Project Name: Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2 UNCUT
Project Info
In 2003, we were introduced to the first half of what made up Quentin Tarantino's fourth feature film project, Kill Bill. Initially conceived and shot as a four-hour epic grindhouse-inspired martial arts film, Tarantino was forced to split this epic film in half. After splitting the epic in Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, Tarantino had to further edit the separated halves in order to gain an R rating from the MPAA. The U.S. and other territories ended up with the censored International Cuts of the films that most are familiar with, while Japan exhibited the original, uncut versions of Vol. 1 & 2.
The unedited Japanese cuts were never officially released in territories outside of Japan, and were only available on Region 2 DVDs that are long since out of print. Using these standard definition Japanese DVDs and the full high definition International Cut BDs, I have begun to reconstruct and remaster the Japanese Cuts in 1080p full high definition. The footage exclusive to the Japanese DVDs have been AI upscaled to 4K using Topaz's Video Enhance AI then downscaled to 1080p to be presented alongside the full HD footage of the blu-rays.
Video: Combination of the Japanese Region 2 DVDs and the US Region A blu-rays from the Tarantino XX box-set. Rendered in true 24fps.
Audio:
Kill Bill Vol. 1 Uncut (v2.0):
LPCM: English 5.1 (NEW 2021 Audio Mix created from 2008 US BD LPCM and 2004 Japanese DVD DTS converted to LPCM)
LPCM: English 2.0 (Stereo Mixdown of LPCM English 5.1 audio track)
Dolby Digital+: English 5.1 (NEW 2021 Audio Mix converted from Original Japanese DVD Mix)
Dolby Digital+: English 2.0 (NEW 2021 stereo mixdown of Dolby Digital+ conversion)
DTS: English 5.1 (Original Japanese DVD Mix)
Dolby Digital: English 5.1 (Original Japanese DVD Mix)
Kill Bill Vol. 2 Uncut (v1.0):
LPCM: English 5.1 (NEW 2021 Audio Mix created from 2008 US BD LPCM and 2004 Japanese DVD DTS converted to LPCM)
LPCM: English 2.0 (Stereo Mixdown of LPCM English 5.1 audio track)
Dolby Digital+: English 5.1 (NEW 2021 Audio Mix converted from Original Japanese DVD Mix)
Dolby Digital+: English 2.0 (NEW 2021 stereo mixdown of Dolby Digital+ conversion)
DTS: English 5.1 (Original Japanese DVD Mix)
Dolby Digital: English 5.1 (Original Japanese DVD Mix)
Sync: Both reconstructions are synced to their respective Japanese Cut DVDs.
Subs: No subtitle files. For Vol. 1, there are hard-coded, reconstructed Tarantino-style subtitles in yellow on black, green on black, and white on black for foreign language dialogue.
Screencaps:
Project Status: Vol. 1 v2.0 available; v1.0 of Vol. 2 is currently in the works.