The elusive original cut of Quentin Tarantino’s fourth and fifth films, known together as Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, had hitherto existed only on one print, personally owned by Tarantino. It screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 and a handful of times since. Now, after decades of anticipation, it has hit cinemas across the world, with select venues in glorious 70 mm film, including AFI Silver Theater and Cultural Center in Maryland.
From the outset, Kill Bill paid homage to ’70s and ’80s genre cinema, including epics from Hong Kong, yakuza and martial arts films starring Meiko Kaji and Sonny Chiba, and spaghetti Westerns, built around an original character that Tarantino co-developed with star Uma Thurman. Television company Miramax decided that Kill Bill should be split into two “volumes” released separately, reckoning that audiences did not have the attention span for a four-hour epic. While the split meant Tarantino did not have to cut any story, it weakened the film’s act structure and resulted in something a bit disjointed. The first volume felt like a mélange of Japanese swords and ’70s revenge thriller films, whereas the second felt like an introspective drama with a Hong Kong action flashback. Both Kill Bill volumes were smash hits, but the unified film is greater than the sum of its parts.
It is curious to think that a film deemed too long for the attention spans of 2003 would see a successful release 18 years into the smartphone era, but Miramax was wrong. Perhaps the extent to which a movie like this challenges the “second screen” paradigm is why people show up. So rapt was the audience that I noticed long periods of pin-drop silence, marred not even by a popcorn kernel, and this was not limited to opening night repertory audiences.
Gabrielle, a younger viewer who attended the film at a multiplex in Missouri, observed, “Nobody, as far as I could see, reached for phones, nor did I have an impulse to do so the entire time. It’s nice to be able to focus on nothing but the story in front of you. Movie theaters feel like capsules. During the intermission, I was just planning what to watch next!”
As the possibility looms of Warner Bros. Discovery being acquired by Netflix, whose CEO openly calls theatrical viewing consumer-unfriendly, it’s interesting that audiences seek to escape the multitasking paradigm that has us taking a little bit of everything, but getting the benefit of none of it. The deluge of “content” algorithmically designed to be what we “want” feels like pandering, and leaves us wanting something more deliberate for our time and money. The Whole Bloody Affair offers us exactly that: an accessible, yet beautifully made film in a setting cocooned from the world. In this context, it is as much a statement as it is entertainment.
In The Whole Bloody Affair, the Bride’s grief forms an emotional through-line, and the audience is with her rather than told about her, which the Miramax cuts necessitated. The end of Chapter Five leads cleanly into the intermission, instead of the distracting cliffhanger and preview that followed in Vol. 1, and the story picks up directly with Chapter Six, rather than opening with a recap scene, as Vol. 2 did. Their removal allows a more organic experience of the Bride’s arc, not least by ensuring the viewer does not have more information than she does. In this version, the framing narrative feels like a Western, providing a dusty and contemplative backdrop to the vivid set pieces. With deft editing by the late Sally Menke, the film never drags, feeling half its length, and the more philosophical later chapters now feel like a natural denouement.
Shot and left for dead while pregnant on the eve of her wedding, the Bride (Thurman) awakens from a coma to seek revenge on those who killed her child, under the direction of her former mentor Bill (David Carradine), who appears as a haunting voice long before he comes onscreen. Her odyssey for justice begins with seeking out a teacher, Hattori Hanzo, played by the late Sonny Chiba. Hattori has forsworn violence due to the evil acts of his former student, Bill, but he is so shaken by the acts committed against the Bride that he breaks his own vow to train her and make a weapon for her. Chiba lends a gravitas that anchors the film; he feels larger-than-life even to viewers unfamiliar with his pioneering films.
Following her time with Hanzo, the Bride is back in fighting shape and proceeds to wage war against the killers, starting with yakuza kingpin O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), her underboss Sofie Fatale (Sophie Dreyfus), and assassin-playing-homemaker Vernita Green (Vivica Fox). The action showcases the Bride’s character. Easily the best warrior in this bunch, she takes care not to harm innocents. She has a quality that her rivals do not.
After the intermission, we get a glimpse into why this is so. Sent in her early years to train with the folk-historical figure Pai Mei (Gordon Liu), the Bride is humbled. It’s evident that she cannot keep up with Pai Mei’s almost supernatural mastery, but she shows her potential by understanding the purpose of the pressure and taunts. In the martial arts, it’s understood that a teacher places the harshest attention on the student who has the most potential. The Bride rises to the challenge, committing years to diligent training until the arts are internalized, something Bill and his associates did not generally have the humility for.
CHRISTMAS COMES EARLY FOR THE BEATLES COMPLETIST
Gordon Liu’s decades of Hung Gar kung fu training show in his very movements, giving an immediate impression that this is someone who can back up his claims. He starred in many of the films that influenced Kill Bill, including The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978), which is about the virtue of diligent training and the use of martial arts for justice, and Clan of the White Lotus (1980), about generational revenge against Pai Mei for his cruelty, themes embodied in the Bride.
It struck me while watching The Whole Bloody Affair that we are as far today from the first release of Kill Bill as it was from the classic martial arts films of the ’80s. Securing both Chiba and Liu is a feat comparable to somehow getting John Wayne and Clint Eastwood in a modern Western. Upon its release, many martial arts fans were skeptical of a Western entry to the genre, but looking back, it proved to be a last hurrah for many of the legends of that craft in their prime.
Jibran Khan is a freelance writer and researcher. An alumnus of National Review, he writes at Pop Polemics.