Kill Bill: Volume 2 | |
---|---|
Directed by | Quentin Tarantino |
Written by | Quentin Tarantino |
Produced by | Lawrence Bender |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Robert Richardson |
Edited by | Sally Menke |
Music by | |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Miramax Films |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 138 minutes |
Country | United States [2] |
Language | English |
Budget | $30 million [3] |
Box office | $152.2 million [3] |
Kill Bill: Volume 2 is a 2004 American martial arts film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Uma Thurman as the Bride, who continues her campaign of revenge against the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox, Lucy Liu, and Michael Madsen) and their leader Bill (David Carradine), who tried to kill her and her unborn child.
Tarantino conceived Kill Bill as an homage to low-budget cinema, including exploitation films, martial arts films, samurai cinema, blaxploitation and spaghetti westerns. Volume 2 is the second of two Kill Bill films produced simultaneously; the first, Volume 1 , was released six months earlier. The films were set for a single release, but the film, with a runtime of over four hours, was divided in two.
Volume 2 received positive reviews and grossed $152.2 million worldwide on a production budget of $30 million. Tarantino planned to make further Kill Bill films, but said in 2023 that he had abandoned the idea.
The pregnant Bride and her groom rehearse their wedding. Bill − the Bride's former lover, and the leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad − arrives unexpectedly and orders the Deadly Vipers to kill everyone at the wedding rehearsal. Bill shoots the Bride in the head, but she survives and swears revenge.
Four years later, the Bride, having already assassinated Deadly Vipers O-Ren Ishii and Vernita Green, goes to the trailer of Bill's brother Budd, another Deadly Viper, planning to ambush him. Having been warned by Bill beforehand, he incapacitates her with a non-lethal shotgun blast of rock salt and sedates her. He calls Elle Driver, another former Deadly Viper, and arranges to sell her the Bride's unique sword for $1 million. He seals the Bride inside a coffin and buries her alive.
In a flashback to years earlier, Bill tells the young Bride of the legendary martial arts master Pai Mei and his Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, a death blow that Pai refuses to teach his students; properly used, the attack is reputed to leave an opponent able to take only five steps before dying. Bill takes the Bride to Pai's temple for training. Pai ridicules and torments her during training, but she eventually gains his respect. In the present, the Bride uses Pai's techniques to escape from the coffin and claw her way to the surface.
Elle arrives at Budd's trailer and kills him with a black mamba hidden within the case full of money for the sword. She calls Bill and tells him that the Bride has killed Budd and that she has killed the Bride, using the Bride's real name: Beatrix Kiddo. As Elle exits the trailer, Beatrix ambushes her and they fight. Elle, who was also taught by Pai, taunts Beatrix by revealing that she killed Pai by poisoning his favorite meal in retribution for him plucking out her eye after she called him "a miserable old fool". Enraged, Beatrix plucks out Elle's remaining eye and leaves her screaming in the trailer with the black mamba.
In Acuña, Mexico, Beatrix meets a retired pimp, Esteban Vihaio, who helps her find Bill. She tracks him to his home, and discovers that their daughter B. B. is still alive, now four years old. Beatrix spends the evening with them. After she puts B. B. to bed, Bill shoots Beatrix with a dart containing truth serum and interrogates her. She explains that she left the Deadly Vipers when she discovered she was pregnant, in order to give B. B. a better life. Bill explains that he assumed she was dead; he ordered her assassination when he discovered she was alive and engaged to a "jerk" he assumed was the father of her child. The two begin to fight, but Beatrix traps Bill's sword in her scabbard and strikes him with the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique. Surprised that Pai taught her the attack, Bill reconciles with her, then falls dead as he walks away. Beatrix leaves with B. B. to start a new life.
The Kill Bill films were inspired by exploitation films that played in cheap US theaters in the 1970s, including martial arts films, samurai cinema, blaxploitation films and spaghetti westerns. [5] Kill BillVolume 1 and Volume 2 were planned and produced as a single film. [6] After editing began, the executive producer, Harvey Weinstein, who was known for pressuring filmmakers to shorten their films, suggested that Quentin Tarantino split the film in two. [6] The decision was announced in July 2003. [6]
Tarantino said he saved most of the Bride's character development for the second film: "As far as the first half is concerned, I didn't want to make her sympathetic. I wanted to make her scary." [7] He said he "loves" the Bride and that he "killed himself to put her in a good place" for the ending. [8]
Kill Bill: Volume 2 was released in theaters on April 16, 2004. It was originally scheduled to be released on February 20, 2004, but was rescheduled. Variety posited that the delay was to coincide its theatrical release with Volume 1's release on DVD. [9] In the United States and Canada, Volume 2 was released in 2,971 theaters and grossed $25.1 million on its opening weekend, [3] ranking first at the box office and beating fellow opener The Punisher . Volume 2's opening weekend gross was higher than Volume 1's, and the equivalent success confirmed the studio's financial decision to split the film into two theatrical releases. [10]
Volume 2 attracted more female theatergoers than Volume 1, with 60% of the audience being male and 56% of the audience being men between the ages of 18 and 29 years old. Volume 2's opening weekend was the largest to date for Miramax Films aside from releases under its arm Dimension Films. The opening weekend was also the largest to date in the month of April for a film restricted in the United States to theatergoers 17 years old and up, besting Life 's 1999 record. Volume 2's opening weekend was strengthened by the reception of Volume 1 in the previous year among audiences and critics, abundant publicity related to the splitting into two volumes, and the DVD release of Volume 1 in the week before Volume 2's theatrical release. [11]
Outside of the United States and Canada, Volume 2 was released in 20 territories over the weekend of April 23, 2004. It grossed an estimated $17.7 million and ranked first at the international box office, ending an eight-week streak held by The Passion of the Christ . [12] Volume 2 grossed a total of $66.2 million in the United States and Canada and $86 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $152.2 million. [3]
In the United States, Volume 2 was released on DVD and VHS on August 10, 2004. In a December 2005 interview, Tarantino addressed the lack of a special edition DVD for Kill Bill by stating "I've been holding off because I've been working on it for so long that I just wanted a year off from Kill Bill and then I'll do the big supplementary DVD package." [13] The United States does not have a DVD boxed set of Kill Bill, though box sets of the two separate volumes are available in other countries, such as France, Japan and the United Kingdom. Upon the DVD release of Volume 2 in the US, however, Best Buy did offer an exclusive box set slipcase to house the two individual releases together. [14]
At the 2008 Provincetown International Film Festival, Tarantino announced that the original cut of Kill Bill, incorporating both films and an extended animation sequence, would be released in May 2009 as Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair. [15] Screenings began on March 27, 2011, at the New Beverly Cinema. [16]
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Kill Bill: Volume 2 holds an approval rating of 84% based on 244 reviews, with an average rating of 7.80/10. The website's critical consensus states, "Kill Bill: Volume 2 adds extra plot and dialogue to the action-heavy exploits of its predecessor, while still managing to deliver a suitably hard-hitting sequel." [17] At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score to reviews from mainstream critics, the film received an average score of 83 out of 100 based on 41 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". [18] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, a grade up from the "B+" earned by the previous film. [19]
Roger Ebert gave the film 4 stars out of 4, writing: "Put the two parts together, and Tarantino has made a masterful saga that celebrates the martial arts genre while kidding it, loving it, and transcending it. ... This is all one film, and now that we see it whole, it's greater than its two parts." [20] In 2009, he named Kill Bill one of the 20 best films of the decade. [21]
Thurman received a Golden Globe Best Actress in a Motion Picture - Drama nomination in 2005. Carradine also received a Best Supporting Actor nomination.[ citation needed ] Empire named Kill Bill: Volume 2 the 423rd-greatest film[ citation needed ] and the Bride the 66th-greatest film character. [22]
In April 2004, Tarantino told Entertainment Weekly that he intended to make a Kill Bill sequel at least 15 years after the second film. He planned that the character of Nikki would seek revenge on the Bride for killing her mother, Vernita Green, in Volume 1. [23] At the 2006 San Diego Comic-Con, Tarantino said that, after the completion of Grindhouse , he wanted to make two anime Kill Bill films: an origin story about Bill and his mentors, and another origin starring the Bride. [24] [25] In 2007, Bloody Disgusting reported that Volume 3 would involve two killers attacked by the Bride in the first films, and that Volume 4 "concerns a cycle of reprisals and daughters who avenge their mother's deaths". [26] At the 2009 Morelia International Film Festival, Tarantino reiterated that he intended to make a third Kill Bill film. [27] That month, he said that Kill Bill 3 would be his ninth film and would be released in 2014. [28] He said he wanted 10 years to pass to give her and the Bride and her daughter a period of peace. [29]
In December 2012, Tarantino said there would "probably not" be a third film." [30] [31] However, in July 2019, he said that he and Thurman had talked again about a sequel and that "if any of my movies were going to spring from my other movies, it would be a third Kill Bill". [32] That December, Tarantino said he had spoken to Thurman again about the film, and was "definitely in the cards". [33] In June 2021, Tarantino said he was excited about the possibility of Thurman and her daughter, Maya Hawke, playing the Bride and B.B. He also said the characters of Driver, Sofie Fatale and Gogo's twin sister, Shiaki, could appear. [34] Later that month, Tarantino said he did not want to take on more Kill Bill films following the fatigue he endured making the first two. [35] In July 2023, Tarantino said a sequel would not be made. [36]
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American filmmaker, actor, and author. His films are characterized by stylized violence, extended dialogue often featuring much profanity, and references to popular culture. His work has earned a cult following alongside critical and commercial success; he has been named by some as the single most influential director of his generation and has received numerous awards and nominations, including two Academy Awards, two BAFTA Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards.
Uma Karuna Thurman is an American actress. She has performed in a variety of films, from romantic comedies and dramas to science fiction and action films. Following her appearances on the December 1985 and May 1986 covers of British Vogue, Thurman starred in Dangerous Liaisons (1988). She rose to international prominence with her performance as Mia Wallace in Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film Pulp Fiction, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress. Often hailed as Tarantino's muse, she reunited with the director to play the main role in Kill Bill: Volume 1 and 2, which brought her a BAFTA Award nomination and two additional Golden Globe Award nominations.
Kill Bill: Volume 1 is a 2003 American martial arts action film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Uma Thurman as the Bride, who swears revenge on a group of assassins and their leader, Bill, after they try to kill her and her unborn child. Her journey takes her to Tokyo, where she battles the yakuza.
Sally JoAnne Menke was an American film editor, who worked in cinema and television. Over the span of her 30-year career in film, she accumulated more than 20 feature film credits.
Hannie Caulder is a 1971 British Western film directed by Burt Kennedy and starring Raquel Welch, Robert Culp, and Ernest Borgnine.
Kill Bill Vol. 2 Original Soundtrack is the soundtrack to the second volume of the two-part Quentin Tarantino film, Kill Bill. First released on April 13, 2004, it reached #58 on the Billboard 200 and #2 on the Billboard soundtracks chart in the US. It also reached the ARIA Top 50 album charts in Australia. It was orchestrated by Tarantino's fellow filmmaker and personal friend Robert Rodriguez, as well as RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan.
The Bride Wore Black is a 1968 French drama thriller film directed by François Truffaut and based on the novel of the same name by William Irish, a pseudonym for Cornell Woolrich. It stars Jeanne Moreau, Charles Denner, Alexandra Stewart, Michel Bouquet, Michael Lonsdale, Claude Rich and Jean-Claude Brialy. Hitchcock admirer Truffaut used Bernard Herrmann to score the film. The costumes were by Pierre Cardin.
Beatrix "the Bride" Kiddo is the protagonist of the martial arts films Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004), directed by Quentin Tarantino. She is portrayed by Uma Thurman. In 2010, Entertainment Weekly named the Bride the 99th-greatest character of the preceding 20 years, and in 2015 Empire named her the 23rd-greatest film character of all time.
Mia Wallace is a fictional character portrayed by Uma Thurman in the 1994 Quentin Tarantino film Pulp Fiction. It was Thurman's breakthrough role and earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The character became a cultural icon.
Zoë E. Bell is a New Zealand stuntwoman and actress. Some of her most notable stunt-work includes doubling for Lucy Lawless in Xena: Warrior Princess and for Uma Thurman in Kill Bill.
Double Dare is a 2004 documentary film about stuntwomen, specifically Jeannie Epper and Zoë Bell, directed by Amanda Micheli. The documentary follows Epper and Bell over several years, Epper from 1997 and Bell from the end of Xena: Warrior Princess in 2001, to 2003.
Kill Buljo is a 2007 Norwegian black comedy film directed by Tommy Wirkola. It parodies the 2003 Quentin Tarantino film Kill Bill. It is set in Finnmark, Norway and portrays the protagonist Jompa Tormann's hunt for Tampa and Papa Buljo. The film depends heavily on satirizing stereotypes about Norway's Sami population.
Ebony, Ivory & Jade is a 1976 film by director Cirio Santiago, made in Manila, Philippines. A relatively well-budgeted martial arts feature by Santiago's standards, the film was seen mainly in US drive-in movies, where it was first released as She-Devils in Chains. It has also been released as American Beauty Hostages, Foxfire, and Foxforce.
The Blood Spattered Bride is a 1972 Spanish horror film written and directed by Vicente Aranda, based on the 1872 vampire novella Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. It stars Simón Andreu, Maribel Martín, and Alexandra Bastedo. The film attained cult film status for its mix of horror, vampirism, rejection of fascism, and progressive ideas on gender and sexuality. A well-known US trailer advertising a double feature of this film paired with the 1974 horror film I Dismember Mama was filmed in the style of a news report covering the "story" of an audience member who had gone insane while watching the films.
Quentin Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter and film producer who has directed ten films. He first began his career in the 1980s by directing and writing Love Birds In Bondage and writing, directing and starring in the black-and-white My Best Friend's Birthday, an amateur short film which was never officially released. He impersonated musician Elvis Presley in a small role in the sitcom The Golden Girls (1988), and briefly appeared in Eddie Presley (1992). As an independent filmmaker, he directed, wrote, and appeared in the violent crime thriller Reservoir Dogs (1992), which tells the story of six strangers brought together for a jewelry heist. Proving to be Tarantino's breakthrough film, it was named the greatest independent film of all time by Empire. Tarantino's screenplay for Tony Scott's True Romance (1993) was nominated for a Saturn Award. Also in 1993, he served as an executive producer for Killing Zoe and wrote two other films.
The Hateful Eight is a 2015 American Western film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It stars Samuel L. Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen, and Bruce Dern as eight dubious strangers who seek refuge from a blizzard in a stagecoach stopover some time after the American Civil War.
Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood is a 2019 comedy-drama film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. Produced by Columbia Pictures, Bona Film Group, Heyday Films, and Visiona Romantica and distributed by Sony Pictures, it is a co-production between the United States, United Kingdom, and China. It features a large ensemble cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, and Margot Robbie. Set in 1969 Los Angeles, the film follows a fading actor and his stunt double as they navigate the rapidly changing film industry, with the threat of the Tate murders looming.
The following is a list of unproduced Quentin Tarantino projects in roughly chronological order. During his career, American film director Quentin Tarantino has worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction. Some of these projects were officially cancelled and scrapped or fell into development hell.
Laia Manzanares Tomàs is a Spanish actress best known for her role as the cheerleader and love interest in Tame Impala's 2015 music video for "The Less I Know the Better", which became a sleeper hit and cult classic in the late 2010s. She is also known for playing the role of Ukrainian student Oksana Casanoves in the Spanish television series Merlí.
"Kill Bill" is a song by American singer-songwriter SZA and the fifth single from her second studio album, SOS (2022). It is a pop and R&B murder ballad, built around a midtempo, groovy rhythm and a detuned melody. Guitars, a bassline, and a flute that was sampled from a Prophet-6 synthesizer constitute the song's production, which is influenced by the boom bap subgenre of hip hop. Mirroring the plot of the Kill Bill film duology (2003–2004) after which the song is named, the lyrics discuss a fantasy to kill an ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend out of jealousy, and they employ humorous irony alongside violent imagery that contrasts with SZA's soft vocals. "Kill Bill" was sent to US radio on January 10, 2023, after achieving success on streaming services.
Kill Bill: Volume 2's total ... confirmed the financial good sense of Miramax's decision to split the movie in two.