QUENTIN Tarantino’s latest release, Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, has finally surfaced after nearly 19 years of speculation. While Tarantino supposedly started showing this stitched together version of Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) at his own New Beverly theater shortly after its premier at Cannes Film Festival in 2006, this is the very first time it is seeing a wide release. With the runtime clocking in at 4hr 35min, the question is, do the new additions and restructuring warrant giving up nearly an entire afternoon? As someone who historically preferred Vol. 1 over Vol. 2 and had his doubts going in, it’s a resounding “yes” from me.
Warning! Spoilers for Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Kill Bill: Vol. 2, and Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair below. If you haven’t already seen Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, please do yourself a favor and fix that.
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 (2003 & 2004) follow The Bride (Uma Thurman), a former assassin who awakens from a four year coma after her jealous ex-lover, Bill (David Carradine), attempts to have her murdered during her wedding rehearsal. We watch as she seeks to extract revenge against all those who wronged her, her husband to-be, and her unborn daughter. Both volumes are generally highly regarded for their slick editing and “jukebox” style – remixing the films, genres, songs, and tropes that Tarantino holds oh so dear. The pair are a true film nerd’s love letter to the medium.
With that said, the one major compromise Tarantino had to make when releasing the originals, is that he never wanted them to be separate works in the first place. He always envisioned them as one project, yet allowed himself to be (rightfully) convinced that a nearly five hour long film would not be commercially well-received. The Whole Bloody Affair is Kill Bill the way it was originally meant to be seen.
Not only does The Whole Bloody Affair stitch together the two original films along with an additional intermission, it completely re-frames Vol. 2. I personally always preferred Vol. 1, and at the risk of embarrassing myself, found Vol. 2 just a bit too slow, a little too down tempo… almost like it was the second, concluding half of a much more boisterous and indulgent affair (wink wink). With The Whole Bloody Affair removing Vol. 1’s cliffhanger reveal of The Bride’s child surviving the incident, and allowing us to go on that emotional journey with her, the entirety of Vol. 2 feels that much more coherent and impactful. Seemingly small changes made to connect these two films end up truly elevating the entire experience.
In addition to the obvious stitching together of Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, The Whole Bloody Affair also includes the iconic Crazy 88 fight scene in color. It’s fun and plenty bloody, but honestly the black and white version found in the original release is already a chic stylistic choice. So that change is a wash. In this latest version, you also get to see The Bride chop off Sofie Fatale’s (Julie Dreyfus) second arm, which again is neat, but doesn’t exactly add a whole new layer to the narrative. It’s an interesting addition that aids with continuity, but not much beyond that.
The largest source of new content actually comes in the form of an extended anime backstory for O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu). If you’re a sucker for badass 2D animation, this sequence delivers in spades. It might throw off the original film’s incredibly hard hitting timing just a smidge, but fans of the original definitely won’t mind spending a few extra minutes in this beautifully drawn flashback.
There’s also a… Fortnite tie-in after the credits? The Lost Chapter: Yuki’s Revenge animates an additional scene that Tarantino was never able to bring into the films, and feature’s Uma Thurman vocally reprising her role as The Bride. It depicts Gogo Yubari’s (Chiaki Kuriyama) twin sister, Yuki (Miyu Ishidate Roberts), seeking revenge on The Bride in Los Angeles for killing Gogo. It’s not particularly worth watching, and a number of in-universe Fortnite gags heavily weigh it down, but Tarantino clearly positions it as a thing unto itself and it isn’t worth getting up in arms over.
Overall, while the new scenes (both long and short) are welcome additions for long-time fans, the true value of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair is in what it does to elevate Vol. 2. No longer does Vol. 2 awkwardly act as the conclusion to a much more “exciting” film you watched either days or years prior. Now, it delivers its emotional punches and twists in real time, elevating the experience across both volumes of content. If you can find a theater to watch this in 70mm film, it only enhances the experience even further. Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair is the definitive way to watch Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to cinema, and should be required viewing for any fans of the originals.
