The following is a list of characters from the film Kill Bill. Written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, it was released in two separate parts, Kill Bill Vol. 1 in 2003 and Kill Bill Vol. 2 in 2004. The film takes place after a massacre that killed the fiancé and friends of the main character, The Bride, at the chapel in which she was to be married; though also thought to have been killed, The Bride survived, but was put into a coma for four years as a result of the attack. Upon finally awaking, she plots her vengeance against the killers.
Beatrix Kiddo/Black Mamba/The Bride
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Main article: Beatrix Kiddo
The film's main character, The Bride -- whose real name, Beatrix Kiddo, was not revealed until Vol. 2 -- abandons her life as a hired assassin for the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (DVAS) upon realizing she is pregnant. This action provokes the attacks on her and her loved ones and its ensuing revenge, which is the entire basis of the film. The Bride shares a unique relationship with each of the DVAS members, as evidenced by the way they speak and interact with one another. Her code-name whilst working for DVAS was Black Mamba.
Bill/Snake Charmer
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Bill, the antagonist of the film, is the leader of the DVAS, to which The Bride formerly belonged, and also her ex-lover. He and the four remaining Deadly Vipers attempt to kill her after she leaves him without a trace after learning she was impregnated by Bill. Though the squad has since disbanded, he is still in touch with each of its former members. Early on in the film (chronologically), he shared a mentor/lover relationship with The Bride, which later soured into a bittersweet hatred.
DVAS members
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O-Ren Ishii/Cottonmouth
Codenamed Cottonmouth, O-Ren Ishii is a Chinese-Japanese-American who, after seeing her parents brutally murdered at the age of 9, becomes a professional assassin proficient in sword fighting. Though once a member of the Deadly Vipers, she eventually became the head of the Tokyo Yakuza and possessed her own squad of assassins, the Crazy 88 (see below). The Bride is hinted to have shared an almost sister-like relationship with O-Ren before the events of the chapel. This is reinforced by their sharing of the "Silly rabbit -- Trix are for kids." dialogue, a playful joke on Beatrix's name, and by the fact that O-Ren is the only Deadly Vipers member, other than Bill, that The Bride is shaken after killing.
Vernita Green/Copperhead
Vernita Green, AKA Copperhead was a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. She took part in the massacre at the Two Pines Wedding Chapel. She is second on The Bride's "Death List Five." Four years after the massacre she is living a normal life under the alias of Jeanie Bell. She is trained in hand-to-hand combat and engages in a vicious fight with The Bride, destroying her living room in the process. They are interrupted, however, when Green's four year old daughter Nikki comes home from school. Green sends her to her room and she talks with the Bride over coffee, apologizing for betraying her and asking for mercy on behalf of her family. The Bride coldly refuses and they agree to meet in the middle of the night to have a knife fight. However, Vernita betrays her promise, and tries to shoot the Bride with a handgun concealed within a cereal box (aptly named Kaboom), she misses and the Bride throws a knife into her chest, killing her. Nikki, hearing the gunshot, comes into the kitchen to see the Bride standing over her deceased mother, and she apologizes for murdering her in front of Nikki. She tells her that when she's older, if she wants revenge that she will be waiting.
Elle Driver/California Mountain Snake
Elle Driver, aka California Mountain Snake, is another swordswoman loyal to Bill. She was trained by Pai Mei, like Bill and The Bride, but upon disrespecting Pai Mei, he plucked out one of Elle's eyes, and thus she wore a distinctive eyepatch ever since. In retaliation, she murdered Pai Mei by poisoning his food. She is depicted as being excessively greedy and sadistic, while offering large amounts of money to buy The Bride's Hanzo sword from Budd, and planting a black mamba (the Bride's namesake) in the suitcase carrying this money. The black mamba bites Budd and kills him. Her hatred for The Bride stems from an intense jealousy over her close relationship with Bill, though she also respects The Bride as "the greatest warrior [she] had ever known." In their climactic fight, The Bride pulls out Elle's other eye and leaves her for dead alone in the trailer with the black mamba. Elle's fate is open to interpretation by end of the second film; in the final credits all the dead DVAS have a line through their name. However Elle's name has a "?" over it.
Budd/Sidewinder
Bill's sleazy, degenerate brother, Budd, codename Sidewinder, is recognised by Bill as 'the only man I ever loved'. He was the only other male Deadly Viper and, since the assassination squads disbandment, took to living in a mobile home, where he steadily became a poor alcoholic, making ends meet by working as a bouncer at a strip club. Bill offered him a way out of his financial difficulties in return for killing The Bride. Thus, when she does find him, he manages to shoot her, bury her alive and steal her priceless sword. She escapes her casket, but not before Elle has planted a live black mamba that kills Budd so she can take The Bride's sword. When told by Bill that Beatrix was coming to kill him, Budd initially said "that woman deserves her revenge. And we deserve to die. But then again, so does she."
Associates of O-Ren Ishii
In getting her revenge against O-Ren, The Bride must first confront many adversaries who represent O-Ren.
Sofie Fatale
Sofie Fatale, of mixed Japanese and French descent, is O-Ren's best friend, lawyer, and interpreter. The only person at the original massacre who did not commit any of the murders, Sofie is still in contact with Bill. While at The House Of Blue Leaves Sophie's arm is severed by The Bride in order to get O-Ren's attention. The Bride does not murder Sofie, but however threatens to chop off her second arm and other parts of her body to reveal the locations of the remaining Deadly Vipers. A distressed Sophie is last seen in the film crying and apologizing to Bill for telling The Bride where the rest of the Deadly Vipers are.
Crazy 88
Originally employed to help O-Ren take control of the Tokyo underworld, the Crazy 88 are a gang controlled by O-Ren. It includes members of both sexes and a wide age range. Most members fight using katanas, but some also throw axes. Johnny Mo, the clan's leader (under O-Ren), uses dual shortswords which, connected together a certain way, become a long stick. The Bride manages to fend off the entire gang, killing, mortally wounding, and dismembering many. Those who survived were taken into custody. One of the last few she faces before O-Ren is a very timid young man, whom she literally spanks with the flat of her blade and sends home to his mother. Quentin Tarantino appears as one of the Crazy 88.
The Crazy 88 does not actually have eighty-eight members, but 44 members; Bill speculates that they adopted the name because it "sounded cool."
Johnny Mo
He is the leader of O-Ren's personal army, the Crazy 88. Johnny Mo is most prominently featured in the "House of Blue Leaves" scene. After The Bride kills Gogo Yubari and O-Ren Ishii's seven bodyguards, Johnny Mo, armed with a pair of short swords, arrives with an army of Crazy 88s. He is a more proficient fighter than the rest of the gang, managing to hold his own against The Bride for several minutes, ending up walking along and balancing on a balcony railing. She eventually chops off one of his legs, and he falls into a pond from that second floor balcony, and is presumed dead.
Gogo Yubari
Gogo Yubari is a young associate of O-Ren Ishii. During her fight with the Bride at the House of Blue Leaves, she wielded a large meteor hammer, almost overcoming the Bride by strangling her savagely with the chain. Beatrix kills Gogo by driving a broken chair leg studded with nails into the side of her head.
Other characters
B.B.
The four-year-old daughter of The Bride and Bill, B.B. is in utero during the massacre at the Two Pines chapel. Upon first coming out of her coma, The Bride believes her unborn child was killed in the attack and promises to avenge her death. The audience does not learn that she is alive until the last line of Vol. 1, and The Bride does not find out until the final act of Vol. 2. B.B. was named and raised by Bill, who was always open with his daughter about the terrible crime he had committed against The Bride.
Earl McGraw
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Main article: Earl McGraw
Earl McGraw is a Texas Ranger who investigates the murders at the wedding chapel, and the first person to realize that The Bride has managed to survive the attack. This is the second appearance of McGraw in a Tarantino film, as he had previously been a character in From Dusk Till Dawn (in which he was killed by Tarantino himself starring as Richard Gecko); he would later appear in both features that make up Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse.
Esteban Vihaio
Esteban Vihaio is an eighty-year-old Mexican pimp based in the border city of Ciudad Acuña who, as a friend of Bill's mother, was seen by a young Bill as a father figure. His prostitutes' illegitimate children are apparently recruited into an organized crime gang called the Acuña Boys, of which Esteban is the de facto leader. When The Bride visits him, he tells her of Bill's whereabouts, noting that it is what Bill would have wanted Esteban to do. He also notes that if he were in Bill's situation when Bill had tracked the Bride down he says he would have only mutilated her face instead of trying to kill her – his apparent discipline of choice for his prostitutes.
Hattori Hanzō
Though currently the owner of a sushi shop in Okinawa, Hattori Hanzō is the finest swordsmith in the world; however, he has not created a new sword in over a quarter-century because he feels guilty for making instruments used to kill humans. In realizing The Bride wants "Japanese steel" to dispatch Hanzō's former student Bill, who has displeased his former master by his dishonorable actions, Hanzō spends a month crafting what he considers his finest sword.
Quentin Tarantino stated in the supplementary material on the Kill Bill DVD that the character was named in tribute to Chiba's former role as Hattori Hanzō in Kage no Gundan, and that, while not stated on camera, the modern Hattori Hanzō is a descendant of the Hattori Hanzō that appeared in Shin Kage no Gundan.
Karen Kim
As an assassin sent to kill The Bride while she was still a Deadly Viper, Karen Kim narrowly misses hitting The Bride with shells from a shotgun. Before a further shootout can ensue, Karen is convinced to leave in peace when The Bride proves that she is pregnant. It is not known whether this is her true name, as she was undercover as a representative of the hotel when introduced, she may have used a false name. Karen Kim is, however, used in the ending credits.
Pai Mei
A powerful, possibly ageless practitioner of Bak Mei, and based by Tarantino upon the historical martial artist for whom that kung fu style is named, Pai Mei is the former tutor of The Bride, Bill, and Elle, although it is unclear if he tutored all the members of the DVAS. Though a wise and knowledgeable White Lotus priest, he is also a racist (specifically towards Caucasians) and misogynist. Before being poisoned by Elle for plucking out her eye, Pai Mei teaches The Bride the "Five-Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique" she uses to kill Bill.
Rufus
The piano player at the Two Pines chapel, Rufus is a former professional blues musician who died in the massacre. The character is notable as being a cameo for Samuel L. Jackson, who had starred in two previous Tarantino films.
Tommy Plympton
Tommy Plympton is The Bride's fiancé who is murdered at Two Pines. He is the proprietor of a record shop and employed The Bride, who used the assumed name Arlene Machiavelli when she met him.
References
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