Kill Bill: Volume 2

Screening Report

Kill Bill Volume 2 is the continuation of a story of bloody revenge. Much like the first installment, our heroine is on a journey to slay those who have betrayed her on her hit list. Although the second installment in the Kill Bill series follows the same main character on the same journey that she had already begun, it does so in a more revealing and explanatory fashion. Volume 2 focuses quite heavily on flashback scenes that further explain The Bride’s beginnings as an assassin and literally make her less of a mystery by revealing her real name as Beatrix Kiddo. The film utilizes a mixture of black and white and color scenes in order to make the viewer aware of changes in the broken timeline of the movie, a timing technique that Quentin Tarantino is well known for. Physical changes in the characters can also be tracked in order to identify the time in which any given scene is taking place.

The audience comes into the movie, assuming that they have seen the first installment of the series, knowing that The Bride has already killed two of the people on her original hit list that were part of The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad that stormed her wedding: O-Ren Ishii and Vernita Green. What the film explains is why this squad of killers attempted to kill The Bride and the entire wedding party in the first place. It explores the complicated romantic and business relationship between Beatrix and Bill that has taken her down the path of becoming both an assassin and a mother and how the surrounding events lead up to the massacre at Two Pines. When Beatrix finds out she is pregnant with Bill’s baby while on a mission he sent her on, she faces the decision of leaving her life as an assassin behind for her child or staying with Bill and raising her child in an environment of violence and constant danger. She decides to leave the killing business behind and take up an alias in a new state, get married, and forget her life before. Bill, believing she has been killed on her mission, looks for her killers in order to get his own brand of revenge. He searches only to find that she is alive and pregnant with his child, getting married to another man. His rage felt upon making this discovery is what sparks him to get his squad of assassins together and murder her and everyone else in the chapel. This backstory that is based in the past intertwines with the murders that Beatrix has left to commit on her hit list in present time in order to gain her bloody satisfaction and revenge, eventually ending with a final showdown in which Bill is killed and Beatrix is then reunited with her four year old daughter, B.B.

Movie Review

Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Volume 2 is a brilliant continuation of the Kill Bill series. In the first volume of the story, we see a nameless assassin who kills to avenge the attacks made on her and her unborn daughter by The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad and has an end goal to kill the man responsible for it all, Bill. While the first installment is by no means a bad film, Kill Bill: Volume 2 shows us a different side of the story with the emotional charge and conflicted past behind the sheer fury of this woman scorned. While this is certainly an action film, it is also a very beautifully executed love story that is not typical of the genre. Not only are flashbacks of better times between Beatrix and Bill shown as their love story, but their present complicated love for each other is also shown, even as Beatrix faces killing the man she still loves.

Tarantino also very artistically contrasts the first film’s very eastern influences with the very recognizable western influences in the second film. This contrast can be observed in the cinematography, dialogue, and symbolic set location of the desert. In the first film, we see the honor and tradition associated with the east in battle and in social situations. In this film, we see the romance and self-sufficiency of the spirit of the west. In this sequel, the struggle to fight for vengeance is more human and thought provoking because of the love for a man and her child and pain that we clearly see he has caused her as her reasoning for chasing after her revenge. It is a beautiful tale that tells the story of first a woman, then an assassin, and finally, a mother on her quest for closure and happiness.

Critical Essay

Kill Bill: Volume 2 follows the evolution of a woman as she struggles to play multiple roles in her life. In the early flashbacks of the past, we see Beatrix as a very dependent and dedicated lover to Bill. Not only is she his woman, she is his assassin in training. When she is separated from Bill during her training, she becomes more independent and much more confident in herself. She asks fewer questions of her superiors and relies more on her instinct and her teachings than she ever did before.

In the scene where Beatrix discovers that she is a mother, we see her at her most vulnerable and pivotal point in womanhood. Doing something as commonplace as a pregnancy test while on a hired mission to kill shows her human side. She waits nervously for the results just as anyone else would and panics just as much as any woman would when she becomes aware of an unplanned pregnancy. Beatrix is suddenly faced with the decision to stay with Bill and raise her child in the world of assassins or leave Bill behind in order to raise her child in a better environment. Her choice to leave Bill and start off with a clean slate for the sake of her child shows her growth and maturity as a woman, while still holding on to her identity as an assassin by adopting an alias and letting Bill believe that she has been killed while on the mission.

After Bill discovers that she is still alive and pregnant with his child, he takes violent ownership of her. Even at the moment that he shoots her in the head, he says “This is me at my most masochistic.” This attack is what re-ignites the fire of a killer within Beatrix as she fights to avenge her daughter. Only after all of Bill’s accomplices are defeated does she discover that her daughter is still alive. When she comes to Bill’s house to kill him, she finds her daughter in the doorway instead, playing a game of toy guns with “Daddy”. Her tenderness and human vulnerability is seen once again as she cries both in sadness and pure joy in finally being reunited with her daughter. Even after killing Bill, we see that he is the only member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad that she cries for as he dies. By the end of the film, Beatrix has finally found the balance in her life as a woman: being a bride, a “black mamba”, Beatrix Kiddo, and Mommy.