Review Detail

There were a lot of things I liked about this edit, but it doesn't 100% work for me. Were I to edit Kill Bill 1 & 2, I'd probably start by trying to lay it out chronologically first, too, to see how that plays. And I suppose it works. But it makes for some odd pacing inherently, and the choices made by the editor as far as what to keep and what to lose exacerbate that problem. The biggest issue here is peppering in O-Ren's backstory. It throws the rhythm of the whole thing off. For instance, in the scene with Hanzo, at one point we cut to black and just music for 9 seconds to lead in to the backstory of O-Ren, but we only get that for 35 seconds before jumping right back into the last scene. Then, a few minutes later, we get more of the same scene shoe-horned into the middle of a conversation that has nothing to do with her. Later on, we interrupt the bride's training with Pai Mei (already broken up with Bill's story) for more of O-Ren's (anime) backstory. But we don't encounter O-Ren until part 2, and she's not even the big bad of the 2-part story. Were we not spending so much time on setting her up, there would be more time to spend with things that matter to this part of the story, like how the bride ended up with car keys from a hospital bed after a coma, or more time spent with the members of the DVAS that we do encounter in this part so that it didn't feel so unbalanced. I will say, the way Vol.1 is combined with Vol.2 as if they are all one big film is really cool. There were moments where a scene from Vol.2 is worked into the narrative, and it fits beautifully. Having her train with Pai Mei in China while Hanzo is spending a month crafting her sword in Japan is inspired, and it is the perfect opportunity to pull in Bill's campfire story so we get more time with him, too. And the ending is absolutely perfect. Like I said, there are a lot of things I liked, and while it didn't work for me on the whole, I'll still recommend it as your mileage may vary.

Audio editing was great; no issues. And, in fact, all of the new foley is integrated beautifully. Visual editing was perfect other than one shot where Hanzo yells for tea that was so poorly cropped that it's clearly just half the frame.