Line #61 Trivia/KillBill


1	* AbilityOverAppearance: Creator/QuentinTarantino originally intended to cast a Japanese actress to play O-Ren Ishii, but before casting began, he saw Creator/LucyLiu's work in ''Film/ShanghaiNoon'', and immediately changed O-Ren into a Chinese-Japanese-American so that Liu could play the part.
2	* ActingForTwo:
3	** Creator/GordonLiu plays both Johnny Mo, the head general of the Crazy 88 in ''Volume 1'', and Pai Mei, Beatrix's old Chinese mentor, in ''Volume 2''.
4	** Creator/MichaelParks plays both Texas town sheriff Earl [=McGraw=] in Part 1, and the retired [[FakeNationality Mexican]] pimp Esteban Vihaio in Part 2.
5	* ActorInspiredElement:
6	** Julie Dreyfus suggested two popular pieces of music for the movie, the first one being "The Chase", where Elle drives to Budd's trailer, and the second one being "The Sunny Road To Salina", where The Bride walks through the desert to Budd's trailer. Julie's father is a record producer, who owns the rights to the soundtrack of ''La route de Salina'', from where these pieces of music come.
7	** Creator/DarylHannah owns the car (a 1980 Pontiac Trans-Am) her character drives in the film. However, she only owns the one that was used for promotional shots, because Creator/MichaelMadsen got the working Trans-Am before she got to it.
8	* ApprovalOfGod: Some Norwegian amateur actors decided to make a parody of the film titled [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3Wxqm-08fg "Kill Buljo".]] It became a success in Norway, and Tarantino himself enjoyed it greatly.
9	* CaliforniaDoubling: The House of Blue Leaves is allegedly located in Tokyo. It was actually filmed at the old Creator/ShawBrothers studio backlot in Hong Kong.
10	* CameoProp: The sunglasses the Bride takes from Buck are Clarence's from ''Film/TrueRomance''.
11	* CareerResurrection: This film gave Creator/UmaThurman a much-needed career boost after a dry run in the late '90s with the failures of ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'' and ''Film/TheAvengers1998''. She had a few years of renewed exposure before her on-set injury (see below) limited the number of films she could safely work on.
12	* CastTheExpert: The brothel segment, where the Bride meets with Esteban Vihaio, was the last scene of the movie to be shot. It was filmed at a real Mexican brothel, and all of the female extras were the actual sex workers employed there.
13	* CastTheRunnerUp: Originally, Creator/QuentinTarantino wanted Creator/MichaelMadsen to play Johnny Mo. However, he decided that Madsen would be better as Bill's brother, so he had him play Budd instead. In the original script, the character was named Mr. Barrel, and with the black suit, white shirt combo, was seemingly a reference to Madsen's famous portrayal of Mr. Blonde. While everyone else wore masks, he didn't, citing that they "Fucked up his hair." Also, unlike his film counterpart, Mr. Barrel simply walks away, leaving O-Ren to deal with The Bride.
14	* ColbertBump: Really, how many people would have known the song "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" (which originated from the old kung-fu film ''Film/FiveFingersOfDeath'' a.k.a ''King Boxer'') had it not been featured in this movie?
15	* CreatorBacklash:
16	** Creator/UmaThurman has nothing good to say about the film(s), ''especially'' considering the events of 2018 with Harvey Weinstein. Ironically, despite filming it being such a terrible experience for her, ''Kill Bill'' gave her career the boost it needed to propel her to renewed stardom.
17	** Creator/QuentinTarantino considers the now-infamous car stunt to be the biggest mistake of his life, especially after Uma herself spoke about how ''terrible'' the stunt was and how it led to damage to her body, along with her beliefs that Weinstein ''caused'' the problems with that stunt.
18	** That said, following the two talking through what happened and rekindling their friendship, apparently they have talked together about a potential third installment.
19	* TheDanza:
20	** Larry Bishop plays Larry Gomez.
21	** In terms of surnames, you have Helen Kim as Karen Kim.
22	* {{Defictionalization}}: On a meta level, the entire film has been described as the real-life version of ''Fox Force Five'', the [[ShowWithinAShow failed TV pilot]] that Mia Wallace in ''Film/PulpFiction'' starred in, thanks to the number of similarities in their plots, characters, and general tone.
23	* DeletedRole: Creator/MichaelJaiWhite as a martial artist with a score to settle with Bill.
24	* DeletedScene: Bill originally had a fight scene with Michael Jai White and his henchmen. See it [[http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xto5pt_kill-bill-volume-2-deleted-scene_shortfilms here]].
25	* EnforcedMethodActing: As mentioned below on HostilityOnTheSet, Uma Thurman and Daryl Hannah didn't exactly have the most friendly of relationships, which makes the Bride and Elle Driver's mutual antagonistic behavior towards each other all the more authentic.
26	* ExecutiveMeddling: The only time in Tarantino's career that this happened, and for two different things. Firstly, The Weinsteins asked to cut the film into two parts since the first cut was running around 4 hours long. Second was for the Crazy 88s fight to be in black and white since the color version nearly got the film an NC-17 rating, which is considered a kiss of death for a wide-release movie. The only versions that have this scene are the "Whole Bloody Affair" cut which screens sporadically at Tarantino's own New Beverley Cinema and the Japanese DVD release.
27	* ExtremelyLengthyCreation: It took six years to write the entire script before it was split into two parts. The original draft was about two hundred twenty pages long.
28	* FakeMixedRace: The half-Japanese, half-French Sophie Fatale is played by the fully French Julie Dreyfus. Likewise, the half-Japanese, half-Chinese American O-Ren Ishii is played by the fully Chinese-American Creator/LucyLiu.
29	* FakeNationality:
30	** Played straight in ''Vol. 1'' with Chinese martial artist Gordon Liu playing Japanese general of the Crazy 88s Johnny Mo, but averted in ''Vol. 2'' when he plays Chinese Pai Mei.
31	** American Michael Parks as the Mexican pimp Esteban Vihaio in ''Vol. 2''. For that matter, [[SuddenlyEthnicity the reveal that Bill and Budd are also Mexican]] would make them examples, as neither Creator/DavidCarradine nor Creator/MichaelMadsen has any Mexican ancestry.
32	* FollowTheLeader: In the original script, the fight between the Bride and Elle Driver was supposed to resemble her fight with O-Ren Ishii. Creator/QuentinTarantino revealed in an interview with ''Entertainment Weekly'' that he changed it the day after catching a showing of ''Series/{{Jackass}} TheMovie'' at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, Texas.
33	* HostilityOnTheSet: Creator/UmaThurman and Creator/DarylHannah didn't get on well. [[http://www.contactmusic.com/kill-bill/news/thurman-and-hannah-continue-feud This even stretched to after filming was done]].
34	* MissingTrailerScene: While Creator/MichaelJaiWhite is featured in the Vol. 1 teaser, his scene did not make it into either film.
35	* OnSetInjury: Near the end of filming, Creator/UmaThurman was injured in a crash while filming the scene in which the Bride drives to Bill. She was uncomfortable driving the car and asked a stunt driver to do it, but Quentin Tarantino assured her that the car and road were safe. She lost control of the car and hit a tree, suffering a concussion and damage to her knees. Thurman requested the crash footage, but Miramax would only release it, in Thurman's words, if she signed a document "releasing them of any consequences of [Thurman's] future pain and suffering". Tarantino was apologetic, but he and Thurman had an acrimonious relationship for years afterwards; she said after the accident she "went from being a creative contributor and performer to being like a broken tool". Miramax released the footage in 2018 after Thurman went to the police following the revelations of rampant sexual abuse by Harvey Weinstein.
36	* PlayingAgainstType: Most of Creator/MichaelMadsen's other work is a variation on his most famous role, which was in [[Film/ReservoirDogs another Tarantino movie]], as a brutal psychopath and murderer. Here, he's part of a whole gang of psychotic murderers... but he's probably the sanest and [[TokenGoodTeammate least evil]] out of any of them.
37	* PromotedFanboy: The House of Blue Leaves fight was filmed in the old Creator/ShawBrothers studios backlot, fittingly enough, as Quentin Tarantino himself is a huge fanboy of the Shaws' martial arts movies.
38	* PropRecycling: The Tokyo miniature sets were leftovers from ''Film/GodzillaMothraKingGhidorahGiantMonstersAllOutAttack''.
39	* RealLifeRelative: Texas Ranger Earl [=McGraw=]'s "Son Number One", Edgar, is played by Michael Parks' real-life son, [[Creator/JamesParks James]].
40	* ReferencedBy:
41	** In ''Ghosts of the Federation,'' Kat is interested in a katana that the storekeeper describes as "A precisssse replica of the very blade with which the Bride ssstruck down her nemessssissss, the cruel and dassstardly 'Bill.'"
42	*** ...which is HilariousInHindsight when you realise that the Bride used [[spoiler:the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique]] to kill Bill, and her sword didn't have anything to do with it.
43	** The 130th chapter of Manga/ChainsawMan is titled "''Kill Building''".
44	* ScienceMarchesOn: The Series/MythBusters tested whether it's really possible for a person to punch their way out of a coffin buried deep underground, with the conclusion that it isn't: even the world's most skilled boxer wouldn't be able to punch a hole with that little space for drawing the fist back to create enough force, and before they'd manage to create a crack the air would have run out anyway. And even if a person ''did'' manage to punch through, they would immediately be buried and suffocated in dirt.
45	* SparedByTheCut: The Bride was originally supposed to kill Elle by slicing her throat.
46	* StuntDouble: Creator/ZoeBell was Creator/UmaThurman's stunt double. She really sliced a baseball in half with a samurai sword.
47	* ThrowItIn: Creator/DarylHannah improvised the scene where Elle Driver's eye gets removed by the Bride and she goes "nuts". She did this because she thought it would make Creator/QuentinTarantino laugh. He did, and that scene appears in the final film. She sustained injuries from breaking so many things in the bathroom.
48	* TroubledProduction: The filming of this movie led to [[https://www.avclub.com/uma-thurman-opens-up-about-harvey-weinstein-and-her-los-1822694016 the disintegration]] of the [[ProductionPosse working relationship]] between Creator/UmaThurman and Creator/QuentinTarantino, on account of this trope. According to Thurman's telling of the story, Tarantino pushed her to do a dangerous vehicle stunt herself [[NoStuntDouble rather than swapping in a stunt driver]], despite her misgivings about the safety of it, describing the stunt car as [[TheAllegedCar a "deathbox" that wasn't properly maintained]] and the winding, sandy road she was asked to drive on at 40 mph as unsafe; sure enough, she got into a bad accident while shooting the scene. Tarantino and Thurman bitterly fought each other over the incident during the promotional tour, and Thurman spent fifteen years trying to get a hold of the set footage showing the crash, finally doing so in 2018 and releasing it in [[https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/opinion/sunday/this-is-why-uma-thurman-is-angry.html an op-ed]] in ''The New York Times''.
49	* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
50	** Tarantino originally intended it to be one long movie with an intermission.
51	** In the original script, Gogo was a pair of CreepyTwins: the silent one at O-Ren's side and the AxCrazy one at the bar. After the quiet one (Gogo) is killed, the crazy one (Yuki) stalks the Bride all the way to Pasadena (that's her in the ice cream truck in Vol. 1). Yuki takes some ultra-steroids that Bill's cooked up and goes after the Bride with guns and bombs, blowing up the Pussy Wagon in the process, but dies of an overdose before killing her. The Bride is so shaken that she calls Hanzo for reassurance and then calls a certain [[Film/PulpFiction Nurse Bonnie]] to fix her up. Bonnie is hysterical and claims she "got out of that a long time ago," but like Hanzo is ultimately not immune to the Bride's charms. This is still referenced in the final cut: when the Bride meets Esteban in a convertible, he says that Bill said she would be driving a truck. She simply replies that her "Pussy Wagon died on her".
52	** The climax of the film was originally written as a sword-fight on the beach, under the moonlight, between the Bride (clad in her wedding dress) and Bill. When the production ran long, Harvey Weinstein insisted Tarantino cut the scene back. All that remains is Bill's brief reference to such a fight while Beatrix sits on his sofa, and the poster for the film, with Beatrix in the dress, holding her sword.
53	** There are rumours that the original script called for Beatrix to kill O-Ren via decapitation (which would have been a KarmicDeath for O-Ren, given how often she killed people that way). It was scrapped because that would have made O-Ren's dying words -- recanting her previous refusal to believe that the sword was an authentic Hanzō sword -- impossible.
54	** Creator/WarrenBeatty was who Tarantino had initially envisioned as Bill. The character was originally envisioned as a suave, [[Franchise/JamesBond James Bond]] type. Creator/KevinCostner was offered the role, but he was busy with ''Film/OpenRange''. Creator/JackNicholson, Creator/BurtReynolds, Creator/MickeyRourke, and Creator/KurtRussell also passed on it.
55	** Creator/RicardoMontalban was cast to play Esteban. Unable to make an early read-through of the script, his lines were read by Michael Parks, who impressed Tarantino so much that he re-cast Parks instead.
56	** In one version of the script for Volume II, Pai Mei's lips would be speaking Cantonese while his voice (dubbed by Tarantino) would be in English, imitating a [[HongKongDub bad dub job]].
57	** The biggest one is yet to come -- the planned ''third'' volume (with the story potentially either focusing on "the revenge of two killers whose arms and eye were hacked by Uma Thurman in the first stories", or a daughter's revenge story), which Quentin [[FlipFlopOfGod has gone back and forth on whether he's filming it]]. As of 2018, things don't look good: in a 2014 interview, Tarantino mentioned plans to retire after directing his tenth film; ''Film/OnceUponATimeInHollywood'' (2019) is his ninth film, leaving just one more chance for Volume 3 to see the light of day. Tarantino's tenth and final film has been announced as ''The Movie Critic'', putting any possibility of a third volume to rest. The possibility of a third volume had already been called into question by this point, given Uma Thurman's estrangement from Tarantino. Fortunately, the two have mended fences in the last few years, and the possibility of Thurman's RealLife daughter Creator/MayaHawke playing a grown-up B.B. has been raised.
58	** In the original draft of the scene where the Bride fights Gogo and the Crazy 88s, she wields both a katana and a boomerang.
59	** Another draft featured a scene in which the Bride's "Pussy Wagon" is blown up by Elle Driver.
60	** In the original script, Johnny Mo was called Mr. Barrel. He had a Kato mask on a stick, like someone from a seventeenth century costume ball. Mr. Barrel didn't like the rubber bands on the typical Kato masks because they "fucked up his hair". The Bride convinces him not to fight her, and he walks away, leaving O-Ren with no bodyguards.
61	** Vernita Green's original codename was "Cobra", before it was changed to "Copperhead".
62	** According to ''The Kill Bill Diary'' (written by Creator/DavidCarradine), the movie that the Bride and her daughter would watch was originally going to be ''WesternAnimation/TheAristocats''. When Creator/{{Disney}} wouldn't allow it, Quentin decided to have them watch an episode of ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack''. But, the film featured in the final cut (or overheard, as we only see their faces as they watch), is ''Film/ShogunAssassin''.
63	** In the original script, Bill told the Bride the story of Pai Mei in the jeep on the way to the temple.
64	** Tarantino stated he would have loved to write a scene with Elle Driver and Beatrix growing fifty feet tall and fighting, a reference to the remade ''Film/AttackOfThe50FootWoman'', featuring the same Creator/DarylHannah in the main role.
65	* WordOfSaintPaul: According to Creator/DavidCarradine, the man in the animé flashback who kills O-Ren's father is a younger Bill.
66	* WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants: During production, Creator/QuentinTarantino wrote new scenes as he shot, thus compiling massive amounts of footage.
67	* YouLookFamiliar: Michael Parks plays Earl [=McGraw=] in Volume 1 and Esteban Vihaio in Volume 2. Gordon Liu plays Johnny Mo in Volume 1 and Pai Mei in Volume 2.

Context Trivia / KillBill