Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair is a special kind of theatrical re-release, in that it's not really a re-release at all. A little over 20 years ago, Quentin Tarantino was pushed to split his epic ode to kung fu cinema in two volumes (the first released in October 2003, the second in April 2004), and those two "movies," even when screened back-to-back, don't fully capture the filmmaker's original intentions with the production. This December, cinephiles fans everywhere will finally get to see Tarantino's true vision – and even if you've seen Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 a million times, I promise you that The Whole Bloody Affair is a special experience worth seeking out on the big screen.
Lionsgate has released the first trailer for Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, and it offers a taste of the epic that is now less than one month away from arriving in cinemas nationwide. As was teased last month when the distribution plan was first revealed, the unrated release will include a number of bonuses in the presentation, including an intermission and an anime sequence that has never been screened before – even in screenings hosted at the two theaters Tarantino owns in Los Angeles (the New Beverly and The Vista).
Including the 15 minute pause that will allow audiences to stretch their legs (which the writer/director previously utilized in the 70mm roadshow presentation of The Hateful Eight), Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair boasts a 281 minute runtime. That's a lot of movie (which is why the original decision to go the two-volume route was chosen), but it will be worth setting aside an evening for on your calendar.
Without saying too much and spoiling what is to come, I can tease that the Crazy 88 fight is far more intense in The Whole Bloody Affair, both because it's longer and because there is no temporary switch from color to monochrome (a call that was made in the editing room to avoid a NC-17 rating). There are also significant changes made to what we know of as the end of Vol. 1 and the opening of Vol. 2, which alters the flow of the narrative in an unexpected way.
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair will be arriving in theaters on December 5, and while that's set to be a pretty big box office weekend given that it's also the release date of the anticipated Five Nights At Freddy's 2, you'll be doing yourself a disservice if you don't make the effort to go see Uma Thurman's roaring rampage of revenge on the big screen. In addition to being blissfully entertaining, there's no promise that the cut will ever get a similar wide release ever again.
