Most of the other characters in volume one are equally flat, including the Bride herself, who at this point is just a revenge driven killing machine. It isn't until we learn more about the characters in volume two that they become less like pages out of random comic books and fall more into their own territory. This is both good and bad. In all seriousness, volume one is hugely entertaining by itself. Though it leaves a gaping hole, it's enjoyable in a pure visceral action sort of way. It's insanely entertaining to watch Uma chop limbs off for an hour and a half, tearing down the house in the most literal sense. There's not much to be said in volume one, it pretty much speaks for itself. This isn't the dialogue driven film Tarantino fans may expect.

There really isn't a whole lot of talking in the first half at all, at least not as much as I would expect. What is said in the first film, especially by Uma, is sometimes awkward. Specifically in her honorable tone which sounds more like cue card reading than anything. This problem (if you can call it that) was rectified in volume two, which I'll get to in a moment.

Talky aspects aside, much if not all of the intensity can be credited to Yuen Wo-Ping's martial arts advising and his staging of the action scenes, which are for the most part excellent. The culmination of the action in the film is the House of Blue Leaves fight, which leaves almost nothing to be desired in my opinion (aside from the color presented in the Japanese cut). The pace of this scene is perfect, with the Crazy 88 members coming slowly, one at a time at first. Chiaki Kuriyama then gets her moment as Go Go Yubari, implementing her pseudo-flying guillotine against Uma in one of the highlights of both halves, despite its brevity. After this, all hell breaks loose in the House of Blue Leaves, with limbs and heads flying chambara style, equally violent and hilarious.

Don't forget...Sonny Chiba.

Once volume one ends, throughout the sense of awe there's an inevitably empty feeling; like eating cereal without milk. The first volume is good, but the anticipation to see what happens next is absolutely killer.

So volume two doesn't fall under the same scrutiny as a sequel, but more of a foggy-eyed curiosity, like you were watching a good action flick and you slipped into a coma halfway through that lasted for months. Waking up from the coma puts you in familiar territory, with a brief prologue for those that forgot what happened in the first movie.

Exploring the relationship between the Bride and Bill is key to the second half of the movie. Bill is no longer a mr. x who seems to have pointlessly ruined Uma's life beyond repair. Closer examination of the attempted murder of the Bride and the absolute massacre of her entire wedding rehearsal party proves otherwise. Bill has heart and is far from your typical villain. It's in this that the relationship between "good" and "bad" in "Kill Bill" becomes more ambiguous. Seeing both sides of the story can make you question who's right and who's wrong. Hell, I like Bill. I like him a lot. He's a great character and I can see why he did what he did, even if it did go a bit beyond "overreacting", as he so eloquently puts it.

The dialogue in volume two feels much more Tarantino. While in the first volume I just wanted everyone to shut up and fight, this time around I was much more interested in what the characters had to say, though here and there a conversation or two tended to overstay their welcome. This and a myriad of other elements make it much different than its prior portion. While the splitting may have contributed to this feeling, both volumes at times seem to be veering off in different directions at a roads fork.

With Bill as the films main focus, the rest of the confrontational duties fall on the shoulders of Michael Madsen's Budd and Darryl Hannah's Elle Driver. Budd's character is great, but there's something about his parts of the film that feels like it could have stood more cutting in the editing room. It's not boring, but some bits and pieces of volume two wouldn't have suffered if shortened. Elle Driver, on the other hand, scores one of the most brutal and exciting fights of both halves. She's a vicious woman, a total bitch. That's Elle in a nutshell. Not only is Uma her rival as a warrior, but essentially Elle is only with Bill because of The Bride's prolonged absence. Playing second fiddle, whether Bill openly expressed it or not, can do a lot to someone with such inherent intensity.

In the same way that the anime sequence in volume one showed a flashback through a memorable and exciting method, volume two has Pai Mei. While it's not animated, Gordon Liu as Pai Mei is another show-stopper that dominates any recollection of "Kill Bill" as a whole. His ruthless training is a melting pot of everything you love about kung fu films, Liu confidently stroking his long white beard prior to each transition, slyly cackling. If it were but a bit longer...sigh.

The only true disappointment that I found in "Kill Bill" was its finale. It's just a bit anticlimactic, though I'll delve no further for the sake of those who have yet to see it. Despite this minor gripe, at the end of the day "Kill Bill" is still a thoroughly enjoyable film that occasionally gets a tad eccentric in its shouting out to as many movies as Tarantino could be bothered to remember that he loves. Sometimes I wonder when one should draw the line with the amount of references in a flick. Tarantino should especially be kissing Lady Snowblood's foot for the contribution she made to "Kill Bill"s plot.

The soundtrack is great, with only a few dubious placement choices. How hard is it to take songs from other sources and drop them in where you feel it's called for, though? I guess it's hard enough to require the Rza's assistance, though he did drop some original work, however sparingly. Great cinematography and some well-written dialogue (specifically for the second half) really round out the films as one whole. Perhaps the final product would have been a bit slicker had Tarantino been forced to cut the wind of it all down to a tolerable single film with a running time of around two and a half hours. Who knows, who cares? People that like volume one may hate volume two and vice versa, but I strongly urge those who haven't seen it to give it a go, it's definitely worth the time (and the unfortunate price of two admissions).