Kill Bill: Volume 2

Quentin Tarantino’s interrupted revenge opus (he filmed both volumes at the same time) began with wave after wave of muscular mayhem and fountains of blood. It now segues into a sort of martial-arts Western in which long stretches of dialogue expose a soulful yet perverse love story. This is, indeed, an improvement for Jackie Brown fans such as I, who prefer our eyeball gouging, burying alive and other atrocities complemented with some sort of emotional urgency and depth. Kill Bill: Volume 1 began with a wedding-chapel massacre that left the former assassin and pregnant bride (Uma Thurman) in a coma and ended with a teaser asking: “Is she aware her daughter is still alive?” Kill Bill: Volume 2 answers that question in an elliptical, jarring fashion that is full of surprises and cinematic homage as our continually battered unmarried mother tracks down the former lover of the title (Kung Fu’s David Carradine), who done her wrong.