Kill Bill

Director: Quentin Tarantino
With: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox, Chiaki Kuriyama, Lucy Liu, Sonny Chiba, Chia Hui Liu, Michael Parks, Samuel L. Jackson

Well, i finally did it, i went to see Kill Bill Volume 2 and taken as a whole, and i mean one close to 5 hour movie with an excruciatingly long 6 month “cooling off” interlude, i would have to say the Kill Bill could and should rank among the best ‘pop culture’ movies released in a very long time.

This all makes perfect sense because few directors, if any, can meld such disparate elements into one cohesive piece, and Tarantino is one of the best if not the best and arguably on of the progenitors of the ‘pop’ movie genre with his Pulp Fiction from several years back. Seriously though, how can one envision bringing together with an almost comic book cinematic style, kung fu, samurai sword fighting, rare and deep soul and funk music, a tragic love story, overwhelming love for one’s child, southern red neck culture (the pussy wagon anyone?), even an early pregnancy test and its ad slogans and of course some of the deepest and most sadistic violence. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to downplay violence of any kind, but there were no simple strangulations or gun shots, and as a matter of fact I think the most straight forward revenge killing ( a poisoning ) was also the movie’s most cowardly. Come to think of it, the fact that I was sitting back cheering as each one of The Bride’s marks fell and the accompanying guilty pleasure of thinking of how she would do the next one was one the movie’s triumphs for me.

As for the actors, I think they all did a bang up job (yeah that pun was intended), with old and new school actors coming together. David Carradine touches upon his caine role from kung fu but in a bizarro-caine kind of way, and it’s nice to see Darryl Hannah back in movies as the self-advancing uber-bitch (sorry but Dancing at the Blue Iguana does constitute a come back role). Vivica A Fox and Lucy Liu also more than hold their own in part 1 but I think Chiaki Kuriyama stole the show part 1’s thunder as the not so innocent school girl.

And then there’s Uma. What can I say, she rocks hard for Quentin; they have some connection going on because he really gets her to come out of her shell, shall I iterate her last few movies without Quentin? They all leave much to be desired except for Vatel, Beautiful Girls and Dangerous Liasons and that’s going back 15 years all the way to 1988.

Bottom line: see this(these) movie(s) asap.