The 'Big Difference' Between Kill Bill Volumes 1 & 2, According To Quentin Tarantino

It's tempting to look at the "Kill Bill" movies as just one big film split in two, because they sort of are. Neither of them quite work on their own, and they both tell the singular story of how Beatrix (Uma Thurman) went about her quest for revenge against her former boss and lover Bill (David Carradine). The decision to split the movie wasn't solely due to the length, however: the volumes also have two distinct tones and structures. 

"One of the big differences between Volume 1 and Volume 2," director Quentin Tarantino explained in a 2004 interview, "is that if you remember Sonny Chiba's little speech that he gives at the very, very end where he goes, 'Revenge is never a straight line, it's a forest. It's easy to get lost and forget where you came in.' Well, Volume 1 is the straight line." 

Sure enough, Volume 1 is remarkably simple by Tarantino's standards. The as-yet-unnamed Bride wants to kill Vernita Green and O-Ren Ishii, so she does. The latter isn't an easy feat at all — she has to mow her way through an absurd number of henchmen before she can start her one-on-one battle with O-Ren — but the Bride is not yet forced to question herself or her motives. 

The dialogue is also surprisingly sparse, with precious few of the monologues Tarantino's so good at writing. "There was not a decision like, 'Okay, I'm going to really blow people's minds. I'm going to cut down on the dialogue,'" Tarantino clarified, "It was just indicative of this kind of movie."

It's only in "Kill Bill: Volume 2" that the writing style of Tarantino's first few films really shines through. "Now, human stuff starts getting in," Tarantino explained, "Now, it's not just killing them all the way down the list. It gets more complicated, it gets complex now. It's not quite as easy." This is best exemplified by the movie's third act reveals that Beatrix's daughter is alive and well, having been lovingly raised by Bill. Suddenly, Beatrix's whole understanding of the situation has shifted, and she knows she can't just murder Bill right then and there. 

Some fans may have been disappointed in the second volume's lack of action, especially when it came to Bill, but Tarantino was always planning to subvert expectations with the movie's final act. "It's the way I do things ... I'm going to deliver a genre, I'm going to deliver to you all the goods. But I'm going to do it my way," Tarantino said in a Phase9 interview. "Here in 'Kill Bill' there's a revenge saga four hours long, and these big action scenes all throughout and horror sequences and all this stuff, and then you get to the climax and it's a forty-minute dialogue scene. That's just my way of doing an action epic."

The long-awaited scene where Beatrix finally kills Bill turns out to be far quieter and more complicated than audiences expected. Whereas Beatrix started out as an unstoppable killing machine and Bill as an ominous, faceless presence in "Volume 1," now they're both fully fleshed-out characters. "Volume 1" might have some of the coolest action sequences Tarantino's ever given us, but "Volume 2" is Tarantino at his most poignant. We still can't figure out which one we like more.