as I personally would have preferred. Your maybe thinking, what the hell are you talking about? I mean, I wanted to laugh my a-- off with this one. I wanted BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA sillyness. But that's just my 2 cents.
Some highlights from Volume 2:
Pai Mei is my favorite character. Michael Madsen gave an Oscar worthy performance as Bud, Bill's brother. Great performances all around. Great soundtrack as always. Visually just a gorgeous picture.
From Volume 1:
The anime and watching hundreds of Japanese chodes having their limbs removed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: good sequel
Comment: This is a really good sequel. It has lots of action and answers questions not answered in part I.
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Editorial Reviews:
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The Bride, a former member the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad continues to seek revenge for the death of her groom and unborn child at the hands of her associates.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: THURMAN/HANNAH/CARRADINE
Title: KILL BILL-VOL. 2
Street Release Date: 06/07/2005
Domestic
Genre: ACTION / ADVENTURE
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