Blog: Whole Bloody Affair
Musings

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair was basically an unseen cinematic legend, only shown a few times at Quentin Tarantino’s personal theatre, until the entire four-and-a-half-hour version was released a few weeks ago. It is basically just like the two volumes back-to-back but with some new flourishes. But the best thing about seeing it as a singular experience is that it makes it feel like a complete epic. Tarantino often calls Kill Bill his 4^th film, even though it is the 4^th and 5^th when it’s split up, but it works as one.

There is an extended anime bit in Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair that is added to the Origin of O-Ren chapter. It is very cool and still by the same animation house, and it shows teenage O-Ren wreaking havoc in an elevator, but the animation is a bit smoother, less scratchy or frantic as the original anime. It is a barely noticeable difference in animation, but it is there if you squint. Also, Uma’s voice over may drop an octave after 20 years with new narration. Even with a 15-minute intermission I ended up missing the start of the 2^nd half, but it’s safe to assume it just jumps into the next chapter (when Bill arrives at the church) and doesn’t have the whole “I’m gonna kill Bill!” Vol. 2 intro by the Bride.  

Overall, I give a slight advantage to the Vol. 1 / Vol. 2 versions for cliffhangers, B&W swap and how each film has its own vibe / ending. There’s a lot of stuff that works so well as two distinct movies. Even if it was originally intended as a single film, it turns so hard from a pretty straightforward awesome action revenge movie in Vol. 1 to a slower, more dialogue involved character piece of Vol. 2. But there’s still one of the movie’s best action bits in the 2^nd half with the Beatrix vs. Elle trailer fight which is an awesomely inventive closed quarters kinetic action scene as good as anything in the 1^st half.

Also, things that happen in the first half are more dynamic and have dramatic payoffs as a single film. O-Ren Ishii makes for a great villain of the first film and Lucy Liu is absolutely magnetic. The way Bill’s face isn’t revealed in Vol. 1 makes his reveal in Vol. 2 hit harder, and Vol.1 has the incredible cliffhanger reveal that Kido’s daughter is alive. Now without it, when Beatrix sees B.B., the audience feels it as hard as she does, it’s completely unexpected. But there is something to be said about a good cliffhanger to keep the audience engaged. Strangely, one of the reasons in 2003 why the Blue Leaves scene switched to black and white was the excessive blood would have gotten an NC-17/X rating but apparently that’s not a problem anymore. One new bit is seeing Sophie getting her other arm lopped off which makes the Bride seem even more vicious.

The post-credits Fortnite animated Missing Chapter, Yuki’s Revenge was neat. It was a chapter that was cut before filming about Yuki, the vengeful sister of Gogo, trying to take out Beatrix. It was cool to see an extended gun fight in Kill Bill which in all the action bits in the film is missing, and it definitely had the frantic energy, and it is awesome to see and hear Uma as The Bride again. What is off-putting is the Fortnite stuff, banana and shark people, Blue pixel blood and getting beamed into the sky after they die. It is like a very good Kill Bill extended scene but then there’s random Fortnite stylistic animation things that clash with what the film is supposed to be. But when the action kicks off, it does feel like a missing part of the film.

Kill Bill was always amazing, personally speaking it’s a toss up between Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill. And while Kill Bill may have more of a unique identity as two distinct volumes, it is a very cool experience as a Whole Bloody Affair.