Director: Quentin Tarantino
Rating: ***

Kill Bill Vol 2 is as different from Vol 1 as it can get. Of course, the homage to American Westerns, samurai movies and Hong Kong action flicks is visible. But it has less deaths, violence, limbs flying in the air and much less blood. Tarantino works overtime to tone down the comic-book gore to try and make the film more of a cinematic whole than just an action tableau.
The action kicks off in beautiful B&W, on a self-deprecatory note. The Bride (Thurman) talks about Vol 1 as a "roaring rampage of revenge". She killed a lot of people there but one is still left, obviously her scorned lover and the father of her child, Bill (Carradine), who organised the deadly viper assassination squad to wipe her out on her wedding day. He himself is of the opinion: "That woman deserves her revenge and we deserve to die".
So the shadowy Bill of Vol 1 becomes a full-blown character here. The reptilian...

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