Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair
Tarantino's fourth movie, originally released as a two parter against Tarantino's own wishes. This is technically not the official "Whole Bloody Affair" cut that hasn't been publicly released and that Tarantino only shows at private screenings, which, you might be surprised to learn, I haven't yet been invited to. No, this is an official reconstruction made by fans, although what it technically constitutes are both halves back to back, an action scene that was originally edited to be in black and white for being "too graphic" being restored to colour and a minor scene being edited out that was part of a cliffhanger at the end of the first volume but spoils a pivotal plot point in the second movie.
Young Uma Thurman is still peak mommy. And, like, the rest wasn't too bad either.
Jokes aside, Kill Bill, in this version, probably still stands as Tarantino's most ambitious project. A four hour revenge opera that moves from location to location as casually as it moves from genre to genre.
Uma Thurman plays a former elite assassin who is attacked and almost killed by her vengeful former team, lead by eponymous Bill (David Carradine) on the day of her wedding. After waking from a coma, she resolves to hunt them down one by one. A journey that doesn't just take her to Japan and back but also back and forth between the genre conventions of exploitation films, martial arts movies, anime, yakuza movies, spaghetti westerns, wuxia and family drama. In short, Kill Bill is a love letter to about 50 years worth of violent genre cinema from all around the world.
All of which, you'd think, would render it little more than a postmodernist curiosity that should only appeal to movie geeks but once again Tarantino's talent as a writer and action director made it a wide success. Watching it in one piece, though, highlights some rather curious tendencies. That is, if you watch Kill Bill as one movie it's one that starts off very fast and from the halfway point onward slows down considerably. Where the climax of the first half is probably the most elaborate and longest action sequence Tarantino ever shot, real Hongkong shit, the climax of the latter half is mostly a long conversation. It's the kind of decision you usually just don't see in mainstream action movies
It shows Tarantino's tremendous confidence in his own character writing and I guess exactly that is what carries Kill Bill even once the pace slows down and the action becomes more scarce. Almost every character is some sort of genre archetype but also every single character has stuff going on beyond what's there at face value. O-Ren Ishii has an entire animated sequence dedicated to her backstory, Budd has this entire little intro of him struggling with his job as a bouncer, Vernita seems like a stock blaxploitation homage but she's also someone who has managed to do exactly what the protagonist wanted to do, retire from the life and settle down with a family.
There is something to be said about that... it wasn't originally Tarantino's intention for Kill Bill to be split into two parts but while that is regrettable, at the very least it wasn't cut down into a single 2 hour movie. There are so many digressive little bits in there that, had the movie been subject to a Justice League style butchering, would have landed on the cutting room floor and everything that makes it work along with it. It works not because it it's a pitch perfect tribute to violent low budget cinema, it works because it takes the trappings of that violent low budget cinema and fleshes it in terms of scale and character depth that it reaches a certain grandeur.
Bill's famous monologue about Superman is such a great example for it. On one hand, it's obviously not what anyone who's really into Superman would read into his characterization but it's exactly what someone like Bill, behind his smooth exterior a narcissistic, self centered cult leader type, would take away from it. The writing gets so much across about these people in such an efficient way.
When I wrote about Once Upon a Time In Hollywood I wrote that it's more or less a movie about what an older, more relaxed Tarantino likes. Old movie stars, 70's music, Hollywood's golden age, Margot Robbie's feet... a movie about hanging out with a bunch of interesting personalities in a bygone age. Kill Bill is a movie about everything young Tarantino found cool, kung fu and anime, westerns and gangsters and assassins and Uma Thurman's feet. Me, personally, I wouldn't mind him making another action movie. He has talked about being interested in directing a third Kill Bill installment, in fact. I like his newer, more relaxed, dialogue heavy stuff a lot but it would be cool to get something like this again before he retires.
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