Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair – what does Tarantino’s new film offer? | Quentin Tarantino

Suentin Tarantino and his epic revenge saga Kill Bill had, as the film’s vengeful main character says, unfinished business. In fact, Tarantino had mostly finished the work of remixing the two volumes of Kill Bill into one film as early as 2006, just two years after the release of Kill Bill: Volume 2. But while that version screened at Cannes and was recently shown at Tarantino-owned theaters in Los Angeles, it never made it to home video (although some bootleggers have tried to recreate it) or a wide theatrical release. That’s all changed with this weekend’s premiere of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, a four-and-a-half-hour version of the film hitting more than 1,000 screens across North America.

Tarantino made feature films before and after Kill Bill; Features running over two and a half hours make up the vast majority of his filmography. But in the early 2000s, Kill Bill represented a major pivot for the filmmaker, breaking away from his then-characteristic crime dramas with a healthy helping of black comedy. Tarantino and his Pulp Fiction co-star, Uma Thurman, created the character of Bride — “Q&U” are named as the source material providers in the credits — as a pregnant ex-assassin who becomes the victim of a vicious wedding-eve attack from her ex-boss/lover (who would be Bill) and their fellow assassins (these would be the other four on the “Death List Five,” a phrase whose cadence recalls Fox Force Five, the fictional TV pilot Thurman’s character in Pulp Fiction once starred in). The Bride unexpectedly survives a shooting, falls into a coma, and awakens years later desperate for revenge, forming the backbone of a film that pays heavy homage to the kung-fu, exploitation, and revenge films of Tarantino’s youth — and his dreams, if the film’s colorful look is any indication.

When Kill Bill went over budget and began approaching the four-hour mark, Tarantino’s producer — the since-disgraced and imprisoned sex criminal Harvey Weinstein — suggested splitting the film into two parts, rather than gamble on a four-hour film or force the filmmaker to shorten his adaptation. So instead, the movie was cut in half. The gambit worked financially, earning $330 million worldwide between the two films, and die-hard fans assume a “full” version may be just around the corner. It wasn’t. But now it has finally arrived, more than 20 years later.

So what’s different about this large-format version that you can’t get from playing the two films back-to-back at home? In many cases, it’s not actually a matter of making additions as much as undoing them. To give the two-film version a bit more shape, the major reveal that was intended for the final act of the film was turned into a tease at the end of the first volume. Although The Whole Bloody Affair takes a 15-minute intermission after the events of the first volume, it cuts dialogue from Belle who reveals that the Bride’s Daughter is alive and well. In both versions, the bride finds out about her daughter herself in the final part of the film; Now the audience (or at least the hypothetical audience who has never seen the film before) knows that the daughter exists alongside the heroine. The second volume also loses a brief black-and-white introduction delivered directly to camera by Thurman; It’s the only noticeable change in the back half of the film.

However, some of the first layer materials have been expanded, mostly to accommodate additional arterial spray. The anime chapter depicting the backstory of O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu in live-action form) has an additional action sequence depicting a young O-Ren fighting with another assassin. The gorgeous House of Blue Leaves sequence, in which the Bride cuts her way through dozens of O-Ren’s flesh-and-blood minions, has been slightly expanded and now returns in full color. The version of the first volume switched to black-and-white after a few minutes, and cut out some of the more ferocious carnage, to avoid an NC-17 rating. The sequence was already gorgeous, but it gained even more power with the full range of Robert Richardson’s primary colors on display: the yellow of the bride’s Bruce Lee-like tracksuit; The blue glow of overhead lights and the winter night sky; And of course the bright red color of all that blood.

The only deleted scene from the second volume on the DVD – the only time we actually see Bill practicing martial arts – did not make it back into the longer cut. However, the release features a different, non-essential bonus scene located outside of the feature. After the credits, viewers can watch a “lost” animated chapter of the story, cut from an early draft long before anything was filmed, in which Yuki, the twin sister of schoolgirl killer Jojo, seeks revenge on the Bride. It was designed for the video game Fortnite, and non-fans of the game will probably wish it wasn’t that way. Seeing this inconsequential but masterful action sequence as a proper anime would probably be a kick; As a quirky bit of Fortnite engine weirdness, complete with cameos of the game’s characters, it captures a moment in time, e.g. It is unlikely that any movie fan will find it necessary. Some may not find it watchable. At the screening I attended, it had the added oddity of being a short computer-animated film of Fortnite that was shown as part of a 70mm celluloid print.

However, Fortnite’s misfit chapter stays true to the discursive nature of Tarantino’s larger, wilder film. Watching one 270-minute version underscores the fact that in pure story terms, the “important” things that happen in Kill Bill could easily be captured in 95 minutes or less. By design, this isn’t one of Tarantino’s best screenplays. (I’m pretty sure that at some point, The Bride says “entropy” when she means “atrophy.”) Still, the writer-director was right to resist cutting it. Largely without the extraneous parts – O-Ren’s baroque original; A long scene in which the bride meets a legendary swordsmith and engages in some burlesque action in his small restaurant; Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) reads venomous snake facts that she dutifully copied from a website; Bale’s final monologue ruminates on Superman – the film is about a woman fighting five different battles. With all this material, it transcends its roots and becomes a fascinating cross between a cinematic DJ set, six different exploitation film genres and a sprawling narrative.

In fact, the film shockingly functions as two separate volumes, with tonal differences that seem to have come naturally before the split was conceived. You don’t really need to have seen The Whole Bloody Affair to really appreciate Kill Bill – though the House of Blue Leaves sequences do get better and more varied with the added gore, and fans who live near any of the 70mm posts will be understandably excited. Even without that temptation, it’s a great opportunity to indulge in a Tarantino feel, or, if that’s not appealing, a real strong performance from Thurman. In the longer version, it’s easier to appreciate how gracefully she moves from physical demands and technique to movie-star charm to raw emotion while motherhood throws her off-axis and imbues her with a greater sense of purpose. Some have found Tarantino in his later period to be overly arch and referential, starting with this meticulous four-hour indulgence. Still, it’s hard not to at least take the film seriously, even at its silliest, when The Bride appears on screen. More than any special tinkering, it’s Thurman’s full-length performance that turns Kill Bill into a true epic.