Kill Bill Volume 2

Watching Kill Bill 2, you're struck with the realisation that Quentin Tarantino knew he was making two films all along. It's almost impossible to conceive the two running as one super-long uber-violent revenge-fest, such are the differences in tone, style, characterisation and plot.

Uma Thurman's The Bride has already despatched with two of her would-be assassins and now is on the tail of, respectively, Michael Madsen's Budd, Daryl Hannah's quite fantastically evil Elle Driver and the man himself, David Carradine's Bill.

Kill Bill 2 isn't quite vintage Tarantino: some of the dialogue - and there's plenty of it - is rather ropey, and there are - dare we say it - actual moments of boredom.

The unrelenting suffering of The Bride has you wincing and squirming all the way through, but anyone expecting the incredible, precipitous fight scenes of Volume 1 will feel shortchanged.

But that's not to say Volume 2 is a disappointment: it's merely different, save for the glorious, emotionally raw, physically tough presence of The Bride.