Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair: the best way to see Kill Bill?

Hoped for by fans for more than 20 years, finally visible in cinemas, the legendary full version of Kill Bill once again raises this thorny question: do Kill Bills count as two films or just one?

This is one of the most insoluble debates in tarantinophilia: should we consider Kill Bill as a single filmic entity, or its two “volumes” as two films in their own right? If we ask ourselves this question (which should never normally have crossed our minds), it is of course because Quentin Tarantino is the director who insisted on numbering his feature films, and has been saying since the beginning of the 2000s that he will stop after number 10 (the next one, therefore).

From there, two schools clash: those who believe that, Reservoir Dogs has Once upon a time in HollywoodQT has already signed ten films. To do this, simply count the Kill Bill for two, which, from a spectator’s point of view, is logical: they came out several months apart, we had to pay twice for our place, and we sat down in front of 2 with in mind the questions left unanswered in 1, matured in the interval. Like when we went to see Back irons the future 3 six months after 2. But Tarantino does not agree. He only wrote one script, only shot one film, and it was only when this juggernaut was being edited that his producer Harvey Weinstein suggested splitting it in two. As early as 2004, moreover, a copy of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affairfull version of more than four hours, compiling the two volumes and presenting minor changes: an additional animated scene in the chapter devoted toorigin story by O-Ren Ishii; colors (especially blood red) in the gargantuan fight between the Bride and the Crazy 88s (black and white had been favored to avoid the ban on under-17s); a deletion of Bill’s cliffhanger line at the end of Volume 1.

An animated Kill Bill prequel? Tarantino is seriously thinking about it

For twenty years, through screening events in Cannes or Los Angeles, this Bloody Affair ended up becoming legendary, the white whale of the fan club. It is now visible in France in cinemas, pending an equally exciting video release in the fall. So what does it look like Kill Bill when we ingest it in its pharaonic montage of 4h35? Well… drum roll…: still two films stuck together. There is also an intermission at the usual intersection between the two volumes and, even if there was not, the break in tone is so marked, when David Carradine arrives to play the flute in a black and white western setting, that we will always have the sensation that another film is beginning. Side A: aerial and supercharged. Side B: talkative and digressive. It’s as if Tarantino, deep down, never really found the definitive form of Kill Bill – which perhaps makes sense, after all, for a film designed as an immense stroll, without beginning or end, through the history of cinema. By making it official today The Whole Bloody Affairby making Kill Bill available in this form, it nevertheless forces us to count it from now on as a single opus. Let’s face it: Tarantino only made nine films. The latest one came out seven years ago. So, Quentin… at work?

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affairby Quentin Tarantino, with Uma Thurman… Currently in cinemas.