Originally released in 2003 (with the sequel debuting in 2004), Kill Bill quickly earned its place in cinematic history. The A.V. Club has reflected on the flick many times over the years, including when it first debuted. At the time, Scott Tobias criticized the decision to split the films in two, writing, “It remains to be seen whether Kill Bill is merely a skilled slice of juvenilia or a pastiche with real emotional and thematic underpinnings, but based on Tarantino’s storytelling command in the first half, it’s worth giving him the benefit of the doubt.” With Kill Bill: Volume 2, Nathan Rabin declared that “The film succeeds by expertly melding the two stages of Tarantino’s career.”Â
In 2017, Tom Breihan observed that Kill Bill: Volume 1 is Tarantino’s “purest movie-movie,” stuffed with ideas and homages born from a lifetime of being a true cinema devotee. The “abrupt tonal shifts never kill the movie’s momentum,” Breihan wrote. “It rockets forward on its own logic, over the course of two movies. It’s a four-hour revenge spectacular that ends with a long philosophical discussion.”
But Kill Bill has a complicated legacy, stained by the involvement of Harvey Weinstein—who had attacked star Uma Thurman years before—and a stunt gone wrong that left Thurman injured and at odds with Tarantino and the production. Caroline Siede unpacked this history most recently in her “Women Of Action” column, acknowledging that the films brought “grit and bloodshed back to the female-led action genre, with an R-rated film that decidedly wasn’t for the whole family.” She wrote, “For all its overt homages to other films, giving these female assassins the moral code of a samurai or swashbuckler is a truly original twist for American action cinema.” You’ll be able to appreciate The Whole Bloody Affair in all its complicated, excessive, triumphant glory when it hits theaters for the first time ever (with an intermission!) next month.
