written by: Quintin Tarantino
produced by: Lawrence Bender
directed by: Quintin Tarantino
rated: R (for strong bloody violence, language and some sexual content)
runtime: 247 min.
U.S. release date: May 2006 (Cannes Film Festival) and December 5, 2025 (theatrical)
It’s likely that the only people willing to sit in theaters for 4 hours to watch “Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair” are the ones who know lines by heart. Or they could be the ones who felt this is how writer/director Quintin Tarantino’s fourth and fifth films should’ve originally been released, instead of in two volumes, six months apart, back in 2003 and 2004. Each half still has five chapters, but here is now a 15-minute intermission between “Volume 1” and “Volume 2”, both of which have been combined with a few tweaks and subtle differences to tell one complete, brutal tale of blood-spraying revenge.
What Miramax couldn’t do back then, Lionsgate has stepped in and found no problem with a theatrical run. However, this isn’t the first time the original cut played in theaters. “The Whole Bloody Affair” actually premiered at Cannes back in 2006 and screened at Tarantino’s own New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles back in 2010. This past summer, this version had a limited run at the Vista Theater in Los Angeles. That’s all to say that only a limited number of viewers have been able to see this cult classic in its original form until now.
Watching it in 2025 may hit differently for some, given what we know about Harvey Weinstein and what we’ve learned about what Uma Thurman endured to realize Tarantino’s vision. Watching the entire thing now, I realized I recalled more of “Vol. 1” than I do “Vol. 2”, so it’s like I’m coming to it with a fresh pair of eyes. Considering it’s been 22 years since “Kill Bill” was first released, I’m kind of jealous of anyone seeing it for the first time.
The movie opens cold, with the camera on Thurman’s bruised and bloodied face, as she lies on the floor of an old Texas roadside chapel in a wedding dress. It’s 1999, and this was to be the pregnant bride’s wedding day, but her ex-lover/former mentor, Bill (David Carradine), has other plans, which is obvious considering he’s standing above her with a gun pointed at her head. Everyone else in the church, from the groom Tommy (Chris Nelson), the entire bridal party, to Rufus the organist (yep, that’s Samuel L. Jackson), has been mowed down by the Deadly Vipers. The Bride (Thurman) used to be one of them, codenamed Black Mamba, and they are now a quartet of assassins who work for Bill, aka Snake Charmer. After she’s shot in the head and left for dead by Bill, The Bride eventually wakes up in a hospital bed, surprised and emotionally enraged to learn she’s alive, yet believing her baby isn’t.
With revenge burning a fire in her belly, The Bride swears to find and kill Bill. She has a hit list, and on it are all her former assassin comrades, the ones who were present on that fateful day. Throughout the two volumes, she will take on and take out: Vernita Green aka Copperhead (Vivica A. Fox), one-eyes Elle Driver aka California Mountain Snake (Darryl Hannah), and Bill’s brother, Budd aka Sidewinder (the late Michael Madsen), who works at a strip club, as she travels to California and Texas. She will also fly to Japan, where she will acquire a special katana sword from Hattori Hanzō (the late Sonny Chiba), a sushi chef and retired swordsmith (and former master of Bill’s) in Okinawa, and then travel to Tokyo to take on O-Renn Ishii, aka Cottonmouth (Lucy Lui), and her army, the Crazy 88, and a squad of yakuza. The Bride will inevitably face off against Bill at his home in Mexico, and indeed finally fulfill the feature’s promised title.
It all sounds like a straightforward revenge story, and it is, but “Kill Bill” stands out for how Tarantino tells his story. While it is his original story, it’s apparent how the genres he’s a fan of influence it. “Kill Bill” is essentially his modern take on kung fu and yakuza movies, as well as Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns, with some grindhouse influences and a dash of anime. Told in a non-chronological manner (despite the film being shot in sequence), the film offers backstories that provide context and enrich the characters we’re introduced to. It feels like Tarantino is sitting back with a knowing smirk, admiring his creation. The way he slyly casts classic genre character actors (some of whom are now deceased), such as Michael Parks (and his son, James Parks), Larry Bishop, Sid Haig, and Bo Svenson, in minor roles, is a trademark that would carry over into his future movies.
Amid all the bloody decapitations, amputations, and vivisections of the violent action sequences, Tarantino gleefully populates the film with a distinctive and sublime artistry of movement. This is primarily due to the exquisite contributions from cinematographer Robert Richardson (who would go on to lens Tarantino’s subsequent films), editor Sally Menke (who died in 2010, after working on two additional Tarantino films), and choreographer Yuen Woo-ping (who also worked on “The Matrix” movies), which result in a highly memorable and immersive viewing experience.
Tarantino also brings his mental jukebox used in “Reservoir Dogs”, “Pulp Fiction”, and “Jackie Brown”, including deep-cut needle drops that appear within the score, composed and produced by RZA. One can’t help but think of “Kill Bill” when hearing Nancy Sinatra’s “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)”, along with “Woo Hoo”, by The 5.6.7.8’s (the Japanese rock band who perform during Chapter 5’s iconic “Showdown at the House of Green Leaves”) or Tomoyasu Hotei’s propulsive instrumental “Battle Without Honor or Humanity”. Watching the film in this manner, it’s easy to be reminded how integral sound and music are to the story. This is also the film where it was established that Tarantino has a very particular foot fetish, as he famously shows cinematic infatuation for Thurman’s bare feet. These are his stylistic trademarks as much as they are confirmations that he’ll stick to his proclivities no matter what, and “Kill Bill” stands out as Tarantino’s most pop-culture-obsessed movie.
It should be noted that this is Tarantino’s first full-on action flick, despite moments of violence in his previous three movies. The close-contact action sequences that Thurman engages in are rough and raw, communicating a primal urgency. But the high point remains the 15-minute battle sequence that occurs at The House of Blue Leaves, which kicks off with Sofie Fatale (Julie Dreyfus), O-Ren’s lawyer, confidante, and second lieutenant, losing her arm, and culminating in a beautiful snowy garden, which the blood of O-Ren will taint. The whole thing took eight weeks to film, pushing the film six weeks over its schedule, but that’s largely due to the decision to use practical effects rather than CGI. Sofie experiences more torture, but she had it coming since she was also present at that Texas chapel. This being the “Uncut and Uncensored” version, there’s no need to keep the monochromatic black-and-white, which was incorporated back in the day to appease the rating system. Now we get all the crimson geysers and scarlet sprays of the enemy’s blood, which punctuate the sheer brutality, especially The Bride’s nasty eyeball-pulling move.
The tweaks Tarantino added to “The Whole Bloody Affair” restore previously deleted material that most viewers haven’t seen before. The most notable is the 10-minute extension of the animated sequence, directed by Japanese director Kazuto Nakazawa, which details the childhood and adolescence of Liu’s O-Renn character. The original cut showed how she was traumatized and exploited by a pedophilic gang boss, Matsomuto (voiced by Naomi Kusumi), who murdered her parents, and survives to exact her revenge as a teenage assassin. The extended part of this animated segment involves O-Renn (voiced by Ai Maeda) tracking down and killing Pretty Riki (voiced by Hikaru Midorikawa), a psychotic henchman of Matsomuto’s. It doesn’t necessarily make the story better, but it adds a thorough exclamation point to O’Renn’s backstory.
The way this version ends and begins before and after the intermission plays differently here, too. When it was originally released, the studio-mandated ending of “Volume 1” included an awkward cliffhanger featuring teaser footage of what audiences could expect from “Volume 2”, which included an unfortunate reveal that cheated viewers from experiencing something shocking on their own.
Thankfully, none of that is here. (SPOILER ALERT from here on).
Gone is the odd recap provided by Thurman that opened “Volume 2”, which makes for a much smoother continuation of the overall story and adds to its tonal consistency. The revelation that the daughter of Thurman’s Beatrix “The Bride” Kiddo survived, is now 4 years old, and is named B.B. (played by Perla Haney-Jardine), who resides with Bill in Mexico. This is now saved for after the intermission. The result is much more powerful, since we’re learning about this in real-time (albeit four years later), along with The Bride. It’s an emotional whallop and leads The Bride to reassess her mission and wonder if it’s been a mistake all along. “Volume 2” hits harder emotionally, offering a complex examination as to whether or not people can (or should) continue to love people who’ve treated them horribly.
The Bride’s final confrontation with Bill was always more of a conversation, and it still is. After she was buried alive and clawed her way to the surface, she’s now shot by Bill with a truth serum dart to interrogate her, and she’s forced to listen to his monologue, which includes sandwich making and his thoughts on Superman/Clark Kent. Thankfully, she wound up mastering the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, taught to her by martial arts master Pei Mai (Gordon Liu), as told in flashback, so she could finally shut Bill up.
Obviously, the most impressive aspect of “The Whole Bloody Affair” is how it reiterates just how impressive Thurman’s work is here, now that we can experience it in one sitting. (That is, with a 15-minute stretch/bathroom break). Her overall look and delivery in this defining role have often been compared to an amalgam of a Bruce Lee and Clint Eastwood archetype, and that’s fair. But Thurman conveys as much pain, both physical and emotional, as she does raw vulnerability, making Beatrix Kiddo a real human being, rather than an iconic superhero. That being said, the character absolutely has to be in the conversation as one of the most memorable cinematic heroines ever. If anything, seeing this version now gives viewers a chance to appreciate the blood, sweat, and tears Thurman endured for the role. Bottom Line: If it weren’t for Thurman, no one would be considering this as Tarantino’s masterful saga.
It’s interesting how, back in 2003/2004, there was no way a 4-hour movie could’ve been released, and while that still holds true for any new feature in 2025, a 247 movie storyline would likely be spread out across a platform like HBO or Netflix instead of theaters. It’s inevitable that “The Whole Bloody Affair” will make its way to streaming, but it feels more like an event because it is in theaters, especially considering some of the screenings are in 35mm and 70mm.
One thing this version can do without is the new animated short by Tarantino and Epic Games called “The Lost Chapter: Yuki’s Revenge”, which first debuted in the video game Fortnite. It’s shown after the end credits and is based on an early draft that included a chapter after the confrontation with Vernita, in which the Bride has a gunfight with O’Renn’s sadistic schoolgirl bodyguard Gogo Yubari’s (Chiaki Kuriyama) vengeful sister Yuki. While Thurman reprises her role, this time in voice-acting/motion-capture form, Zoë Bell performs the motion-capture stuntwork, and Tarantino voices Bill due to Carradine’s death in 2009. It wasn’t included in the original release because it would’ve made the film overlong, overextended the budget, and that’s actually a good thing since it adds absolutely nothing to the overall story.
Tarantino has proclaimed ad nauseam that he’ll only make ten movies. Since “Kill Bill: Volume 1” was labeled his fourth, maybe “The Whole Bloody Affair” will now also be considered his fourth film, which means, for better or worse, we could still have two more movies from the director.
RATING: ****
