Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair includes never-before-seen anime footage that chronicles an important part of O-ren Ishii’s past that could also present the path to Tarantino’s future. Quentin Tarantino is a filmmaker whose works have always been passionate love letters to not just cinema but a wide range of pop culture touchstones, references, and […]
The new release reconciles the two halves of this cinematic saga and presents them as originally intended. On a structural level, The Whole Bloody Affair is a satisfying experience. However, its never-before-seen anime sequence – an extension of O-Ren Ishii’s (Lucy Liu) own revenge saga – steals the show in more ways than one. This new sequence provides fascinating insight into the future of Tarantino’s career and a viable path forward that circumvents his self-imposed “Ten Film Rule.”
Part of what makes Kill Bill such an immersive cinematic experience is how it plays around with so many different storytelling devices and presentation styles. It inundates its audience with so many stylistic flourishes that an anime detour in Chapter 3: The Origin of O-Ren is just par for the course. This anime sequence, produced by Production I.G and directed by Kazuto Nakazawa (Tenchi Muyo!, Parasite Dolls), chronicles O-Ren’s tragic past and the circumstances that led to her evolution into an expert assassin and power player in Japan’s criminal underworld. The original anime sequence spends a lot of time in O-Ren’s prepubescent years, jumping from a massacre when she’s 11 to a violent rebirth at 20.
The Whole Bloody Affair covers an extra O-Ren altercation when the budding killer is 13 years old. This extensive sequence puts O-Ren up against Pretty Riki, a criminal who ultimately gets the last laugh. O-Ren’s attack on Pretty Riki in The Whole Bloody Affair manages to top the ultra-violent heights of the rest of the anime sequence. This new wrinkle in O-Ren’s past is also genuinely suspenseful and full of clever subversions. A simple hit continues to spiral out of control and grow infinitely more precarious, yet O-Ren remains steadfast with her goal. The majority of this sequence plays out in an elevator, and it instantly becomes one of the strongest cinematic elevator sequences that comes to mind, trumping the likes of Dressed to Kill, The Departed, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Damien: The Omen II.
A rather fascinating detail that seems to exist between “classic Tarantino” and “nu Tarantino” is the latter’s interest in engaging in gonzo revisionist history, whether that’s Hitler’s grisly execution or the prevention of Sharon Tate’s murder. Kill Bill is very much the inflection point between these two phases of Tarantino’s career. O-Ren’s expanded anime backstory wasn’t constructed under the same rubric. However, this new sequence retroactively fulfills the agenda of the second half of Tarantino’s career. The new Pretty Riki scene doesn’t prevent O-Ren’s death at the hands of The Bride. What it does do is turn O-Ren into a more sympathetic character that the audience almost wants to root for by the time that her showdown with The Bride comes to pass.
This expanded anime scene and how it recontextualizes O-Ren’s plight make The Whole Bloody Affair an even more appropriate demarcation line in Tarantino’s career than what was accomplished with Vols. 1 and 2 as separate films. This segment makes O-Ren’s death more tragic and even turns her into more of the centerpiece of the film’s first half, fully embracing the Lady Snowblood influence. The Whole Bloody Affair’s lengthier anime sequence turns it into even more of a centerpiece that’s more substantial and better justified, especially in a longer movie that has more room.
On some level, it’s easy to see why this lengthy scene was cut. The audience can fill in the gaps, especially since the end of O-Ren’s story is still detailed. However, O-Ren’s fight against Pretty Riki is far stronger than the additional sequences that follow, where O-Ren is 20 years old. As a collective piece, it really makes “The Origin of O-Ren“ feel like an anime epic that can stand on its own, independent of the rest of the film.
O-Ren’s anime backstory was already evocative of mature anime titles like Ghost in the Shell, Blood: The Last Vampire, and Kite, the latter of which was actually required viewing for Chiaki Kuriyama in order to better get into Gogo Yubari’s mindset. These reference points, especially Kite, are even more apparent in 13-year-old O-Ren’s attack on Pretty Riki. 13-year-old O-Ren’s character design seems to even explicitly reference Kite’s young assassin, Sawa.
Kite’s influence on the third chapter feels more natural when it’s explicitly referenced and not just part of a performer’s subtext. There are also several shots, sequences, and reactions that are direct references to some of Production I.G’s most iconic works. This could feel clunky and shallow in less adept works, but this extended anime sequence’s ability to lovingly pay homage to not just Production I.G, but anime as a whole, meshes with the rest of Kill Bill’s magpie-like tendency to pastiche pop culture.
What’s perhaps the most exciting thing about the extended anime sequence is how it points to a potential future for Tarantino that allows him to skirt his pesky self-imposed rule to only direct ten feature films. Tarantino taking on a full anime series, a series of OVAs, or even an anthology effort in the style of The Animatrix would allow for rewarding storytelling opportunities while not breaking his own rules. This pivot may have been seen as a step backwards for Tarantino in the past, but anime’s reputation has completely changed in the two decades since Kill Bill’s release.
There are increasing cases where acclaimed live-action filmmakers like Takashi Miike and Chad Stalhelski have opted to direct anime. Any such stigma is now gone, and Tarantino has also grown more fascinated in recontextualizing his film properties in different media, whether it’s his novelization of Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, Django/Zorro comic crossover, or his serialized and re-edited The Hateful Eight: Extended Version. It makes more sense than ever for Tarantino to embrace anime in a more substantial capacity.
The prospect of a Kill Bill anime may have previously seemed like a poor substitute for a live-action third installment. However, Tarantino’s reputation with Kill Bill has clearly changed after using the Unreal Engine to bring to life an unfilmed sequence from his original Kill Bill script. In a world in which “Yuki’s Revenge” can exist in Fortnite, there’s no reason that Kill Bill can’t live on as an anime. Expressing future Kill Bill stories in this style wouldn’t need to be viewed as any sort of compromise, and Production I.G is now up to the challenge even more than they were back when they did the original anime sequence.
While there may be a natural temptation to deliver a hypothetical Kill Bill Vol. 3 as an anime, Tarantino has already created a rich universe that can easily sustain new stories that pull from its past instead of looking to the future. A full O-Ren Ishii anime would be a popular project, but there’s also a lot of value in an anime that adopts more of an anthology approach to Kill Bill’s eclectic cast and history, whether that digs into the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, Pai Mei, or Bill’s relationship with his brother, Budd.
Tarantino recently spoke about how revisiting The Whole Bloody Affair has sparked the idea of telling a new Bill story that looks at his relationship with his “three godfathers” – Esteban Vihaio, Hattori Hanzo, and Pai Mei. This is a story that would be perfect to bring to life as an anime. Such an anime could also be used to bring more unfilmed Kill Bill material into existence, like what was done with “Yuki’s Revenge.” One of the best parts of Tarantino’s original Kill Bill script is a Bill-centric chapter, “Can She Bake A Cherry Pie…,” that unleashes his skills at an illegal casino. Some of Tarantino’s strongest writing has been lost in this unfilmed chapter, which could finally be appreciated in a Kill Bill anime anthology.
Alternatively, Tarantino could go one step further and use anime as the conduit for a broader anthology that tackles the entire breadth of his filmography. Such a series could include plenty of Kill Bill representation, but also become a venue for Tarantino to complete more of his unfinished projects, like “Vega Brothers,” “Killer Crow,” or even the Django and Zorro crossover. Tarantino’s films being reborn as anime isn’t even an idea that seems that odd during a time when anime for Lord of the Rings, Scooby-Doo, Terminator, and Rick and Morty exist. Tarantino has also shown enough respect and admiration for anime that it’s not hard to imagine him creating a totally original story that’s been specifically modulated to be told in anime. This new narrative could function as a tribute to anime in the same way that his other projects are pastiches of their respective genres.
The long-awaited release of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair provides closure for a fringe project that fans have wanted to see for decades. The film’s most exciting new addition, and the warm reception that it’s receiving, will hopefully rekindle a reunion between Tarantino and Production I.G. O-Ren Ishii’s assault on Pretty Riki deserves to be the start of something bigger and not just the swan song of a part of Tarantino’s past.
Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair releases exclusively in theaters on December 5.
