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.

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Dragon Ball Super: Broly presents the new canonical version of Broly’s origin. No longer does he rage after Kakarot as revenge for having to listen to his cries as an infant. Now we watch as King Vegeta ships him off to an uninhabited planet; partially out of fear and partially out of jealousy. There, him and his father train and survive, biding their time until they have an opportunity to extract their revenge.

A long story short, Goku and Vegeta fight Broly for roughly 45 minutes. Perhaps not surprisingly the movie also yada yada’s over the foundational details of the story. It assumes you have at least a passing familiarity with characters and story arcs, with several opening moments (Bardok’s last stand for one) not making much sense otherwise. Even with all of these assumptions, what you really want to see does not start until over halfway through the movie. When the singular fight does finally makes its appearance, the film rushes through it. The second half of the movie feels as if someone pressed the fast forward button. If Nagamine had just fully committed to trimming the fat in the beginning, it could have given the showcase fight more room to breathe.

More room to breathe means more time for one of the flashiest fights in all of Super. For a series much maligned for its weightless and sanitized combat, Dragon Ball Super: Broly invokes the feeling of classic Z climaxes. With humor reminiscent of the original Dragon Ball, DBS: Broly touches all the right nostalgic notes. However, the incredibly generic side character designs will often remind you what series the film belongs to.

Watching Goku and Vegeta pull up in their streetwear inspired coats invokes a fan’s deepest childhood memories of the series. As the three warriors begin to trade blows a smile creeps onto the face. The grandiose soundtrack remix announces the fighters and genuine wonderment takes over. Then the CGI hits. Those ships in the opening scenes were not outliers. They were not done just to save money to do the real fight justice. No, rather the whole film abuses CGI animation. The stylish hand drawn frames randomly drop out in favor of abhorrent 3D models. The designs are not well done either. They look as if someone tried to sneak in a melted action figure and try their hand at stop motion. This drastic change in style occurs frequently throughout the second half and looks worse every time.

Trumping Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan should not have taken a herculean effort. Yet, Dragon Ball Super: Broly managed to fall short. Even with the best choreographed fight in all of Super done to electrifying remixes of classic songs, it could not stay away from the CGI temptation. Unfortunately, the CGI interruptions in the climatic fight are so dreadful that Dragon Ball Super: Broly cannot be taken seriously. Replacing the charm of the original with cheap and clunky effects erases any ground gained by reimagining the legendary Saiyan’s origin.

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