Me rambling more about Kill Bill and thoughts it inspired.

[xyzzysqrl]

First, just a general thought: If Tarentino can wring this badass performance out of UMA THURMAN, what's he gonna do with Jet Li? Mmmm.

Ahem. Now I reflect.
From "I killed your master" to "I killed your parents and family" to "I killed your student" to (in certain cases) "I killed YOU. Why aren't you dead?", the revenge epic is pretty darned big when you're talking about martial arts movies. Everybody from Bruce Lee to Jackie Chan to Don "The Dragon" Wilson and Jean Claude Van Damme has covered this theme, and... it's not hard to work out why, really. It's an easy excuse to go out and just BEAT on people.

That said, I've never really understood the concept of vengance, noble or otherwise. It doesn't change what happened. Revenge has no place in my worldview. It's just not really understandable to me.

This was a really -good- revenge story though. I admit I'm with the crazed violence junkies who prefered part 1. Part 2 was good, but I often spent time going "...yes, thank you, we got the point a while back. Shut up. Shut UP. TARENTINO, WE KNOW IT'S YOU. SHUT IT ALREADY AND LET THE MOVIE PROGRESS." This happens to me every time I try to watch one of his films. The "snappy patter" and epic speeches his characters tend to make just make me roll my eyes and wait impatiently for him to stop channeling his yammering through the actors. So that didn't go far with me. (Bill's "Superman" speech in particular was "We have two minutes, let's just go with whatever comes up.")

Let's see. Actually giving the Bride a personality was good. I liked her, surprisingly. As stated before, GoGo was the Hot. The other characters didn't stand out a lot, but Budd in particular struck me as the single most UNNATURALLY laid back human being known to mankind. ... Also, does anyone really believe a blind woman can survive being left in a trailer with a snake? (In this movie? Hell yeah, I suppose. Oh well.)

Uhm...

...Really, I don't have as much to say as I thought. The fight scenes were probably the best I've seen in a while... the only complaints I had were the oddly weak feel of the anime scene and the god damn -rambling- dialogue in part 2. Aside from that, great movie. (I'm counting both parts as one here.)

Oh. And the soundtrack, as I was constantly pointing out to the wolf, KICKED my ass. I want it. I want funky cymbal-heavy groove music playing around me ANY time I have to swordfight. And... that Goodnight Moon song over -one- of the eternal end credits. Where do I get that?

...Movie good. The end.

Comments

[kiruppert.livejournal.com]

I dunno. I almost decided not to see part two based on Part One. Pretty much all the plot was in Part Two, and I cannot STAND it when kung fu movies are simply thinly plotted vehicles for "Kewl Fight Scenes" and that's really what part one seemed like for me. Part two put so much of the first movie into proper perspective it redeemed part one for me.

Honestly, I really think that this movie is also interesting when you consider the distance people come in five years, especally when you look at Budd and Vernita Green. I came out of this wondering exactly what Bill did to his brother to make him mad enough to lie to Bill about selling his Hanzo katana.

-K

[xyzzysqrl]

As I just mentioned to you on ICQ, and so I'm putting it here because it finally encapulates my feelings on the movie...

Part 1 is rather arbitrary and violent and pointless without part 2.
Arbitrary and pointless is rather what I was hoping for. So when I saw it, I thought "Oh. This is a well directed, intelligent, thoughtful movie after all.

...what a letdown."