Kill Bill: Volume 2
Kill Bill: Volume 2 is a 2004 American martial arts film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It is the second part to Kill Bill, and stars Uma Thurman as the Bride, who continues her campaign of revenge against the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (Lucy Liu, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, and Vivica A. Fox) and their leader Bill (David Carradine), who tried to kill her and her unborn child.
Kill Bill: Volume 2
Quentin Tarantino
- April 8, 2004 (Cinerama Dome)
- April 16, 2004 (United States)
137 minutes
United States[2]
English
$30 million[3]
$152.2 million[3]
Volume 2 is the second of two Kill Bill films produced simultaneously; the first, Volume 1, was released six months earlier. They were originally set for a single release, but the film, with a runtime of over four hours, was divided in two. Tarantino conceived Kill Bill as an homage to grindhouse cinema including martial arts films, samurai cinema, blaxploitation, and spaghetti westerns. Like its predecessor, Volume 2 received positive reviews. It grossed $152.2 million worldwide on a production budget of $30 million.
Plot[edit]
The pregnant Bride and her groom rehearse their wedding. Bill − the Bride's former lover, the father of her child, 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.