A two-decade-old dream is finally coming true for the director Quentin Tarantino. “Kill BillThe chapter known as “Yuki's Revenge” is coming to life in Fortnite.
The animated short will also hit the big screen as part of an exclusive limited release of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.
Tarantino's Lost Chapter: Yuki's Revenge stars Uma Thurman, who returns as the Bride, and runs eight minutes. Tarantino and Thurman worked with Epic Games' Unreal Engine and used motion capture technology to bring her game to the gaming platform.
Speaking at his Vista Theater in Los Angeles for a special launch event, Tarantino explained how Fortnite and Epic Games were a perfect fit for The Lost Chapter: Yuki's Revenge.
He said: “They got together with me to talk about some situation where my characters and Fortnite are doing something cool. So I go into the meeting thinking we'll just talk about how they want to license the characters and they want to get my ideas on what would be fun to do.”
As it turned out, the Epic Games authorities had other ideas. Rather than licensing his characters, they wanted to see if he had anything eight to 12 minutes long “that would work for our purposes and make sure your iconic characters are encapsulated in it.”
As it turns out, Tarantino was onto something.
He had an entire chapter that existed in the original Kill Bill. “He didn’t even have background sketches,” Tarantino said.
He explained that in this chapter, Gogo (Chiaki Kuriyama) had a twin sister, and that night at the House of Blue Leaves, he had a runny nose and left early.
Due to pacing issues, the film was never made. “It was too crazy, too violent and too much action,” Tarantino said.
He sent me the script. Tarantino said. “I actually thought maybe the ship had sailed as far as writing new material. I was wrong.” He added, “When I wrote the first draft of the script, there was a lost chapter, and honestly, I just didn't think we could pull it off. And Yuki has been a figment of my imagination for over 20 years.”
Getty Images for Epic Games
Thurman surprised the crowd when she joined Tarantino to explain how motion capture technology helped her bring “The Bride” to Fortnite.
Unreal Engine technology renders characters in real time. By recording speeches, he can test poses and facial expressions and see what reads best. And when it came to voice acting, the team had data on the actors' faces to help animate.
“It's so new to wear a camera on your head, but I completely forgot about it; I just started living the moments of the scenes that we were filming,” Thurman said.
As for this new way to bring Kill Bill to audiences and tell Yuki's revenge story, Thurman said she thinks it's cool. “This is a new audience for the film.” She went on to say, “It's really touching. It's really great and I think that's the way it should be.”
Getty Images for Epic Games
Lionsgate is opening Tarantino's A Whole Bloody Affair, a four-hour cut (281 minutes with a 15-minute intermission) that combines Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2 into one feature-length film, hitting theaters Dec. 5.
Thurman plays the Bride, left for dead after her former boss and lover Bill ambushes her wedding rehearsal, shoots her in the head and steals her unborn child. To get revenge, she must first hunt down the four remaining members of the Deadly Snake Kill Squad before confronting Bill himself.
“It's All Bloody Affair” stars Lucy Liu, Vivica A. Fox, Michael Madsen, Daryl Hannah, Gordon Liu, Michael Parks and David Carradine as Bill. Produced by Lawrence Bender, written and directed by Tarantino, based on the character of The Bride created by Q&U (Quentin and Uma).
Speaking about the crossover, Tarantino said: “I want both the Kill Bill fan and the Fortnite fan to be damn happy about this collaboration.”
