Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair is a 2004 American martial arts film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It combines the films Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (2004), which were conceived and produced as a single film, but split in two. Uma Thurman stars as the Bride, who swears revenge on a group of assassins after they try to kill her and her unborn child.

The Whole Bloody Affair premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2004, before screening at Tarantino's New Beverly Cinema on March 27, 2011. Tarantino said he had waited until he owned the rights before giving the film a full release and thought that asking audiences to come to his theater gave it more meaning. It was theatrically released in the United States by Lionsgate on December 5, 2025, to acclaim.

Tarantino also directed an animated short, The Lost Chapter: Yuki's Revenge, which debuted in the video game Fortnite and was included after the credits of theatrical screenings of The Whole Bloody Affair.

Plot In 1999, the Bride, a former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, is rehearsing her marriage at a chapel in El Paso, Texas. The Deadly Vipers, led by Bill, attack the chapel, shooting everyone. As the Bride lies wounded, she tells Bill he is the father of her unborn child just as he shoots her in the head.

The Bride falls into a coma. In the hospital, Elle Driver, one of the Deadly Vipers, prepares to assassinate her via lethal injection. Bill calls Elle and aborts the mission, considering it dishonorable to kill her while she is defenseless. The Bride awakens four years later and is horrified to discover she is no longer pregnant. She vows to kill Bill and the other Deadly Vipers.

The Bride obtains a sword from the legendary swordsmith Hattori Hanzō in Okinawa. In Tokyo, she defeats a squad of yakuza fighters, the Crazy 88, and assassinates their leader, the former Deadly Viper O-Ren Ishii. In Pasadena, California, the Bride kills Vernita Green, a former Deadly Viper, at her suburban home.

In Barstow, California, Bill's brother Budd, another Deadly Viper, incapacitates the Bride, sedates her, and buries her alive in a coffin. The Bride uses techniques taught to her by the martial arts master Pai Mei to escape. Elle Driver arranges to buy the Bride's sword from Budd and kills him with a black mamba hidden within a case full of money at his trailer. As Elle exits, the Bride, now addressed by her real name Beatrix Kiddo, ambushes her and they fight. Beatrix plucks out Elle's remaining eye and leaves her screaming in the trailer with the black mamba.

Beatrix tracks Bill to his home in Mexico and discovers that their daughter, B.B., is still alive, now four years old. Beatrix spends the evening with them. After she puts B.B. to bed, Bill shoots Beatrix with a dart containing truth serum and interrogates her. She explains that she left the Deadly Vipers when she discovered she was pregnant, in order to give B.B. a better life. Bill explains that he assumed she was dead and had ordered her assassination when he discovered she was alive and engaged to a "jerk" he assumed was the father of her child. The two begin to fight, but Beatrix traps Bill's sword in her scabbard and strikes him with the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, an attack learned from Pai Mei. Bill reconciles with her, then falls dead as he walks away. Beatrix leaves with B.B. to start a new life.

Cast

Development

Quentin Tarantino wrote and produced Kill Bill as a single film. After editing began, the executive producer Harvey Weinstein, who was known for pressuring filmmakers to shorten their films, suggested that Tarantino split the film in two. This meant Tarantino did not have to cut scenes, such as the anime sequence. Tarantino told IGN: "I'm talking about scenes that are some of the best scenes in the movie, but in this hurdling pace where you're trying to tell only one story, that would have been the stuff that would have had to go. But to me, that's kind of what the movie was, are these little detours and these little grace notes." The decision was announced in July 2003.

The Lost Chapter: Yuki's Revenge In 2025, The Lost Chapter: Yuki's Revenge, a short animated film by Tarantino, Epic Games and the Third Floor, was announced. It is based on an early Kill Bill draft that included a chapter after the confrontation with Vernita, in which the Bride has a gunfight with Gogo Yubari's vengeful sister Yuki, voiced by Miyu Ishidate Roberts. It was originally cut because it would have made the film overlong and added $1 million to the budget.

Yuki's Revenge was animated in Unreal Engine 5 using models from the video game Fortnite. Thurman reprised her role as the Bride in voice acting and motion-capture; Zoë Bell performed the stunts in motion capture; Bill was voiced by Tarantino, replacing Carradine, who died in 2009. The short premiered in Fortnite on November 30, 2025, and uploaded on Fortnites YouTube channel on December 4, a day before the theatrical release of The Whole Bloody Affair. It was also shown as part of the theatrical run of The Whole Bloody Affair after the closing credits.

Release

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, out of competition, on May 23, 2004. The film was set to be theatrically released in 2005, as a roadshow presentation, before being canceled. At the 2008 Provincetown International Film Festival, Tarantino announced that it would be theatrically released in May 2009, before being delayed. The film was screened on March 27, 2011, at Tarantino's New Beverly Cinema.

In July 2014, Tarantino said that he and the Weinstein Company planned for The Whole Bloody Affair to have a limited theatrical release within the following year. This version was set to include an extended anime sequence, which had been commissioned, financed, and produced by Production I.G based on the original script without Tarantino's request. The film had a limited theatrical release in July 2025, at Tarantino's Vista Theater. Tarantino said he had waited until he owned the rights before giving it a full release and thought that asking audiences to come to his theater gave it more meaning. The Whole Bloody Affair was given a nationwide theatrical release by Lionsgate on December 5, 2025.

Box office As of , 2026, The Whole Bloody affair grossed a total of in the United States and in other territories for a worldwide total of . In the United States, the film made $1.6 million from 1,198 theaters on its opening day, and was expected to make $4 million in its 3-day opening weekend. The film ended up grossing $3.4 million in its opening weekend.

Home media In August 2025, Tarantino said he may never release The Whole Bloody Affair on home video as he preferred to keep it exclusive to theaters. However, it was released on VOD on February 17, 2026. The film was then released on Peacock on May 22, 2026. It was released on 4K UHD and Blu-ray on July 28, 2026, through Lionsgate Limited.

Reception Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 95 out of 100, based on 12 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it a rare "A+" on an A+ to F scale.

Richard Whittaker of The Austin Chronicle gave the film four and a half out of five, writing: "Tarantino finally gets to complete his own work of cinematic archeology, and what he exhumes springs to life like the first time it was projected". Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com gave it four out of four and wrote: "Whatever your feelings about Tarantino and his work, this is a tremendous visceral experience, with radiant colors, slate-somber black-and-white, and geysers of crimson blood. To quote the end of another Tarantino film, it just might be his masterpiece".

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair

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