Kiru Biru ni ban o mimashita. dai suki desu.
WARNING: Spoilers! ;)

Watched Kill Bill Volume 2 tonight and it was quite the ending to the movie. There was probably greater Tarantino style direction in #2 than #1, more of a character development and plot than the first. Volume 1 had crazy fighting and to me, better and longer lasting fight scenes than #2 had. The fighting in #2 seemed to go by real quickly in the amount of time they had. What ruined the movie for me was (with a full house), the laughter in scenes where there shouldn't have been. This occured mainly in the Chapter with Pai Mei (White Eyebrows) where The Bride (B..*beep*) learns her Shaolin kungfu. I mean, okay .. the first time may be funny - but do you have to laugh every single time the same words or action is repeated? Especially if you sit in the row right in front of me?! Given that Tarantino didnt explain the background to all the arts, you cant expect most anglos to know that the Eagle Claw and Crane are real Shaolin martial arts and the moves arent meant to mock anything, because that's what it is meant to be - based on the eagle's claw and the crane, that is why the "fists" or palms are held in that way *insert laughter here* and the moves (forms) are like that *insert more laughter here* . The 5 Point Exploding Heart palm strike *insert more snickering* (or soemthing similar to that affect - correct me if I'm wrong :) okay it may be a stupid name (to most people) but theres a reason its called that. Obviously cos it uses 5 pressure points for the execution and kills you pretty much once you move. Also another sticking point was the subtitles when Pai Mei speaks cantonese. Lucky for me, I understand it, but the subtitles at times wasn't anywhere near what he said. And Uma, was speaking a combination of mandarin, cantonese and english (sometimes even in the one sentence) even though Pai Mei refers to her speaking 'Cantonese'. Even her 'yes' and 'no was Mandarin ( no = "bu") and cantonese (yes = "hai").. which is like hm okay. Maybe there was a reason behind that, but thats just minor anyway. Just a gripe :)

All in all, Kill Bill Volume 2 ends the movie well, pretty much a predictable ending. As a whole movie it would've been good, one 5 hour long movie. Volume 2 brought his Western "spaghetti" movie influences out, mishmashed with the other Chinese martial arts and Japanese samurai fighting. It was good to see that Quentin put the effort into the movie to get all the cast into fighting mode, with Sonny Chiba (who played the Samurai Sword/Sushi maker in Vol 1) training the cast in samurai fighting, Gordon Liu (playing head of Yakuza Crazy 88 in Vol 1 and Pai Mei in Vol 2) comin from shaolin background anyway performin his fights, Yuen Wo Ping and stunt crew trainin people up.. and David Carradine from the old 70/80s Kung Fu series (which even my parents remember watching back in HK...). I was surprised to read that Tarantino orginally slated Warren Beatty (?!?!!!!) to be in Bill's role. Luckily, he changed his mind to Carradine.

Quentin is one helluva movie geek and it shows. Kill Bill pretty much played homage to all those movies that had an affect on him and wanting him to become the man he is today. Props to him. To most people goin into the movie blind, with not much of an idea on (mostly) the Asian cinema influences, then it really detracts (is that the word hmmm) from the viewing of the movie as a whole in understanding what he was trying to do - which lead to much of the constant laughter as mentioned above. I don't think this movie will influence the audience to start hiring out the old Sonny Chiba StreetFighter series of movies or the HK golden era Shaw Brother films or much of the Westerns, but it would be good if it did so they could watch it again and understand what Tarantino was trying to do - although this won't neccessarily mean they wouldn't like or understand the movie as a whole in any way, it would just help it if they had the background knowledge.


I'm dead beat. Going to get my RSA (Responsible Service of Alcohol) in the morning which will be fun.
Going into work again on Sunday for a few hours which is even more fun. Hopefully relax on Monday and catch up on all my tv shows I've taped throughout the week. eeek.

Labels: movies