Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, the recut version of Quentin Tarantino‘s Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2, is in theaters for the twentieth anniversary. The Mary Sue sent me, intrepid reporter Leah Marilla Thomas, to watch it for the first time in this fashion.
That’s right. I had not seen Kill Bill Vol. 1 or Vol. 2 before this month. There’s no good explanation as to why. I was more or less a fan of the auteur growing up. I watched Pulp Fiction in film studies. Inglourious Basterds was a seminal theater-going experience for me in college. I’m a Django Unchained and Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood ending defender. If asked, I could explain how Tarantino’s reference-y dialogue changed film and television. But for whatever reason, this piece of millennial pop culture was not one of my own touchstones.
Unfortunately, this is not the best week to be hawking Tarantino opinions, but what can you do? #TeamPaulDano or whatever. He’s seemingly always saying sh*t these days. Still, here’s what I learned watching Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair and experiencing this revenge epic fresh in 2025.
I did know a lot more about Kill Bill than I thought.
One of the things I wanted to track while watching for the first time was what film studies and cultural osmosis/the general zeitgeist had taught me about this film. Here’s what I already knew:
- I knew that the song “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” was in this movie. I did think it was the Cher original, not the Nancy Sinatra cover.
- The siren-y sound that plays when she finds a person on her list. I knew that was a thing.
- I knew Uma Thurman was called The Bride, but not why. I did not know she was an assassin by trade, part of a snake-themed organization, or that we would eventually learn her name.
- I knew she drove a car called “The Pussy Wagon” thanks to Beyoncé and Lady Gaga’s Tarantino-inspired “Telephone” music video. My communications studies TAs were obsessed.
- I knew that a little girl might grow up to get revenge on her. I expected it to happen in the movie?
- I knew she had a katana and I vaguely knew that frying pans were involved in one scene.
- I knew that happened to Lucy Liu’s character, but forgot until right before the reveal. Watching in this climate is not ideal.
- I knew that there was a Volume 2. Turns out, I knew barely anything about that movie.
The changes didn’t stand out to little ol’ me.
Alright, so you know how the Star Wars “machete order” keeps new audiences from discovering that Darth Vader is Luke’s father before Luke when they watch the prequels and original trilogy combined? The Whole Bloody Affair omits a certain detail about the Bride that the audience originally learns at the end of Vol. 1 and she learns at the end of the sequel. Now, the audience learns that is [redacted] at the same time she does. I’m pleased to report that it properly surprised me! I can live without a great cliffhanger when the conclusion happens after a fifteen minute intermission.
As for other changes, I obviously didn’t know what footage was new, but no chapter felt like it overstayed its welcome. Reading up on which sequences got padding after the fact, I wish that the animated flashback about Lucy Liu’s character was even longer, actually. Loved her!
Watching in this political climate is generally not ideal.
I don’t want to say that I’m too woke to enjoy an exploitation film in 2025. The blood and violence did not bother me, for what it’s worth. But imagine my perspective at the current moment. The country I live in has now elected a man accused of sexual assault to its highest office twice. The city I live in narrowly avoided electing an alleged sex pest as mayor. We’re in the middle of a massive national conversation about pedophilia because of Jeffrey Epstein, as if the #MeToo movement wasn’t revealing enough. I also, to bring things back to pop culture, lived through that weird couple of years where film and especially television would give female characters a sexual assault storyline or backstory to make them likable.
So, even though Kill Bill preceded most of that, I was ill-placed watch so many men threaten and/or commit sexual violence, especially with girls. They die, but, they’re still played for laughs a bunch. I didn’t enjoy how the movie infantilized the Bride. Her last name is literally Kiddo! I can’t hear a man say that a younger woman is “wise beyond her years” without thinking about grooming. It’s not a hot take to say that Bill sucks, right? I know he thought he ate with that Superman metaphor, but…
This isn’t something I want to be smug or holier-than-thou about. A lot of women, including those whose opinions I respect, love these movies. I look forward to reading some essays; I’ll tell you that much! But my knee-jerk reaction to watching for the first time in 2025 is that I did not find Kill Bill empowering. I’ve moved past this flavor of feminist fantasy, and it’s a bummer that I didn’t see these movies before I did.
They weren’t kidding about the foot thing, huh?
Woof. Her dogs really are out. I really wish I didn’t see Maya Hawke and Amy Poehler joke about this before watching Kill Bill. It was impossible to ignore in the worst way.
I have a new appreciation for what Kill Bill inspired.
Here’s a fun thing! I totally forgot that Leslye Headland said that she pitched Star Wars: The Acolyte as “Frozen meets Kill Bill,” and now I understand that reference. Mae is a great successor to The Bride. At the time, I loved how the show revealed the reasons behind her kill list over time. Now I understand where that comes from. On the other hand, I don’t personally remember anyone comparing Birds of Prey, Cathy Yang’s Harley Quinn movie, to Kill Bill back in 2020. But Tarantino’s duology so clearly inspired the humor and inside-out narrative structure of it as well. Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s Huntress especially.
It honestly makes me feel a little better about some of the more dated and male gaze-y elements that didn’t sit well with me to know that Kill Bill inspired multiple female filmmakers to do their own feminist riff on it years later. Especially, in the case of The Acolyte and Birds of Prey, riffs where the women of color don’t ALL DIE like in Kill Bill, Quentin! Don’t think I didn’t notice.
I think the run time might be a little too long for audiences.
Listen, I’m all for long movies especially with intermissions. But at 247 minutes, a.k.a. four and a half hours, Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair was an hour longer than Titanic, ten minutes longer than Gone with the Wind and about a half hour longer than The Brutalist. Plus, my screening included the additional The Lost Chapter: Yuki’s Revenge. The new animated short is only ten minutes long. But all it accomplished was keeping our butts in seats and killing off another female character.
Suffice to say, we got more than a little stir crazy by the time all was said and done. A man a few rows behind me started cursing out Tarantino’s self-indulgent (his words) end credits sequence. I also noticed a mouse running around the auditorium from the time the Bride reunited with Bill and [redacted] to the end. While I applaud the mouse for finding a building full of dark corners and yummy snacks to call home, I wanted nothing more than to GTFO. Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair seems to work narratively for fans as well as newcomers, but it really is a whole affair.
(featured image: Lionsgate)
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