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The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad

    In General 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tumblr_static_deadly_viper_assassination_squad_chapel.png
"I could see the faces of the cunts who did this to me. And the dicks responsible. Members all of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad."

"Well, a sure and steady hand did this. This ain't no squirrelly amateur. This is the work of a salty dog. You can tell by the cleanliness of the carnage. Now, a kill-crazy rampage, though it may be, all the colours are kept inside the lines."
Texas Ranger Earl McGraw

  • Amazon Brigade: The squad is predominantly female, and even then Bill rarely dirties his hands during conflict and Budd never displays anything close to the fighting ability that the women possess (although we never truly see him in action).
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: They do not follow a conventional code of morals, and their philosophy seems to be based on "Might Makes Right" – they can be brutal to their enemies, but show Villain Respect for those who have proved themselves to be strong. They will beat one of their members into a coma for leaving the squad, kill her fiancĂ©, and then kidnap her daughter afterward, but they will not outright kill her without giving her a chance to defend herself first in a fight.
  • Breaking the Fellowship: Four years after crashing the Bride's wedding, the squad has disassembled.
  • Dwindling Party: The Bride aims to systematically kill them off one by one. At the end, the only ones left alive are her and possibly Elle.
  • Elite Four: The squad originally consisted of five members, the Bride being one of them, but by the time the events of the movies kick off, she has been ousted, leaving the team as an elite foursome of assassins, plus their leader, Bill. They are Elle Driver, Budd, O-Ren Ishii, and Vernita Green.
  • Family-Values Villain: Some of them are shown to love their families. Bill and Budd are brothers who still care for each other, the Bride decided to quit the assassin life for her unborn daughter's sake, and Vernita settles into the suburban mom life post-DiVAS while taking care of her daughter.
  • Professional Killer: They are considered some of the deadliest assassins in the world.
  • Reptiles Are Abhorrent: A group of professional assassins who have named themselves after snakes.
  • Retired Monster: By the present day, only O-Ren and Elle have remained in the killing business. The Bride planned to retire and raise her daughter before the other DiVAS enacted the wedding massacre; Vernita became a suburban homemaker; Budd voluntarily reduced himself to a lowly bouncer in a strip club; and Bill raised his and the Bride's daughter as a single father. By the end, the Bride's implied to quit for good with her daughter now that all of her enemies are dead or incapacitated.
  • Theme Naming: They each have a codename that corresponds to a species of snake, with Bill being the "Snakecharmer." The women are all named after letters of the alphabet: Bea, Elle, O(-Ren), Vee.
  • Two Girls to a Team: Inverted. Bill and Budd are the only men of the assassins.

    The Bride 

The Bride AKA Black Mamba AKA Arlene Machiavelli / Real Name: Beatrix Kiddo

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kiddo_beatrix_7184.jpg
"It's mercy, compassion, and forgiveness I lack. Not rationality."

Played By: Uma Thurman

"I've killed a hell of a lot of people to get to this point, but I have only one more. The last one. The one I'm driving to right now. The only one left. And when I arrive at my destination, I am gonna kill Bill."

A former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad who is described as "the deadliest woman in the world". She was targeted by her former allies in the wedding chapel massacre, and fell into a coma. When she awakens four years later, she embarks on a deadly trail of revenge against the perpetrators of the massacre.
  • Action Girl: Being an incredibly skilled and deadly assassin, the Bride is either this or a "good" Dark Action Girl. She's also revealed to be an Action Mom.
  • Age-Gap Romance: She has a relationship with the much older Bill, which produced a child. She even tells her fiancĂ© that he's her father.
  • Animal-Themed Fighting Style: She is proficient in Tiger Crane Style Hung Gar.
  • Anti-Hero: Of the Unscrupulous variant. She may be an assassin who grudgingly admits that she loves her job, but she really does care about children (heavily regretting that Nikki saw her mother Vernita being killed) and isn't sadistic unlike, say, Elle Driver. And as much as she enjoys killing people, she chose to quit the life for her unborn child without a second thought.
  • Always Someone Better: She beats out Elle in every category — the Bride is a higher-ranking assassin, a better student of Pai Mei's, and has Bill's actual love and respect. Elle hates her for this, but also grudgingly respects her skill, even going as far as to kill Budd for giving the Bride what she thought was an Undignified Death.
  • Awesomeness by Analysis: Immediately after waking up from her coma, she looks at her hands and somehow identifies that she has been in said coma for 4 years.
  • Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Averted. While she doesn't receive any permanent injuries (a metal plate in her head notwithstanding), the Bride gets the ever-loving shit kicked out of her throughout her quest for revenge. By the end of her fight with O-Ren, her bright yellow jumpsuit is completely covered in blood, some of which is her own.
  • Big "NO!": When she sees the rest of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad enter the chapel and realizes that her entire wedding party is about to be shot up.
  • Blood-Splattered Wedding Dress: Hers ended up this way after Bill set the other DiVAS on her wedding rehearsal. The chapter depicting the aftermath of this event is titled "The Blood-Spattered Bride".
  • Born Lucky: Not to any ridiculous degree, but there's at least no less than four near misses that could've ended her vengeance tour a little early. If Vernita hadn't missed, if O-Ren hadn't missed, or if Budd had decided to use live rounds instead of rock salt, Beatrix wouldn't have made it through the list. If Karen hadn't missed, we'd have no movie. Fortunate for her, all of their aims were just shy of sure or lethal.
  • Brick Break: During her time with Pai Mei, part of his training was that she was to punch a wooden board day in and day out. In Vol. 2, she puts this to work after being buried alive by Budd inside a wooden coffin.
  • The Bride with a Past: And how. Her past leads to the deaths of every single person in attendance at her wedding rehearsal, and nearly to her own.
  • Broken Bird: Her fiance and guests were killed just before her wedding by her former colleagues who left her for dead. 5 years after waking from a coma, she's out for revenge.
  • Buried Alive: By Budd, but she eventually breaks free by punching a hole in the casket and digging up to the surface.
  • Character Catchphrase: When facing her targets, she's fond of, "You and I have unfinished business."
  • Choke Holds: This seems to be one of her preferred methods of killing since she attempts it on both Vernita Green and Elle. Neither works but she comes close both times.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Besides just cutting people, she'll rip out her opponents' eyes, use improvised weapons, and cut off limbs if it means getting those in her way to stay down.
    • Taken to its logical conclusion during her fight with Elle; until the Bride gets her hands on Budd's HanzĹŤ sword in order to level out the playing field, she opts to use literally everything within arms' reach as a weapon against Elle, including a TV antenna, Budd's can of tobacco spit, a lamp, a chair, a guitar, and even a toilet. Even after she finds the sword and engages in a Blade Lock with Elle, she instead chooses to finish the fight quickly with some Laser-Guided Karma by way of snatching out Elle's other eye rather than drawing the fight out any longer.
  • Cruel Mercy:
    • To one of the Deadly Vipers. She settles for blinding Elle instead of killing her, leaving Elle in a trailer with a black mamba in the middle of the desert and totally blind. The cards before the title sequence even make Elle's death ambiguous.
    • She "spares" Sofie Fatale so she can leave a message for Bill, but does so by lopping her arms off and throwing her down a hill, ensuring she's close to death and unlikely to ever recover when Bill gets the message.
      "I want him to witness the full extent of my mercy by witnessing your deformed body."
  • Dark Action Girl: While working for Bill. (And only slightly less dark afterward.)
  • Deadpan Snarker: She's often sarcastic in her dealings with the other DiVAS, not that they're any better.
  • Deliver Us from Evil: The reason she decided to quit the Vipers in the first place; in fact, she had the pregnancy test in hand and was in the middle of a mission when she decided to abandon it.
  • Determinator: NOTHING will stop this lady from getting her revenge on the Deadly Vipers. Not even being Buried Alive.
  • Disabled Badass: Briefly, in the hospital after she wakes up. She still manages to kill two guys and successfully make her escape despite her legs being paralyzed.
  • Dressed All in Rubber: Her iconic yellow PVC racing jumpsuit.
  • Dynamic Entry: How she confronts Elle in Vol. 2, flying feet-first through the door of the trailer.
  • Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Is known only as "the Bride." Several characters do call her by name, but they're bleeped out until midway through Vol. 2.
  • Foreign Culture Fetish: She's a bit of a weeb for Japanese culture and combat, extolling the "exquisite art of the samurai sword" and having Japanese as the only non-English language she can fluently speak. This doesn't make a good first impression on Pai Mei, who already hates her for being a white American woman. Finding out her affinity for the Japanese only increases his contempt. O-Ren sums it up best.
    O-Ren: Silly Caucasian girl likes to play with Samurai swords.
  • Heel Realization: This seems to finally kick in towards the end of her quest.
    Bill: Pai Mei taught you... the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique?
    The Bride: 'Course he did.
    Bill: Why didn't you tell me?
    The Bride: I don't know...because I'm a bad person.
    Bill: No. You're not a bad person. You're a terrific person. You're my favorite person.
  • Heroic Comedic Sociopath/Sociopathic Hero: Can be either, depending on her mood. When she's under a truth serum from Bill, she admits that she genuinely enjoys killing and maiming people. In fact, what stops her from being a downright Villain Protagonist (she was, after all, a contract killer for most of her life) is the relative Heel–Face Turn she went through upon finding out she was pregnant, and her very deserved revenge.
  • Her Name Really Is Barkeep: Bill insists on calling her "Kiddo" in every scene where they speak. At first, it seems like it's just Bill being patronizing ...until we find out that her real name is actually "Beatrix Kiddo".
  • Honor Before Reason: She allows Bill and O-Ren chances to recover, or at least announces that she's coming, before she fights them. She also enters a temporary truce and goes along with Vernita's lies to avoid killing her in front of Vernita's young daughter Nikki, and agrees to let Vernita pick another time and place for their fight rather than try to finish the job with Nikki out of the room; this nearly costs the Bride her life when Vernita tries to kill her when her defense is down.
  • Hypocrite: Budd calls her out on the fact that she thinks she deserves revenge or a happy ending when she was as remorseless a killer as all the people who wronged her and doesn't even seem to be the least bit sorry about it. Although, it's played with in that she never tries to deny this. People screwed her over, and now those people have to die. And she tells the daughter of one of her targets that if when she grows up, she still wants revenge, she'll be waiting.
  • Iconic Outfit: Her famous jumpsuit, which is itself a reference to a similar outfit worn by Bruce Lee.
  • Implacable Man: She will travel to the ends of the earth, get grievously injured multiple times, and even rise from a grave if necessary to get her revenge.
  • Informed Attractiveness: While Uma Thurman is very much a beautiful woman, the sheer number of people across both films who talk her up as being beautiful and desirable ends up having this effect.
  • In Love with Your Carnage: A deleted scene has her looking very impressed when Bill kills a character played by Michael Jai White by launching his sword from his scabbard just long enough to cut his throat.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: Vernita Green attempts to dissuade Beatrix from taking revenge against her by bringing up her daughter. As motivated by revenge as Beatrix is she's absolutely correct to point out how hypocritical to the extreme this is when Vernita herself was involved in the attempted murder of a pregnant woman.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Hers is better than most, as it was crafted by the legendary blacksmith Hattori HanzĹŤ, who crafted Bill's sword. Although he had sworn a blood oath never to forge weapons again, he consented to make an exception after she said she needed one to "get rid of a certain vermin" and made what was his finest work to date. (Obviously, HanzĹŤ was not happy with Bill.)
  • Large Ham: In Volume 2. While normally reserved, she hams it up when pretending to be shot by B.B. with a toy gun.
  • Left for Dead: By Bill and his crew on the day of her wedding rehearsal.
  • Losing a Shoe in the Struggle: When going after Budd, she gets knocked out, tied up, and put in a coffin to be buried alive. She has to remove her shoes to get the hidden razor inside in order to cut her ropes. After crawling her way out, making her way back to Budd's trailer, and finding Elle there, she's forced to fight barefoot too.
  • Made of Iron: The woman was shot in the head and survived.
  • Mama Bear: The reason why she left the DiVAS was to raise her soon-to-be-born baby away from bloodshed. When the bloodshed comes to her, putting her in a four-year coma from which she awakes without her daughter, she goes out to get her revenge, and she sheds much blood along the way.
  • Meaningful Name: Is known as the "Black Mamba" as one of the DiVAS. The Black Mamba is generally considered the world's deadliest snake (Elle's description is spot on).
  • Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Several characters lampshade the fact that someone named after one of the deadliest animals in the entire world is not somebody you want to cross.
  • Noble Demon: As bad as she is, the Bride does have some lines she won't cross. It's part of her Establishing Character Moment when she kills her second target ruthlessly but leaves her child totally unharmed. Provided you aren't one of her targets or trying to prevent you from getting to one of her targets she'll leave you alone.
  • Nominal Hero: Towards the end of the films she's killed and/or maimed at least a hundred different people, and that's just what we see on screen. Her actions are also driven entirely by revenge, nor does she appear to express much guilt for the past crimes she committed as an assassin. Budd puts it best:
    Budd: That woman deserves her revenge. And… we deserve to die. But then again, so does she.
  • No Name Given: During part one and most of part two, the Bride's name is never heard. Whenever someone says it, there will be a noise that covers it up like a phone beep. Later in part two, Beatrix Kiddo's name is finally said uncensored, and from then on it's said without any issues.
  • Not Afraid to Die: Completely averted. She tears up before being shot by Bill, and then again when she fears that Budd is about to do her in.
  • Not So Stoic: She's visibly shaken by the death of O-Ren, as well as when she is shown crying in the bathroom after Bill dies, and as in Not Afraid to Die above, she's not so fearless about death as she seems.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: When she first arrives at Hanzo's sushi shop, she acts like a somewhat airheaded tourist who barely knows Japanese. However, that facade quickly drops when she makes known her real reason for being there. It seems that she does this with everyone when she isn't serious; she acts pretty ditzy in Volume 2 when Bill is regaling her with the story of Pai Mei, even though she was already a very well-trained warrior at that point.
  • Omniglot: She can speak English, Mandarin Chinese, and Japanese, though Pai Mei complains that her Mandarin is lousy, and she admits herself that it isn't great. It's also implied that she at least understands French.
  • One-Woman Army: In that she literally decimates an entire armed force of a Yakuza syndicate using only one (and later, two) katanas and a broken table leg as weapons.
  • Redemption Earns Life: Pushing it, but she does go through hell, and nobody's crying over the people she's killed. After all that, she does at the very least deserve her daughter back.
  • Sherlock Scan: She determines that she's been in a coma for four years just looking at the creases on her palms.
  • Sociopathic Hero: The only reason she qualifies as this (she was, after all, a contract killer for most of her life, and doesn't seem to show much remorse for it) is the relative Heel–Face Turn she went through upon finding out she was pregnant, and the fact her desire for revenge is clearly not unjustified. Budd points out that while the rest of the Deadly Vipers deserve to die for all the evil they've done, the Bride does too since she willingly took part in their crimes before her pregnancy.
  • Starting a New Life: Her attempt at this sets the entire story into motion. It doesn't work out.
  • Tears of Fear: She lets these out when faced with death and she's not able to do anything about it.
  • Token Good Teammate: An interesting example, as she's a ruthless killer, but is explicitly against the killing of civilians that aren't part of a job or in her way. While the other assassins do have some moral scruples (minus Elle), they also aren't against killing innocents, as the other victims of the wedding massacre prove.
  • Too Dumb to Live: Her trying to hit Pai Mei from behind with a rock after he had just effortlessly defeated her. She very nearly loses her arm for it.
  • Training from Hell: She went through this during her time with Pai Mei.
  • Trauma Conga Line: All her friends and her fiance are killed in front of her, she's beaten to within an inch of her life, shot in the head and left comatose, and raped multiple times by an orderly who pimped her comatose body out, and it doesn't get a whole lot better from there.
  • Unkempt Beauty: She's spectacularly gorgeous even when she spends most of her time covered in sweat, mud and blood.
  • Unexplained Recovery: No medical reason is ever given for why she woke up from the coma, although the action that seems to trigger it is a bite from a mosquito; if that means anything, no one ever discovers what.
  • The Unfettered: If she can help it, she does not harm or traumatize kids. Everyone and everything else is fair game.
  • Vigilante Woman: By pure coincidence. She kills or gravely wounds at least one hundred bad guys over the course of both films, but her motives are almost always personal.
  • Villain Killer: She has a list of five people, all of whom are villainous (some less than others) to a degree. She kills three of them herself, including Bill, and along the way mows down over fifty of O-Ren Ishii's mooks, and her second-in-command.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: She's called out on this by Budd (see Hypocrite above) and then by Bill for making a man who loved her believe she was dead and taking their unborn child with her. Bill also gets her to admit under the truth serum that it felt good killing or maiming the hundreds of people that she did.
  • Wouldn't Hurt a Child: She really hates the idea of having children exposed to violence. First off, she's very unhappy when she discovers that Vernita's four-year-old daughter, Nikki, saw her mother's death at the Bride's hands. Later, the Bride attempts to talk Gogo Yubari out of fighting her (Gogo, of course, would have none of that), then she spares the youngest of the Crazy 88; she spanks him with the flat of her katana blade for "fucking around with the Yakuza" before sending him home. Finally, Beatrix would rather have a momentary truce with Bill than kill him in front of their daughter, B.B.

    Bill 

Bill AKA Snakecharmer

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/billcarradine_7996.jpg
"...there are consequences to breaking the heart of a murdering bastard."

Played By: David Carradine

"Do you find me sadistic? You know, I bet I could fry an egg on your head right now if I wanted to. You know, kiddo, I'd like to believe that you're aware enough even now to know that there's nothing sadistic in my actions. Well, maybe towards those other... jokers, but not you. No, kiddo, at this moment, this is me at my most...masochistic."

The former leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. He is also the former lover of the Bride and the father of her daughter. He is the final and eponymous target of the Bride's revenge.
  • Affably Evil: While he admits to not being too outwardly kind, Bill is soft-spoken, considerate, and charming. He's also a ruthless killer.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Even the Bride cries at his death.
  • Bastard Bastard: Bill never knew his real father, as he's heavily implied to be the son of a sex worker, and spent a lifetime "collecting" father-figures.
  • Big Bad: The leader of the DiVAS and the final member of it that the Bride fights.
  • But for Me, It Was Tuesday: In a deleted scene, while Bill and the Bride are enjoying an outing, Bill is confronted by someone whose master he killed and wants revenge. Judging by Bill's almost bored expression, it's safe to say that this was not an uncommon occurrence.
  • Card-Carrying Villain: Downplayed. He freely admits he's "a murdering bastard", but doesn't appear to take pride in being called evil. He just accepts that given his line of work, it only makes sense to call him a villain. This is probably because he's a Pop-Cultured Badass, so he explicitly is describing the Bride's Roaring Rampage of Revenge and his own role in it in narrative terms.
  • Character Tic: He is almost always seen playing with some sort of object as he speaks, whether it's a sword, flute, shot glass, etc.
  • The Corruptor: As Tarantino takes care to describe in his screenplay:
    In another age, men who shook the world for their own purposes were called conquerors. In our age, the men who shake the planet for their own power and greed are called corruptors. And of the world's corrupters Bill stands alone. For while he corrupts the world, inside himself he is pure.
  • Damned by Faint Praise: When asked about the Bride's fiancĂ©, Bill says, "I like his hair."
  • Deadpan Snarker: Like the rest of the DiVAS, leading to a little Snark-to-Snark Combat with the Bride.
  • Didn't See That Coming: While Bill was more than aware of how skilled a fighter Beatrix had become due to training under Pai Mei, he never suspected that he would've taught her the Five-Point-Palm Exploding-Heart Technique.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: In his words, he "overreacted" when he found out Beatrix was alive, pregnant, and getting married to a random man in Texas.
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Despite the massive amount of buildup, he's defeated relatively easily by the Bride.
  • The Dying Walk: The Bride hits him with the Five Point Palm technique, which will kill anyone after they take five steps. He has a last bit of conversation with her, then calmly and symbolically gets up and walks away. He manages to make it six steps before he dies.
  • Early Personality Signs: When he was a little boy, Esteban took him to see The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946) at the theatre, and every time Lana Turner came on the screen, Bill would begin to suck his thumb to an "obscene" amount. Esteban claims that this was the moment he knew Bill was "a fool for blondes."
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Considers his brother Budd the only man he ever loved. His past relationship with the Bride was genuinely romantic; the Bride making him think she was dead and breaking his heart is the reason he went on his rampage in the first place. And he's a doting father to BB.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: He would never kill someone in their sleep for this reason. According to him, such an act would "lower" the perpetrator.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In his monologue on superheroes, he states that Superman took on the identity of Clark * Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In his monologue on superheroes, he states that Superman took on the identity of Clark Kent because he sees humanity as a whole as cowards. However, this, if anything, says more about Bill than Superman.
  • Face Death with Dignity: After being hit with the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, he casually stands up, adjusts his coat, and takes six steps, one foot in front of the other, before he just falls down dead.
  • The Faceless: His face is hidden throughout Vol. I.
  • Family-Values Villain: Bill loves his brother, and makes a sojourn out to California to warn him of the Bride's arrival, though apparently that was only around four hours or so from where he was living at the time. He's also a doting father to the Bride's daughter.
  • Freudian Excuse: We get a glimpse into Bill's upbringing when we meet Esteban Vihaio. It's easy to see where Bill picked up his more charming (and psychotic) qualities.
  • Good Parents: Believe it or not. He's unorthodox, but he wants what's best for his and Beatrix's daughter.
  • Graceful Loser: After the Bride uses the Five-Point-Palm Exploding-Heart Technique on him, taught to her by Pai Mei (which means he's dead after he takes five steps), he warmly tells her that she's still the love of his life. Then he calmly walks six steps into the darkness of the backyard and collapses.
  • Has a Type: He likes his women blonde, and has apparently liked blondes since he was a child.
  • Heartbroken Badass: By his own admission, the Bride broke his heart, and suffered the consequences for it.
  • Hidden Villain: For the first half's entirety. However, The Reveal happens early in Vol. 2 — or earlier, if you bothered to read the ending credits of Vol. 1.
  • If I Can't Have You…: Bill found out where the Bride was hiding within three months, but didn't tip his hand until just before the wedding—when he killed everyone in the wedding chapel. In his own mind, he was saving her from an obvious marriage of convenience. Note also that he let Vernita retire with her daughter, so his "overreaction" to the Bride's retirement was likely out of a romantic obsession with her in particular (and also because she faked her death to sneak off without telling him).
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While he may be a ruthless killer, he's also a fairly pleasant fellow to the people he loves. He genuinely feels bad about shooting Beatrix, and is a loving father to B.B.
  • Like a Son to Me: He functions as a lover and father figure to the Bride. He's even invited to walk her down the aisle, which he (icily) declines.
  • Living MacGuffin: He is the final objective of the plot and the Bride's revenge.
  • May–December Romance: With the Bride, Elle, and possibly Sofie. He's several decades older than all these women, with the Bride even introducing him as her "father" when he unexpectedly shows up at her wedding.
  • Mundane MacGuffin Person: Finding him so she can kill him is the entire focus of the Bride's Roaring Rampage of Revenge... well, that and revenging herself on everyone else involved with the massacre at the wedding chapel.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: The below exchange probably puts best how he felt after shooting the Bride.
    Bill: No, I knew what would happen to Mommy if I shot her. What I didn't know is, when I shot Mommy, what would happen to me.
    B.B.: What happened?
    Bill: I was very sad. And that was when I learned, some things, once you do, they can never be undone.
  • Old Master: He is an excellent swordsman and hand-to-hand combatant, though this is demonstrated more clearly in a deleted scene than in the final film. Still, while his exchange with the Bride is the shortest of her battles with the DiVAS (barring Budd), it is intense nevertheless, with him briefly getting the upper hand over her, though in doing so leaving himself open to the finishing blow.
  • Orcus on His Throne: For all the build-up to it over two films, the fight between him and the Bride is really short. If it weren't so emotional, it would be quite anticlimactic.
  • Pet the Dog: He is a genuinely caring and affectionate father.
  • Pop-Cultured Badass: He's a self-confessed huge fan of old Japanese films and an even bigger fan of comic books, with Superman being his favorite. Volume 2 contains an entire monologue where he parallels the mythology of Superman to the Bride's current predicament, although his understanding of Superman is rather misunderstood.
  • Punch-Clock Villain: Most of the time. Killing other people is nothing personal. It's just part of his job.
  • A Pupil of Mine Until He Turned to Evil: At some point in his youth, Bill studied under Pai Mei and Hattori HanzĹŤ. The latter was so shaken by his pupil, he swore a blood oath to never make another sword — and later broke that oath when the Bride held him responsible for Bill's later career.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: He's actually a pretty chill boss to have: he lets Budd and Vernita retire from the business with no issues and is nothing but kind and tolerant to Sofie, even when she was forced to betray him under threat of further mutilation. It's betrayal and breaking his heart that he's less forgiving of.
  • Retired Monster: After the chapel massacre, he retired as the leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad to raise B.B. and visit the comatose Beatrix in the hospital.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He says that when he found the Bride, he had been "trying to track down the fucking assholes [he] thought killed [her]".
  • Sadist: Although claiming that he feels no sadistic pleasure in hurting the Bride during the wedding massacre, Bill admits the same can't be said for the other "jokers" in the wedding party he's implied to have liked killing.
  • Son of a Whore: Heavily implied. The only person who knows his whereabouts just happens to be a pimp who apparently raises the sons of his prostitutes to become his enforcers. It totally explains the big age and appearance difference between Bill and his brother Budd as well as his penchant for getting women to do his dirty work for him. Snakecharmer indeed.
  • Suddenly Ethnicity: If he is indeed a Son of a Whore from Mexico. (At any rate he certainly seems to have grown up in Mexico, regardless of his parentage.)
  • Tranquil Fury: Even at his angriest, he never loses his calm demeanor. Whether in the throes of homicidal rage like the wedding massacre or experiencing minor annoyances like learning Budd supposedly sold his "priceless" Hattori Hanzo sword, Bill always keeps a lid on his emotions.
  • Understatement: The Bride calls him out on this when he says that shooting up her entire wedding party and putting her into a coma for four years may have been an "overreaction."
  • Villain Has a Point: During their conversation, he chastises the Bride for letting him think she was dead, calling it a cruel act. The Bride also agrees with his assessment that her hope of living a normal life as "Arlene" was a Tragic Dream.
  • Villainous Valour: He doesn't run from the Bride when he knows she's coming, and he opts to duel her instead of shooting her when he has multiple opportunities to do so.

    Elle Driver 

Elle Driver AKA Californian Mountain Snake

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/driver_elle_6825.jpg
"She must suffer to her last breath."

Played By: Daryl Hannah

"I might never have liked you. Point of fact, I despise you. But that doesn't suggest I don't respect you. Dying in our sleep is a luxury our kind is rarely afforded. My gift to you."

A former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. She is the fourth of the Bride's revenge targets.
  • Always Someone Better: This attitude towards the Bride likely fuels much of her homicidal rage towards her nemesis. She's acutely aware that the Bride was Bill's first lover and favored student, and that she's a Replacement Goldfish. She also likely knew that the Bride completed Pai Mei's training, while she had her eye ripped out by him. She also seems subconsciously aware that the Bride is her better, as evidenced by her using every dirty trick in the book to avoid a fair fight with her.
  • Antagonist in Mourning: When she thinks that Budd has killed the Bride, she grieves not because the Bride is dead, but because she died in an unworthy way. This motivates her deadly revenge against Budd.
  • Arch-Enemy: To the Bride, and clearly her most bitter rival.
  • Ax-Crazy: She's the most mentally unstable of the Vipers, taking sadistic pleasure in violence and suffering, and possessed of deep rage.
  • Badass in a Nice Suit: She's a professional assassin who wears a cool black suit, the same one worn by Mia Wallace and Jackie Brown.
  • Combat Pragmatist: She will use every dirty trick in the book to win a fight or take someone out.
  • Dark Action Girl: Look at the rest of her tropes, please. Even compared to her equally villainous sisters in the DiVAS, she's easily the most brutal and murderous.
  • Deadly Doctor: She's not a real nurse, she just dresses as one to sneak into the hospital where the Bride is trapped in a Convenient Coma.
  • Deadpan Snarker: She bitterly snarks to Budd as he lies dying in front of her, reading off an entire copied-out encyclopedia entry about the deadliness of the black mamba.
  • Deceptive Disciple: To Pai Mei, whom she poisoned.
  • Dirty Coward: For all of Elle's posturing about how the Bride deserved better than presumably being shot and buried alive by Budd, she does everything possible to avoid a fair fight with her. She tried killing the Bride while she was in a coma, and is more than happy to let Budd finish the job after he incapacitates her. She also repeatedly attempts to gain an unfair advantage when they finally do fight by relying on Hattori Hanzo's sword rather than fighting her on even footing. That's in addition to poisoning Pai Mei rather than facing him in a fight that she'd more than likely lose.
  • Dragon-in-Chief: Elle provides the toughest challenge for the Bride. Bill, in comparison, dies rather quickly.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She's implied to be quite smitten with Bill and to have struck up a relationship with him after the Bride breaks his heart. This still doesn't stop her from murdering his brother Budd behind his back.
  • Evil Counterpart: To the Bride. Both are blonde badass ladies who had a relationship with Bill, but Elle is even crueler and far more hateful than the Bride.
  • Evil Gloating: Elle loves recounting her evil deeds and watching people she has killed die painfully.
  • Evil Laugh: She has two hammy ones that mirror each other; one during a flashback where she kills Pai Mei, and the other as she explains the former to the Bride.
  • Evil Wears Black: She's dressed in black in Vol. 2.
  • Eyepatch of Power: Due to Pai Mei tearing her eye out for disrespecting him.
  • Eye Scream: This happens to her twice, once at the hands of Pai Mei, the other at the hands of The Bride herself.
  • Faux Affably Evil: She'll often maintain good manners, but her dialogue (particularly towards Budd and the Bride) is noticeably malicious in tone.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: Her codename is a fairly harmless snake, but Elle herself is probably the most terrifying member of the squad.
  • Green-Eyed Monster: She resents the Bride for 1) being the best, 2) being Bill's favorite, and 3) being Bill's lover.
  • Hate Sink: All of the other assassins are given some measure of sympathy or at least humanity. Elle is just a hateful bitch.
  • Hoist by Their Own Petard: Rather than just ordering Budd to finish the Bride off, she demands that he prolong her suffering as much as possible. This ultimately leads to her downfall.
  • Hospital Hottie: Again, not a real medical professional. Do not contact her for medical advice. Still, she dresses as one to sneak into the Bride's hospital room, complete with red cross eyepatch.
  • Hypocrite: It's pretty rich for Elle to talk down to Budd for dishonorably killing the Bride — or so she thought at the time — when she's the one who poisoned Pai Mei. She also tried to poison the Bride in her sleep while she was in a coma, which was so dishonorable that Bill called her out on it. And she claims to be disgusted by Budd's actions even as she's entirely willing to kill him, a fellow warrior and former comrade even, in an incredibly underhanded and cowardly manner.
  • Ironic Nickname: She's the only Viper to use poison to kill her enemies, but the only one to not be named after a venomous snake.
  • Jerkass: She's easily the cruelest, nastiest, most unpleasant, and most petty member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad.
  • Karma Houdini: She suffers seemingly no consequences for killing Pai Mei, who Bill used to train his assassins. This turns into Karma Houdini Warranty in Volume 2 courtesy of her fight with the Bride.
  • Kiai: She lets one out during her fight with the Bride when she does a flying kick through the bathroom wall, and again when she doubles her over with a brutal sidekick — HI-YAH!!.
  • Large Ham: Her explanation of how she killed Pai Mei is rather overly dramatic, as are a lot of her flamboyantly over-the-top fighting moves and shouts.
  • Lean and Mean: As Budd says, she has a "bony ass".
  • Light Is Not Good: Her sequence at the hospital, where she shows up in a white nurse's outfit, in order to kill the Bride. Bonus points for also having blonde hair and a pale complexion.
  • Might Makes Right: This seems to be her philosophy. Going by how she sees no problem with trying to poison a comatose Bride but is so enraged at Budd for seemingly giving her an unworthy death that she kills him, she seems to believe that the strong are the only ones allowed to dishonorably kill their opponents.
  • Murder the Hypotenuse: Averted, and she's very pissed that Bill didn't allow her to.
  • Obviously Evil: The black suit and eye patch really drive it home.
  • Odd Name Out: Unlike the namesakes of the other members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, the Californian mountain snake is non-venomous and completely harmless to humans.
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: She feels she is this towards the Bride, and is none too happy to hear that the Bride was downed by a lowly Budd.
  • Poison Is Evil: She's the most ruthless and sinister of the Deadly Vipers, and also uses poison several times to kill foes rather than attack them head-on. Just ask Budd or Pai Mei.
  • Psycho Ex-Girlfriend: It's never stated outright, but her hatred for the Bride likely comes from being displaced as Bill's lover (given the familiar way Elle speaks to him on the phone, plus Bill's liking for blondes) by her younger rival.
  • Psycho for Hire: It's clear that she really enjoys what she does for a living.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: She gives a brief one to the dying Budd, telling him that the Bride deserved to die at the hands of someone better than him.
  • Replacement Goldfish: Esteban does say Bill was always "a fool for blondes." It's all but stated she and Bill are currently in a relationship, and being another deadly blonde assassin, it's heavily implied that Bill is using her as a poor replacement for the Bride in his life. This adds a whole new layer to why Elle hates her.
  • The Rival: The secondary conflict of the movies is the Bride's feud with her.
  • Sadist: She visibly relishes in causing pain and agony to others.
  • Sinister Whistling: Elle Driver infiltrates the hospital in a nurse's outfit, intending on giving a lethal injection to the comatose Bride. She happily whistles away to herself during the entire thing, the tune in question being the "Twisted Nerve" theme.
  • Smug Snake: Just about every word she says is dripping with contempt and self-satisfaction.
  • The Sociopath: Not that her co-workers are saints, but she's clearly excited at the prospect of Budd making the Bride suffer until her last breath, and later has no problems with killing him and lying to Bill about it.
  • Spoiled Brat: If Elle isn't in control or isn't getting exactly what she wants, she will throw a terrifying tantrum.
  • Statuesque Stunner: Horrible though she may be, Elle is attractive and stands at an impressive 5'10".
  • Token Evil Teammate: Well, they're all evil, but she's far more so than the others, being the only one who seems to show absolutely no regret for what happened and still hate the Bride with a passion. And while many of them know the benefits of being polite and respectful to others at times, she doesn't even try. If the Bride can be called a Sociopathic Hero, Elle is sociopathic and sadistic, but with no good qualities at all.
  • Uncertain Doom: Her fate is left unknown — although, considering she is left blinded and thrashing around in rage with a highly venomous snake in a trailer in the middle of a desert with no one else around, it can be safely assumed that she never made it out of there. And yet, if she did simply die, there would be no reason for all the ambiguity, including the question mark next to her name at the end rather than the cross-outs that Vernita, O-Ren, Budd, and Bill all get. Quentin Tarantino has stated that if he ever makes a sequel, it'll be about a blind Elle training Nikki Bell to avenge her mother.
  • Villain Respect: Make no mistake: Elle despises the Bride for being a better fighter than her and out of petty jealousy that she was the only woman Bill ever truly loved. That said, Elle also has a deep respect for the Bride as a warrior and assassin, which is why she chooses to murder Budd in cold blood for supposedly dying in an unworthy way at his hands. In her own words, "that woman deserved better."
    Elle: (speaking to the comatose Bride) I might never have liked you. Point of fact, I despise you. But that shouldn't suggest that I don't respect you.
  • Villainous Breakdown: When she has her only remaining eye ripped out, she tears what remains of Budd's bathroom to shreds in rage.
  • Wham Line: "Know what I did? I killed that miserable old fool."
  • Worthy Opponent: To the point that she kills Budd for giving the Bride what is in her opinion an unworthy death.
    Elle: [on her feelings] Regret that maybe... the greatest warrior I've ever known, met her end at the hands of a bush-whacking, scrub, alchy piece of shit like you. That woman deserved better.

    Budd 

Budd AKA Sidewinder

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/budd_521.jpg
"That woman deserves her revenge... and we deserve to die."

Played By: Michael Madsen

"This is for breaking my brother's heart."

A former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad and brother of Bill. He later becomes a bouncer living in a trailer. He is the third of the Bride's revenge targets.
  • Affably Evil: Budd is a genial enough guy, even if he was once a ruthless assassin.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Budd is far from being a decent man but he's given an affable personality and enough humanizing moments to make his already excruciating death even more painful for the audience.
  • Almighty Janitor: He was part of an assassination squad and is quite possibly one of the most dangerous people alive, but works as a bouncer and janitor at a sleazy strip club after quitting the business.
  • And This Is for...: See the page quote, which Budd says to the Bride before burying her alive.
  • Annoying Younger Sibling: His relationship with Bill has echoes of this, if him playfully ribbing about how he sold his katana and Bill's calmly unamused reaction to learning that says anything.
  • Anti-Villain: One gets the feeling that Budd, if you discount his previous career, isn't really all that bad a guy. He even freely admits that he and all the other Vipers deserve what's coming to them.
  • The Atoner: Despite having once been one of the premier assassins in the world, he has abandoned his old life as an assassin to make a meager living working as a bouncer, and lives in a trailer way out in the desert. He's apparently done this out of guilt, as he professes to Bill that the Bride deserves her revenge, and every member of the Assassination Squad deserves to die... but so does she, for hurting his brother.
    "I don't dodge guilt, and I don't jew out of paying my comeuppance."
  • Bait-and-Switch:
    • Volume 2 spends several minutes showing how utterly pathetic Budd's job and overall station in life is (a bouncer in a failing strip club in Hicksville, when he's not mopping up piss and vomit, living in a shitty trailer), and has a scene where Bill (Budd's brother) points out that since Budd hasn't kept his fighting skills sharp (even supposedly hocking his Hattori Hanzo sword), he will likely die at the hands of Beatrix Kiddo. But, surprise, surprise, he not only survives Beatrix's murder attempt; he takes her out and gets her in a position where he could have effortlessly killed her if he'd wanted.
    • For the majority of Volume 1, we're led to believe that he's Bill, since he's the only male participant in the massacre shown onscreen and Bill himself is He Who Must Not Be Seen. It's not until the end of the first film is it made clear that they're two separate characters.
  • Bond Villain Stupidity: Subverted. He deliberately left Beatrix alive and buried her in a seemingly inescapable death trap because he decided that if she was strong enough to escape that, she deserved to get her revenge on him.
  • Boring, but Practical: His methods in his confrontation with the Bride are considerably less flashy than the rest of the squad. Realizing she has been tailing him, he simply gets in his trailer, sits on the other side of the entrance with a shotgun loaded with rock salt rounds, and waits for her to enter to shoot her. It works.
  • Bouncer: He becomes this and a custodian (it seems) at an unsuccessful Texas strip club after retiring from the DiVAS.
  • The Brute: He's by far the biggest of the Vipers, but that doesn't mean he's stupid. Not one bit. In fact, he's the most pragmatic member of the crew.
  • Butt-Monkey: His initial appearances in the present day illustrate just how far he's regressed from his past days as a fearsome assassin, while living under the most humiliating circumstances. Living in a sloppy trailer in the middle of nowhere, he works as a part-time bouncer at an equally shoddy strip club for a manager who verbally abuses him often. With the club having few customers (if any), he's delegated as an unofficial janitor who must clean gross cases of shit and vomit. That said, he isn't incompetent. It also is heavily implied Budd willingly accepts this degradation as atonement for his past actions.
  • Cool Sword: His engraved HanzĹŤ sword.
    To My Brother Budd, The Only Man I Ever Loved — BILL
  • Combat Pragmatist: He displays far less skill than any of the other Deadly Vipers... and is also the only one to land a decisive victory on the Bride, refusing to play by her rules and engage her in a fight, opting to simply shoot her. Non-lethally, sure, but it's still a much more successful tactic than unleashing an army of katana-wielding henchmen.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Ask any expert on venomous snakes. Being bitten — in the face, no less — with as much snake venom as Budd would cause anyone to spend their final moments in an unimaginable level of pain and agony.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: His only battle with the Bride lasts all of five seconds. He wins.
  • Death by Irony: Elle kills him in a manner not dissimilar from how he dealt with the Bride; instead of fighting him straight-up (despite the fact she'd almost certainly win), she set a trap that he had no chance to resist or counter. Unlike his rock-salt-loaded shotgun, however, her trap proves very fatal.
  • Death by Materialism: An unintentional example, since there was no way Budd could find out there was a black mamba inside Elle's suitcase of money. Then again, he should have known better than to trust her.
  • Death Seeker: Which is why he doesn't load the shotgun with live ammo and kill Beatrix when he has the chance. He wanted to die, and figured that if she managed to escape and get to him, she deserved to live more than he did.
  • The Dreaded: Possibly. It's worth noting that he's the only one that the Bride ever exercises caution with when she tries to kill him, preferring to go for the stealth approach rather than walk up to the front door and start slaughtering. Not that it does her any good.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Although Bill admits they've not been on good terms for years, the brothers really do seem to love each other. The only time Budd expresses any anger towards the Bride, it is, in his own words, "for breaking his brother's heart." He also kept the Hanzo sword that Bill commissioned for him.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: He abandoned his life as an assassin after what happened with the Bride.
  • Face Death with Dignity: He doesn't seem especially worried about the Bride's plans to kill him. She never gets the chance.
  • Genius Bruiser: He's big and tough, but his greatest strength by far is his brain. He forgoes fighting the Bride entirely in favor of ambushing her, which proves to be the most effective method of getting rid of her.
  • Greed: He can barely contain his excitement when Elle gifts him with a million dollars for the bride's Hanzo sword. It's downplayed, though as he isn't willing to sell the Hanzo sword his brother gave him, despite having no use for it.
  • Heterosexual Life-Partners: There's a reason why Bill refers to Budd as "the only man [he's] ever loved". Budd is notably the only assassin that Bill goes out of his way to warn about the Bride's revenge quest, despite their estrangement.note  In turn, Budd still is fond of his brother and even kept the sword he gave him (though he does claim that he sold it for a few bucks to get a rise out of Bill).
  • Hidden Depths: He may look like a stereotypical dumb redneck, but he is anything but. He's a poet and a philosopher, and he's cunning enough to exploit the Bride's behavior.
  • Hidden Heart of Gold: Downplayed since his heart is definitely not gold, but it turns out that he couldn't bring himself to sell the Hattori Hanzo sword that Bill gave him despite his financial struggles, and lied to him that he did to get him to cut ties with him. He's also the only viper that feels genuine remorse at the Massacre at Two Pines.
  • How the Mighty Have Fallen: Once a skilled member of a highly dangerous assassin group, he now ekes out a measly living as a bouncer/janitor at a two-bit strip club in the middle of nowhere. He's heavily suggested to have forced this fate upon himself out of guilt over his past actions as an assassin.
  • Idiot Ball: Overall, Budd is very cunning, but he makes a fatal mistake when he trusts Elle to bring him the money without any other guarantee. They have worked together for years and Budd knows she's a "hateful bitch", so one would expect that at least he has the foreseeing to warn Bill about the exchange, or at least not to meet Elle all by himself, especially when he lives in a trailer without immediate access to aid.
  • I Lied: He didn't actually sell his Hattori Hanzo sword.
  • Kick the Dog: After the wounded bride spits blood on his face, he responds by spitting his chewing tobacco on her.
  • Karmic Death: He ends up being killed by a real black mamba.
  • Master Swordsman: He was once at least enough of one to be gifted a Hattori Hanzo sword by Bill.
  • Meaningful Name: His assassin codename is Sidewinder, a desert snake that moves sideways to navigate loose sand, foreshadowing him not acting like the other opponents the Bride faces.
  • Noble Demon: His actions after the rock-salt buckshot support this. He's well aware of what kind of training the Bride went through under Pai Mei, so he's giving her the chance to claw her way back out of her grave if she has the will to do so. He also admits that he deserves to die for what he did to the Bride.
  • Non-Action Guy: While he apparently used to be a very capable combatant — it's implied that you don't get a Hanzo sword unless you know how to use one — he has intentionally let his skills decay to a point where he's no match for the Bride in a straight fight, unlike the other Vipers, who have all kept up with their training enough to fight her on relatively equal ground. His "fight" with the Bride consists more of him ambushing her than any actual combat.
  • No-Nonsense Nemesis: He skips the effort of trying to fight the Bride in favor of shooting and burying her immediately.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: Compared to the other Vipers, who managed to find success for themselves outside of the group and remained incredibly deadly fighters, Budd is portrayed as being something of a loser, working a shitty job in the middle of nowhere and not making any effort to keep up his skills as a fighter. He still manages to be the only character to deal the Bride a decisive defeat. She never technically defeats him, either.
  • Obfuscating Stupidity: He initially comes off as a pathetic hick living in the middle of nowhere who works as a glorified janitor at a failing strip club for a boss who routinely insults him, but is very cunning and competent.
  • The One Guy: Discounting Bill as the founder of the organization, Budd is the only actual male assassin. Bill even describes him as "the only man I ever loved".
  • Pet the Dog: He gives the bride a flashlight before burying her alive, which ends up being pivotal to her escape.
  • Politically Incorrect Villain:
    • "I don't dodge guilt, and I don't jew out of paying my comeuppance."
    • Earlier, he also comments on Hattori Hanzo breaking his oath to help the Bride kill Bill due to an unknown beef with the latter, and says "them Japs sure know how to hold a grudge".
    • He sexually harasses the Bride when she's at his mercy, including commenting on her "tits" and calling her "the cutest little blonde pussy you ever saw," though he thankfully doesn't go further than that.
  • Retired Badass: Nowadays, Budd's a bouncer/janitor at a crappy titty-bar. He stands out as unlike the others, he doesn't appear to have kept up with his training nor does he display any real, physical combat ability at all. He has no interest in ever being an assassin again; he just wants to die.
  • Samurai Cowboy: Budd's a thematic ronin with a cowboy hat, double-barrel shotgun, and a Hanzo katana. Downplayed in that he very clearly prefers guns over swords, and even claimed to Bill that he sold his katana years ago for a few bucks.
  • Secret Test of Character: What his "fight" with the Bride amounts to. He intentionally avoids killing her outright in favor of burying her alive. Whether Beatrix has the strength to escape or not will decide which of the two of them deserves to die.
  • Shotguns Are Just Better: Especially when they're loaded with rock salt.
  • Sibling Yin-Yang: While Bill is a Man of Wealth and Taste, Budd is a trashy redneck who lives in squalor and obscurity. Subverted in their actual personalities, where they're both shown to be similarly Affably Evil Noble Demons.
  • Son of a Whore: If the theory about him and Bill being the sons of Esteban Vihaho's prostitutes is true.
  • Suddenly Ethnicity: Like his brother Bill, he's apparently Mexican, assuming their mother was indeed one of Esteban Vihaio's employees.
  • Sympathetic Murderer: He's the only member of the Squad who sympathizes with the trauma the Bride has gone through all the way, even as he's burying her alive in a coffin.
  • The Unfought: Double subverted. After all the buildup he gets for their potential battle, Beatrix does get to face Budd in battle...for all of five seconds, before being defeated by a shotgun blast of rock salt to the chest. However, after breaking out of her death trap and making her way back to Budd's trailer, her opportunity for a rematch is taken away from Elle Driver via hiding a poisonous snake within a Briefcase Full of Money.
  • Warrior Poet: He's very eloquent in his refusal to Bill, and in his description of the quality of Hanzo swords to Elle.
  • Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Budd does just shoot her when the Bride comes-a-knockin' on his door. He does not, however, choose to use real bullets.

    O-Ren Ishii 

O-Ren Ishii AKA Cottonmouth

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ishii_o-ren_4040.jpg
"You didn't think it was gonna be that easy, did you?"

Played By: Lucy Liu, Ai Maedanote 

"The price you pay for bringing up either my Chinese or American heritage as a negative is... I collect your fucking head. Just like this fucker here. Now, if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, now's the fucking time!"

A former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. She later becomes "queen of the Tokyo underworld". She is the first of the Bride's revenge targets.
  • Affably Evil: For a deadly assassin, O-Ren is a very pleasant, soft-spoken person with a bright smile and polite, understanding manner. Unless you insult her, in which case she will collect your fucking head. In addition, of all the members of the Deadly Vipers, the Bride appears to have been the closest to O-Ren.
  • Alas, Poor Villain: Her death is rather solemn and touching, especially considering her horrific backstory, her Affably Evil personality, and the implication that the Bride was closest to her among the Deadly Vipers. The Bride doesn't seem to take much joy in it. In fact, her death along with Bill's are the only deaths over which the Bride is visibly shaken.
  • Anti-Villain: Of all of the DiVAS outside of the Bride, she's the one who's the most sympathetic by far: she's friendly, polite, has a nasty past to explain why she became an assassin, and is quick to not involve innocents in her violent activities. Of all of the people on her kill list not named Bill, the Bride feels the most regret about having to kill O-Ren because of these positive qualities. Likewise, O-Ren is also the one who is visibly disturbed after enacting the massacre that put the Bride into a coma for four years.
  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: She managed to become the undisputed queen of the Tokyo underworld in four years through sheer badassery.
  • Became Their Own Antithesis: O-Ren's Start of Darkness as a child was when a powerful Yakuza boss killed her parents, resulting in her killing him and trying to make a living as an independent assassin-for-hire. By the time we see her in the present day, she's now the most powerful leader of the very organization that ruined her life in the first place.
  • Benevolent Boss: She appears to be this, even if she does kill Boss Tanaka, saying that it's okay if her minions disagree with her, so long as they don't offend her by insulting her non-Japanese origin and they explain their side in the most reasonable way possible.
    "As your leader, I encourage you from time to time, and always in a respectful manner, to question my logic. If you're unconvinced that a particular plan of action I've decided is the wisest, tell me so! But allow me to convince you, and I promise you right here and now, no subject will ever be taboo. Except, of course, the subject that was just under discussion."
  • Berserk Button: One of her business partners starts making bigoted remarks about her heritage. She practically flash-steps across the room and decapitates him. Considering how she's still sore over her parents' deaths, and she sacrificed her own innocence and put her life on the line to avenge them, pressing this button and its subsequent reaction is justified.
  • Boss Warning Siren: While "Ironside" is used a handful of times in both films for this exact purpose, O-Ren's arrival set to the song makes it stand out compared to the others.
  • Broken Bird: Her parents were brutally murdered in front of her eyes, and her house burned to the ground. Her heritage is still a very sore spot for her, something Boss Tanaka finds out the hard way.
  • But Not Too Foreign: O-Ren's father was a Chinese-American soldier stationed in Japan, and her mother was Japanese. This is largely the result of Lucy Liu, O-Ren's actor, being Taiwanese-American, and Tarantino changing the originally fully-Japanese character so Liu could play her.
  • Cold Sniper: One sequence in her backstory depicts her as this, gunning down a man in the back of a car from the top of a building from a great distance.
  • Dark Action Girl: Very dark, and very capable of dealing with trouble personally.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: It's so dark it had to be an anime sequence to avoid an NC-17 rating and possibly some people getting arrested.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: For the story as a whole; the Bride spends the whole first movie going after her — and she's just the first bad guy on her hit list.
  • Dissonant Serenity: After killing her parents' murderer, she smiled serenely while dripping with his blood.
  • Dragon Lady: Exemplified in her battle with the Bride thanks to the kimono she's wearing.
  • The Dreaded: People are utterly terrified of O-Ren Ishii, and for good reason.
  • Eloquent in My Native Tongue: Although she speaks fluent Japanese, she delivers her inaugural speech/lays down the ground rules for the yakuza bosses, as quoted in Benevolent Boss above, in English to better convey her message, with Sofie simultaneously interpreting to Japanese.
    [opening in Japanese] "So that you understand how serious I am, I'm going to say this in English."
  • Evil Genius: Of the DiVAS, she's shown to be the smartest assassin, and is the most successful post-DiVAS.
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: She's short-haired in the flashback sequences, and long-haired in the present day.
  • Expy: Of the title character in Lady Snowblood.
  • Final Boss: Of the first movie; the Bride's entire final sequence in the movie is fighting off her mooks before meeting her in combat personally.
  • Fingore: Defied; O-Ren's katana lacks handguards, but she loses no fingers because of it.
  • Foil: To Budd, as they are the two that came the closest to kill the Bride. O-Ren is a powerful Yakuza boss who maintains a very polite and stoic behavior but is nevertheless feared by everyone, while Budd has retired from crime and works as a bouncer in a dismaying titty-bar and, despite his gruff appearance, he seems easy to push around until he proves otherwise. O-Ren sends her minions first but is willing to face the Bride in a sword duel, Budd ambushes her with a shotgun, all by himself. O-Ren apologizes for ridiculing the Bride's swordmanship (and, implicitly, for her role in the massacre) after the Bride has wounded her; Budd privately agrees that the Bride deserves her revenge but only has a humanizing moment (giving her a torch and a chance to escape the burial instead of killing her on the spot) once he's in clear advantage, and never directly apologizes. The confrontation with O-Ren takes place in a beautiful roof garden under the falling snow, the one with Budd in a desert with just his trailer as part of the scenery.
  • Foregone Conclusion: After the death of Copperhead, it is shown that Cottonmouth's name was already crossed off the list.
  • From Nobody to Nightmare: At age nine, she saw her parents die horribly. At age eleven, she was a bitter Little Miss Badass skilled enough to kill the Yakuza lord who orphaned her. At age twenty, she was among the top female assassins in the world. In the present day, she's become the "Queen of the Tokyo Underworld".
  • Graceful Loser: After being wounded, she apologizes to the Bride for insulting her and, before dying, she concedes that the Bride's sword was indeed made by Hattori Hanzo.
  • Half-Breed Discrimination: What she faced growing up, and a few of the racist yakuza clan leaders have problems with this. But no one dares to mention it in front of her, lest one wishes to die.
  • Honor Before Reason: During her duel with the Bride, O-Ren manages to inflict a deep slash across the Bride's back that causes her to collapse in pain and shock. Rather than going in for the kill, she decides to gloat and insult The Bride and wait for her to recover sufficiently to stand up and continue the fight.
  • Hypocrite: Doesn't tolerate anyone mocking her origins (and punishes harshly those who dare to), but mocks Beatrix for being a 'Silly caucasian girl' who 'likes to play with samurai swords'. She ultimately apologize for the said comment after the latter gets a Heroic Second Wind and proves herself to be a Worthy Opponent.
  • Immigrant Patriotism: She considers herself Japanese just as much as she is Chinese-American, and will not take attacks on her background lightly.
  • Irony: O-Ren Ishii goes from losing her parents and home to the yakuza in childhood to becoming their most powerful boss in the present day. Given how much the yakuza took from O-Ren, you'd think she'd want to take them down instead...
  • Iron Lady: By the time the Bride is on her way to kill O-Ren, she's become the most powerful yakuza boss in all of Tokyo, if not the whole of Japan.
  • I Own This Town: If she wasn't already the Yakuza equivalent of this trope in Tokyo by the time the Bride confronted her, she was well on her way.
  • Lady of War: She provides the current trope page image. She's polite, demure, and keeps a stone-cold expression throughout the movie. During her fight with the Bride, she has an air of grace and dignity, wearing an elegant kimono whilst using her katana.
  • Little Miss Badass: She avenged her parents' bloody murder in kind when she was barely 11 years old.
  • A Mother to Her Men: When meeting with the other yakuza bosses after assuming power, she makes a point of saying that she's willing to listen to any of their criticisms as long as they aren't about her heritage, and she's seen smiling and laughing with her subordinates in quite a friendly way. During the showdown at the House of Blue Leaves, her subordinates willingly stay and defend her even when the Bride starts to cut through them like tissue paper.
  • Near-Villain Victory: She manages to inflict a deep slash across the Bride's back during their duel. Judging from the position and depth of the wound, if it had gone just a fraction deeper, it would have damaged her spinal column, leaving the Bride paralyzed and leading to her defeat.
  • Nice to the Waiter: Ribbing on the male proprietor's resemblance to Charlie Brown aside, she does make it a point to not let him or any other civilians get involved in the blood feud between her and the Bride. This might have factored into why the Bride got along with her so well before the chapel incident soured things.
  • Not So Stoic: She reassures the other yakuza bosses that she will always respect their criticisms, but makes it clear on no uncertain terms that any insult to her non-Japanese heritage will not be tolerated.
    O-Ren Ishii: The price you pay for bringing up either my Chinese or American heritage as a negative is: I collect your fucking head, just like this fucker here. Now, if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, now's the fucking time! [Beat] ...I didn't think so.
  • Off with His Head!:
    • She decapitates Boss Tanaka for insulting her heritage and for disrespecting her.
    • At the end of her battle with the Bride, she loses the top of her head, since the Bride scalps her.
  • Oh, Crap!: A couple of subtle but noticeable ones. First is when the Bride literally disarms her majordomo, Sophie Fatale, which rattles her but only for a moment. During the climax soon after this, she's rather dismissive even after the Bride cuts through the Crazy 88 like a human weed-whacker. Then the Bride manages to cut her leg during their fight, and suddenly she realizes the fight is not going to go her way.
  • Pet the Dog:
    • When she realizes that there's about to be a bloodbath at the club she and her cronies are at, her first reaction before anything else is to tell the waiter to hightail it, which he wisely listens to.
    • She respects Hattori Hanzo and accuses the Bride of lying about him breaking his vow.
    • When the Bride manages to wound her, she apologizes for having ridiculed her swordmanship. Implicitly, O-Ren is also apologizing for her role in the massacre, even if both know it's too late.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: Even as an uncontested yakuza boss, she makes sure to be not only feared, but also respected. A trait she shares with the Bride is the unwillingness to involve innocents in the feud between them, allowing the terrified crowd to flee the House of Blue Leaves once it's clear that it will end in a bloodbath.
  • Pre Ass Kicking One Liner: Before dueling with the Bride, and it perfectly sums up O-Ren's character.
    O-Ren Ishii: But as last looks go, you could do worse.
  • Precision F-Strike: She delivers three of them at the end of her speech to the other yakuza bosses, though given her usual polite and collected demeanor, it seems almost like a Cluster F-Bomb for how out of place it is.
  • The Queenpin: As the undisputed leader of the Yakuza, she's become "the queen of the Tokyo underworld".
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: Over her syndicate; she encourages her lackeys to question her if they feel that a plan of action is unwise. In her own words, "no subject will ever be taboo," unless it involves bringing up her Chinese-American heritage as a negative; the punishment for doing so is instant death.
  • Snow Means Death: The Bride kills her in the snowy garden outside the House of Blue Leaves.
  • Sophisticated as Hell: Her speech to the Yakuza bosses gradually delves into this at the end.
  • The Stoic: She's always cold and controlled. Even the sight of the Bride cutting Sofie's arm off only rattles her for a second.
  • Super-Senses: She actually hears the Bride breathing on the other side of a wall in the House of Blue Leaves, despite the noise being made by her men partying and music being played outside. She then throws a dart right where the Bride's head was, without looking.
  • Suddenly Shouting: She does this during her speech to the Yakuza bosses to show how serious she is. See the quote under Not So Stoic above.
  • Token Good Teammate: At least relatively, compared to the other assassins. She's easily the friendliest and most magnanimous of them all (aside from the Bride) and tries to not kill when it's not necessary for her job or her own personal safety.
  • Villainous Friendship: With Sofie Fatale, who's also her second-in-command and her lawyer. Watching Sofie's mutilation by the Bride is one of the only things that causes her composure to slip, if only for a moment.
  • Western Samurai: Is a half-Japanese, half-Chinese-American woman that is also one of Bill's assassins and has become the leader of all the Yakuza in Japan. Boss Tanaka despises her origins (his assertion that it makes her unworthy to be a leader or even considered a Japanese pushes her Berserk Button... and you'll die for that). She usually dresses in elegant kimonos, and uses Iaijutsu as her main technique.
  • We Used to Be Friends: It's heavily implied that the Bride and O-Ren were friends during their days as DiVAS, through their shared Trix cereal joke, the fact that the Bride is familiar with O-Ren's horrific backstory, and the sorrow the Bride expresses after killing her.
  • When She Smiles: She's very much The Stoic throughout the story, but there are instances during her interaction and partying with her bodyguards where she laughs and smiles ever so briefly, and it lights up the room.
  • White Shirt of Death: She wears a white kimono for her duel with the Bride, and mostly wears white outside of flashbacks as well. This foreshadows her eventual defeat in the duel, as well as the bloodbath created by the Bride's attack on her organization.
  • Women Are Wiser: Notably, she's the only female Yakuza boss at the council, and easily the most level-headed. When Boss Tanaka begins to make remarks about her, the other members of the crime council quickly descend to name-calling and throwing things; O-Ren simply asks him to explain himself. But when he blows up at her with misogynistic and xenophobic abuse, she swiftly climbs onto the table and decapitates him on the spot.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Her backstory is brutal, and she later became the most powerful Yakuza boss in Tokyo, so yeah.
  • Worthy Opponent: She is one of the most powerful women in the world, and is possibly more powerful and deadly than even Bill himself. She is the only member of the DiVAS that the Bride seems to respect.
  • You Killed My Father: A Yakuza boss murdered her parents. She entered a life of crime to kill the guy.

    Vernita Green 

Vernita Green AKA Copperhead AKA Jeannie Bell

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/green_vernita_6681.jpg
"Black Mamba. I shoulda been motherfuckin' Black Mamba."

Played By: Vivica A. Fox

"Fuck you, bitch. I know Bill didn't qualify that statement, so you can just kiss my motherfuckin' ass, Black Mamba."

A former member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. She later becomes a homemaker living under the false name Jeannie Bell. She is the second of the Bride's revenge targets.
  • Action Mom: She's kept up with her fighting skills to the point that she can hold her own against the Bride, all while living as a suburban mom who coaches softball.
  • Atrocious Alias: Well, she thinks so. She wanted to be called Black Mamba, but that was the Bride's codename in the group. (The Bride supposedly deserved the codename because the black mamba is considered the deadliest snake in the world, so the name went to the best assassin, which she was.)
  • Black Dude Dies First: Subverted. She's the first of the DiVAS killed onscreen, but the second in chronological order. She still has a decent amount of screentime, though.
  • Cheaters Never Prosper: She tries to fool the Bride into thinking they'll have an honorable duel at a predesignated location and time, before trying to kill her with a hidden gun. It doesn't work.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Of the Improvised Weapon type. During her fight with the Bride, Vernita uses table legs, a fireplace poker, and a whole shelf.
  • Crazy-Prepared: She apparently kept a gun hidden in a cereal box for just such an eventuality as the Bride turning up to her house to kill her. Gotta give the woman credit.
  • Dark Action Girl: As with the rest of the DiVAS, thanks to formerly being one of the top assassins in the world.
  • Deadpan Snarker: She manages to get some quips in during her brief screentime.
  • Dirty Coward: She seems to believe that being a parent makes her immune to karma, and also tries to kill the Bride in a dirty move.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She loves her daughter Nikki.
  • Evil Parents Want Good Kids: Vernita really doesn't want Nikki to even know about her past.
  • Hypocrite: She attempts to persuade the Bride to spare her because she's a mother and has put her murderous past life behind her; never mind that she was perfectly fine with participating in gunning down a visibly-pregnant Bride and all her friends on her wedding day for abandoning the life herself.
  • Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: This is what ultimately gets her killed. Beatrix was barely ten feet away from her, was standing still, and Vernita still missed. Seriously! Though in fairness, it's hard to aim a gun you can't actually see inside a cereal box.
  • Instant Death Stab: Copperhead dies within seconds of the Bride throwing a knife into her chest.
  • Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: She offers to face the Bride in a duel that would come close to a fair fight, and the Bride is fine with that, but this turns out to be a subversion; she only makes the offer to distract her enemy so she can use a gun hidden in a cereal box. Fortunately, she misses, and the Bride is able to throw the knife she has and kill her before she can try again.
  • Mama Bear: She's naturally protective of her daughter and doesn't want to expose her violent past to her. She's fine with fighting the Bride, and gives as good as she gets, just not in front of her daughter.
  • Meaningful Name: Jeannie Bell, the alias she takes on, was the name of an actress in early '70s Black action movies.
  • Never Bring a Gun to a Knife Fight: Ironically, Vernita may actually have had a better chance if she had honored the deal; knife fighting was her specialty among the Deadly Vipers, and in her fight, she at least managed to hold her own against the Bride when using knives.
  • Out of Focus: She gets a lot less development than the other Vipers. She's also the first one of the DiVAS that we see die, even though she's the second one actually killed.
  • Pregnant Badass: Calculating the age of her daughter, she would have had to have been at least three months pregnant when she and the others attacked the Bride's wedding rehearsal.
  • Reformed Criminal: She got out of the criminal life and settled down in domestic bliss with a husband and daughter. It doesn't help her, though.
  • Retired Badass: Like the Bride, she got out of the assassination business when she had a child.
  • Sassy Black Woman: At least during her temporary parlay with the Bride; from what little we hear, one gets the impression that even after all these years, Vernita's still sore about the whole "Black Mamba" thing.
  • Starting a New Life: She retired from her life as an assassin to become a typical suburban housewife and mother. It doesn't last very long.
  • Weapon Specialization: Vernita is shown to be different from the other DiVAS in her skillset; unlike the other members of the squad who have some ability with the katana, she prefers knives in close quarters.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: While she's the second assassin from the squad to be killed by the Bride, Vernita is the first of them to die onscreen, and is killed very early into the first film.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Possibly. She introduces the Bride to Nikki as an "old friend" of hers, which can easily be seen as her lying to keep her daughter from the truth. But, cold and vindictive though the Bride is towards her and despite the resentment Vernita shows and her willingness to attack the Bride with a cheap shot, during their temporary truce, Vernita remembers the Bride likes cream and sugar in her coffee, and when Vernita laughs at one of the Bride's quips, the latter is shown genuinely smiling for a split second, which suggests that the two were once on at least good terms.

Associates of Bill

    Esteban Vihaio 

Esteban Vihaio

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TropeEsteban_9773.jpg
"I must warn you, young lady, I am susceptible to flattery."

Played By: Michael Parks

A retired Mexican pimp. He was the first of Bill's "father figures". Beatrix comes to him asking for Bill's whereabouts.


  • Affably Evil: He's very friendly, but evidently still pretty ruthless. He also helps the Bride in finding Bill, because he feels that's what Bill would have wanted, since otherwise Bill "wouldn't see her again."
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality: He thinks disfiguring a woman (and, if the woman is one of his sex workers, forcefully retiring them from said profession) is nicer than killing her, and gladly helps the Bride find Bill, even though Bill is "like a son" to him and he knows full well she means to kill the man, because "how else will he see [her] again?"
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Zigzagged. He comments that Bill's reaction to the Bride walking out on him was quite harsh, and claims, "I would have been much nicer; I would have just cut your face." Then we meet Clara, one of the victims of this treatment, and see that she has a hideous scar running from her lower lip up to the base of her nose, which keeps her from closing her mouth properly.
  • Evil Old Folks: He is a retired ruthless gangster. The Bride notes that he's around 80 when she goes to visit him.
  • Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: Evil; he smokes a cigarette with a holder throughout his entire scene.
  • Karma Houdini: He's clearly a loathsome human being despite his superficial charms, yet doesn't receive any comeuppance for his past crimes.
  • The Man Behind the Man: Acuna, Mexico, is controlled by a ruthless gang known only as "the Acuna Boys". The members of this gang are the fatherless offspring of Esteban's prostitutes and take orders exclusively from him — the retired gentleman of leisure.
  • Not-So-Harmless Villain: For a good deal of the meeting between him and the Bride, Esteban seems just a tad too lackadaisical for a gang-leader; then Clara the sex worker shows up with a horribly mutilated face, and the audience realizes just how dangerous he still is under that sleepy exterior.
  • Parental Substitute:
    • Esteban was the first of Bill's adopted father-figures, and still fondly remembers taking him out to the movies. His scene also shows Bill picked up some of his Affably Evil mannerisms.
    • He was also this for the gang of fatherless sons of his sex workers, the Acuna Boys, and uses their love and respect for him to control them.
  • Pet the Dog: He fondly remembers taking little Bill to the movies, specifically The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).
  • Race Lift: Michael Parks (also known as Texas Ranger Earl McGraw in Volume 1 and several other Tarantino films) plays a Latino gentleman.
  • Retired Monster: A retired pimp who semi-retired from leading a gang, though he still surrounds himself with beautiful women as domestic accessories. He's also implied to be a Retired Badass.
  • Villain of Another Story: You get this vibe off of him. Given Clara's scar and the Acuna Boys, he would be the villain of any other story, but here he's simply a stop on the way to kill Bill.

    Hattori HanzĹŤ 

Hattori HanzĹŤ

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/hanzo_hattori_4813.jpg
"Revenge is never a straight line. It's a forest, and like a forest it's easy to lose your way...to get lost...to forget where you came in."

Played By: Sonny Chiba

A renowned weapon smith who once taught Bill, and who forged swords for the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad.


  • Alliterative Name: Hattori Hanzo.
  • The Atoner: He promised never to forge another sword after all of the crimes Bill and his gang used them for (or at least one specific crime that we never learned about).
  • Beneath the Mask: He presents himself as a short-tempered sushi chef, but he's actually a very serious and solemn blacksmith who still repents for his role in Bill's criminal career.
  • Blasphemous Boast:
    "I can tell you with no ego, this is my finest sword. If on your journey, you should encounter God, God will be cut."
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Though he's a master swordsmith, he retired to become a sushi chef and runs his restaurant very informally. He is seen abusing the lazy waiter who had previously been his smithing assistant.
  • Cool Sword: All of his swords.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: He is reputedly the best Japanese swordsmith in the world, and he exists entirely so that the Bride can be provided with her very own katana.
  • Mandatory Unretirement: After the Bride seeks him out for a sword, she mentions that she's going to kill Bill in order to convince him to forge one last blade.
  • Meaningful Name: Hattori Hanzo was a famous samurai and ninja from the Sengoku era of Japan, and is a fixture in the Japanese pop culture that inspired Volume 1.
  • My Greatest Failure: It's all but stated that Bill is this to him. He adamantly refuses to break his 28-year blood oath to forge a sword for the Bride, but when she mentions that her target is Bill, he immediately consents.
  • Nice Guy: Undeniable. He and his associate Shiro are the only characters in Vol. 1 that aren't antagonists.
  • Old Master: He taught Bill in swordplay; it is apparently a prerequisite to receiving one of his swords that you actually are able to use the thing to a satisfactory degree.
    • That said, he isn't a master at everything. Apparently his sushi-making skills aren't that great, according to Bill and the Bride.
  • Retired Badass: Having taught Bill, though we don't know if he killed anyone himself.
  • Revenge: His philosophy in life apparently involves this trope. He's willing to break an oath never to make another sword, on the condition that the sword he makes aids the Bride in hunting down and killing Bill.
  • Ultimate Blacksmith: His reputation was built on forging the greatest swords in the world. Even after close to 3 decades of retirement, he can still forge them perfectly.

    Pai Mei 

Pai Mei

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pai_mei_5499.jpg
"The exquisite art of the samurai sword? Don't make me laugh! Your so-called exquisite art is only fit for Japanese fatheads!"

Played By: Gordon Liu

An immensely powerful and extremely old martial arts master. Bill, Beatrix, and Elle all trained under him.


  • The Ace: He's easily the best fighter in the film, and is considered to be one of, if not the, best in the world.
  • Animal-Themed Fighting Style: The Bride's Tiger Crane Style is no match for his Eagle Claw.
  • Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: He doesn't let anyone else get the upper hand on him easily. He's also extremely quick to anger. However, he truly is as powerful as he believes himself to be. Elle Driver loses an eye to him, and only manages to kill him by poisoning his food.
  • Asshole Victim: He's abusive, petty, racist and misogynistic; so it's hard to feel sorry for him when Elle poisons him.
  • Balls of Steel: The Bride finds out the hard way that he's impervious to Groin Attacks.
  • Bare-Fisted Monk: He's easily the deadliest martial artist in either movienote  and never once uses a weapon in combat. He hands the Bride her ass on a silver platter when she comes at him with a sword during the first round of their fight.
  • Berserk Button: He seems to be the living embodiment of this trope. According to Bill's description and what we see of Beatrix and Elle's training under him, one should consider themselves lucky to come away with grievous bodily injuries after even the slightest perceived offense, intentional or not. Worth noting is his first sparring bout with the Bride, where he's content to effortlessly toss her around the ring and even laughs off an attempted Groin Attack. But when she attempts to blindside him with a rock upside the head, he catches her hand, twists it into a painful wristlock, and threatens to take her entire arm off at the shoulder.
  • Big Ol' Eyebrows: He has the ludicrously exaggerated eyebrows of a formidable Far Eastern sage.
  • Bilingual Dialogue: He speaks solely in Cantonese, but has no problem conversing with English speakers.
  • Brick Break: As part of his training regimen for the Bride, he made her continuously punch a wooden board day in and day out. She later puts this to use after Budd buries her alive inside a wooden coffin.
  • Broken Ace: He's possibly the best fighter in the world, and is also a miserable old bastard who treats almost everyone around him like dirt. Bill comments that he most likely only takes students just to have someone to talk to.
  • Character Development: Yes, he does get some of this in his interactions with the Bride. It's telling that, for a man whom Bill describes as hateful of women, white people, and the Japanese (and the Bride is a great admirer and practitioner of Japanese martial arts), he ends up growing to respect someone - the Bride - who accounts for all of the above.
  • Character Tics: Running his hand along his beard and flicking it towards his shoulder.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: Every fight he's in goes completely in his favor. He can kick the shit out of just about anyone as easily as breathing.
  • Deconstructed Character Archetype: Of the wizened old Kung-Fu teacher. He's not a good man teaching self-defense techniques to the righteous, he's a miserable old bastard with deeply racist and sexist attitudes, teaching deadly techniques to whackjob assassins and murderers. And that's if he doesn't kill them in training first. When he dies to motivate the protagonist, it isn't from losing a fight. Elle Driver insulted him one day (likely out of frustration from the training) and he retaliated by plucking her eye out of her head. Unfortunately for him, Elle proved to be even more psychotic than he was, and she poisoned his dinner the following evening.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Very fond of this. He ripped out Elle Driver's eye because she called him a "miserable old fool", and according to legend, killed an entire temple of unfortunate monks because one of them didn't return a nod he gave him.
  • Drill Sergeant Nasty: Probably one of the harshest mentors ever put to screen. His training amounts to torture. He makes Sergeant Hartman look like Mr. Miyagi. Heck, the title card before the Bride's training with him lampshades this: "The Cruel Tutelage Of Pai Mei"
  • Dropped a Bridge on Him: Pai Mei may be an unstoppable badass who can take down world-class assassins, but poison will still kill him as easily as it will anyone else.
  • Establishing Character Moment: Literally the first thing he says to the Bride when he meets her is an insult:
    The Bride: Master...
    Pai Mei: Your Mandarin is lousy. It causes my ears discomfort. You bray like an ass!
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Well, loved ones may be a bit of a stretch, but he comes to truly respect the Bride, enough to teach her the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, something he never even taught Bill. The feeling is mutual; the Bride comes to see him as something of a father figure, and when she learns that Elle Driver killed Pai Mei, she is furious and removes Driver's remaining eye just as Pai Mei did to her first eye.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: He is a horrible person, no doubt. He does, however, appear to respect talent and determination. Most telling is when, despite his bigoted views, he does start to show some respect for the Bride, to the point where when she gives up on eating at the table with chopsticks, he offers her his own food while encouraging her to use the chopsticks despite the difficulty.
  • Evil Laugh: It's more of a troll-ish, taunting laugh as he mocks and belittles the Bride during their first spar, but it still counts.
  • Evil Mentor: He is a bigoted, sexist, narcissistic psychopath who trains murderers for hire.
  • Hair-Trigger Temper: He gets ticked off by white people, women, "Japanese fatheads", and other petty things. Then he goes from completely tranquil (if intense) to murderous in an instant.
  • He-Man Woman Hater: Bill mentions that Pai Mei "has nothing but contempt for women", and he shows this when he later mocks the Bride, saying that all women can do is "spend a man's money and order in restaurants". Despite this, he grows to highly respect the Bride, suggesting that a lot of his misogyny may be just an act to get a rise out of his female students.
  • Hermit Guru: He lives entirely by himself and detests just about everyone. As Bill points out, this does make him lonely enough to be willing to take students, but not to make him any less of a Jerkass.
  • Historical Domain Character: Pai Mei (or Bak Mei in Cantonese, meaning White Brows) was a quasi-historical figure from 17th-century China. His historicity is somewhat dubious, but by most accounts he was a Shaolin monk who either betrayed the monastery to the Qing army or survived its destruction and spread the Shaolin arts in secret (or both). He has a martial art named after him, which claims him as its founder, and his distinct look and legend are popular in Chinese cinema. Whether this Pai Mei is supposed to be the figure of legend or simply a reference is never clarified, but he seems to have certainly been around long enough.
  • I Just Want to Have Friends: Okay, not friends, but Bill mentions to the Bride that Pai Mei is only taking her on as a student out of a desire to have at least some form of company in his solitary existence, even if it's just someone to verbally and physically abuse.
  • Implacable Man: According to Bill's account of his alleged massacre of the Shaolin temple over an unreturned gesture:
    Bill: The abbot, at first, tried to console Pai Mei — only to find Pai Mei was... inconsolable.
  • Insufferable Genius: As arrogant as he is, he is legitimately skilled. Nobody would put up with his nastiness if he weren't the only person in the world who could teach such devastating martial arts to pupils.
  • Jerkass: National and racial prejudice, sexism, all-around misanthropy, and training so brutal it qualifies as torture — take your pick.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: His training methods might be cruel, but him teaching the Bride how to punch through wood at close distances is essential to her surviving the events of the second film.
  • Karma Houdini Warranty: He dies the day after he plucks a student's eye out for insulting him, no doubt out of frustration towards his abusive training methods, via poisoning. Given his hateful attitude and the sheer number of people who have died by his hands, it's a wonder this didn't happen sooner.
  • Karmic Death: After decades of mentally and physically abusing his students, all while gloating about it, he dies in a painful and undignified way, only managing to gargle out some last insults at Elle, who (understandably, even for a psycho like herself) is enjoying every single moment of his agony.
  • Large Ham: His over-the-top mannerisms, dramatic laughs, and theatrical beard strokes definitely qualify him for the trope.
  • Legacy Character: A popular fan theory regarding the character; Bill mentions that the incident which he developed a special technique took place at a time that would make him impossibly old.
  • Light Is Not Good: He wears white, but is definitely an Evil Mentor (or at least a Jerkass Mentor).
  • Living Legend: Bill introduces both the audience and the Bride to Pai Mei as a Living Legend, possibly immortal.
  • Magical Asian: Parodied. The film explicitly notes that he despises Americans and white people, both of which just so happen to describe the main protagonist, and instead of being the stereotypical calm and wise martial arts teacher, he's an extremely rude and egotistical Jerkass who enjoys belittling his students.
  • Meaningful Name: His name literally means "white eyebrow" in Chinese.
  • Memetic Badass: In-Universe example; he i seems to have achieved this status so much that legends of his badassery are said to date back to the 11th century.
  • Old Master: He is the quintessential version of this (if an evil or at very least Jerkass variety), being a legendarily deadly martial arts master who is said to be over a thousand years old at least, and taught the Bride and Elle everything they know about martial arts. Bill himself is also one for the Bride as the leader of the DiVAS.
  • Pet the Dog: Several during the Bride's training:
    • At one point when the Bride is relentlessly punching at the board that she's trying to break, Pai Mei nods in approval. Coming from him, that's the equivalent of extraordinary praise.
    • After knocking her bowl of rice to the ground (long story), he ultimately gives the Bride his own bowl.
    • There's also the fact that he taught her the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, and no one else.
  • Politically Incorrect Villain: Bill despairingly notes that Pai Mei "...hates Caucasians, despises Americans, and has nothing but contempt for women." He also hates the Japanese. Ironically, his greatest student, and the only one whom he teaches the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique turns out to be a blonde American woman who favors katanas and who also learned to love him like a father, if joyfully snatching out Elle Driver's left eye as vengeance for killing Pai Mei is any indication. Another possibility is that he just hates everyone until they prove themselves.
  • Really 700 Years Old: According to Bill, some believe him to have been around for at least a thousand years (the Shaolin massacre actually took place in 1003). The bride just accepts this without question.
  • Renowned Selective Mentor: Apparently, he only rarely accepts students, and is a (maybe) thousand-year-old renowned recluse.
  • Sadist Teacher: Zigzagged. His Training from Hell gives him the look of this, but his brutal training does actually work, so he doesn't put students through it simply to be a jerk. He does, however, abuse his students simply because he's a jerk.
  • Secret Test of Character: His first meeting with the Bride ends up being this - he spends the entire encounter insulting her before almost effortlessly restraining her and making her admit her weakness - thus showing that she was willing to humble herself and learn how to fight like him.
  • Sinister Minister: The real Pai Mei was a Shaolin monk, if a treacherous one. This version seems not to have been a Shaolin himself, given that the narration about his background sets them apart, but he might have been still a monk from another order. Possibly not even a Buddhist one, though, as at least in modern day, he rather dresses like a Taoist clergyman and has martial abilities more associated to those. In any case, he is a nasty piece of work.
  • Smug Snake: He is an extraordinary martial artist with an ego to match. As a result, he assumes he can do whatever he pleases, since nobody can take him in a fight. This led to his death, as he thought none of his abused students would try to kill him through a method other than a direct fight.
  • Smug Super: He's confident enough in his abilities that he promises to bow down and call the Bride his master if she can land a single blow (with a sword against his bare hands) during their first sparring match. She doesn't.
  • Stroke the Beard: A signature taunt of his. He also tends to do it when expressing approval.
  • Supernatural Martial Arts: He's strong enough to punch through solid wood from only three inches away, fast and agile enough to dodge the Bride's sword strikes and balance on her sword as she holds it out, is said to have been born before the year 1000 and lived all the way up to 2003 and he would have lived longer had Elle not poisoned him. And then there's his "Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique".
    Bill: Quite simply, the deadliest blow in all of martial arts. He hits you with his fingertips at five different pressure points on your body, and then lets you walk away. But once you've taken five steps your heart explodes inside your body, and you fall to the floor, dead.
  • Too Dumb to Live: He apparently thinks accepting food from someone he horribly mutilated is a good idea.
  • Training from Hell: He puts the Bride through training that would be harsh enough to make most people quit.
    "Since your arm belongs to me, I want it strong."
  • Troll: "From here, you can get an excellent view of my foot."
  • Undignified Death: After a lifetime of fighting, he dies when Elle poisons his fish heads. All he can do is lie on the ground, sputtering empty threats as Elle stands over him and gloats.
  • You Fight Like a Cow: He often insults the Bride while she is sparring with him.

Associates of O-Ren Ishii

    Sofie Fatale 

Sofie Fatale

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/41937_26177.gif
"Burn in hell, you stupid blonde slut! I'll tell you nothing!"

Played By: Julie Dreyfus

"Brûle en enfer espèce de salope, blonde! Je ne te dirais rien!"

O-Ren's lawyer, best friend, and second lieutenant. She is also a former protégé of Bill's, and was present at the wedding chapel massacre.
  • Accomplice by Inaction: She took a phone call while the Bride was lying beaten and bloody just feet away from her.
  • Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear whether the Bride has cut her other arm while interrogating her or if the threat was enough to get the inforamation. It seems that her remaining arm is still flailing as she's rolling downhill towards the hospital, but the camera only focuses on her face in the following scenes.
  • Amoral Attorney: She's the lawyer of the boss of all Yakuza bosses.
  • An Arm and a Leg: She has her left arm sliced off by the Bride directly before the battle at the House of Blue Leaves. In the Japanese theatrical release, Sofie loses her other arm during the Bride's interrogation of her in the trunk.
  • Bullying a Dragon: Calling her captor a "stupid blonde slut" after she's just sliced her arm off, slaughtered her way through an entire Yakuza army, and killed her boss is flat-out suicidal, especially since the Bride only kept her alive to interrogate her for information and to send a message to Bill. In the Japanese edition of the film (and possibly the western version as well, depending on your interpretation), she pays for it with her other arm.
  • Can't Kill You, Still Need You: The only reason the Bride keeps her alive was for information on the other Deadly Vipers and to deliver a message to Bill.
  • Dissonant Serenity: She's impeccably calm and polite when answering the phone during the beating of the Bride and when translating O-Ren's speech after Boss Tanaka's beheading.
  • Everyone Has Standards: She's disgusted when the Bride shoves one Crazy 88's eyeball down another Crazy 88's throat.
  • Evil Wears Black: She dresses almost entirely in black. The Bride describes her as being dressed like "a villain on Star Trek".
  • Expository Hairstyle Change: When she's watching the El Paso murders, Sofie has her hair in a ponytail. In the present, she wears her hair up in a bun. At the end of the movie, after being mutilated, she wears her hair down while talking to Bill.
  • Faux Action Girl: Notably so in a World of Action Girls. Despite being a protĂ©gĂ© of Bill's, she seems to put up no fight at all when the Bride comes calling (though the Bride evidently overpowers her offscreen).
  • Fate Worse than Death: Depending on the version of the film, the Bride cuts off either one or both of her arms—the left one to make a point to O-Ren, and the right one during her interrogation. The latter is left somewhat ambiguous in the American theatrical version, as we don't see the Bride cutting off her other arm.
  • Gratuitous French: She delivers her most famous line, quoted and translated above, in the language. It is hinted that the Bride understood her words.
  • Hello, Attorney!: As the name suggests, she is a very attractive woman, and her role is to be a lawyer for O-Ren Ishii. The Bride even describes her as a "pretty lady".
  • Ironic Name: The name Sofie comes from the Greek word for "wisdom". Sofie's actions during the film, such as going to the bathroom without any bodyguard or insulting the Bride after O-Ren's death, are markedly unwise.
  • Leitmotif: Her monotone "Auld Lang Syne" ringtone.
  • Meaningful Name: Her name alludes to "femme fatale."
  • Mouth of Sauron: Downplayed as O-Ren has even more screentime than her, but Sofie is shown acting as an intermediary for her boss through phone calls.
  • Slasher Smile: When O-Ren decapitates Boss Tanaka, and it gets broader as O-Ren outlines her rules in English to the other mob bosses.
  • The Smart Girl: She's O-Ren's lawyer and second lieutenant.
  • The Stool Pigeon: Tarantino stated that it was her that tracked the Bride to Texas and then informed Bill.
  • Translator Buddy: She acts as O-Ren's interpreter in French, English, and Japanese.
  • Undying Loyalty: To O-Ren and Bill.
  • Villainous Friendship: She's O-Ren's best friend as well as her second-in-command and lawyer.
  • We Used to Be Friends: Per Word of God, she and the Bride were friends prior to the betrayal and massacre. Part of why Sofie receives so much venom from the Bride is because the Bride saw Sofie cheerfully take a phone call while she was being utterly brutalized by the other assassins without showing a shred of empathy.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: She loses both arms to the Bride (though her right arm may have been spared in the American release), and is left alive to deliver a message to Bill. She's never mentioned afterwards.
  • White Shirt of Death: She wore a white dress during the El Paso murders.

    Gogo Yubari 

Gogo Yubari

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/yubari_gogo_2842.jpg
"You call that begging? You can beg better than that!"

Played By: Chiaki Kuriyama

"How about now, big boy? Do you still wish to penetrate me?... Or is it I who has penetrated you?"

A sadistic 17-year-old who is O-Ren's personal bodyguard.
  • Agony of the Feet: The Bride slams a nail-studded table leg into Gogo's foot, then yanks it loose to deliver a killing blow upside the head.
  • Ax-Crazy: This is how the Bride describes Gogo Yubari: "Gogo may be young, but what she lacks in age, she makes up for in madness." She kills entirely at random, and at the slightest provocation.
  • Blade on a Rope: The meteor hammer she uses in her fight with the Bride can release hidden blades around the sphere, making it a cross between this trope and Epic Flail.
  • Blood Knight: She shows shades of this, seeming to relish the sight of O-Ren decapitating Boss Tanaka and toying with the Bride during their fight.
  • Bodyguarding a Badass: She's dangerous, but nowhere near as much as her boss.
  • The Brute: One of the most dangerous people in O-Ren's organization, second only to the woman herself.
  • Composite Character: The original Kill Bill script had two Yubari sisters, Gogo and Yuki. Yuki was the crazier one of the two, and would end up destroying the Pussy Wagon in an explosive shootout when the Bride got back from Japan. Tarantino used elements from both characters in order to create the Gogo of the movie.
  • Cute and Psycho: There's a big contrast between her schoolgirl mannerisms (cheerfully saying "hi" to the Bride, covering her mouth when she giggles, etc) and her insatiable bloodlust.
  • Dark Action Girl: Arguably darker than any other woman in the story save for Elle. Gogo will kill at the drop of a hat with a smile on her face.
  • Epic Flail: She wields a meteor hammer, which is basically a weighted bludgeon at the end of a chain.
  • Exotic Weapon Supremacy: Her weapon is a modified meteor hammer, traditionally a Chinese weapon, which is somewhat out of place in a Yakuza clan that almost exclusively fights with katanas. The supremacy part comes in when she's able to give the Bride one of the most difficult fights of the film, largely due to the latter being ill-equipped to deal with such an unusual weapon.
  • Fille Fatale: She's 17 at most, but is seen getting drunk with a businessman who hits on her in a bar. She ends up happily eviscerating him.
  • Giggling Villain: Gogo's schoolgirl tittering clashes hard with her extreme propensity for violence.
  • Girlish Pigtails: Gogo sports these in the scene where she kills a guy who was hitting on her at a bar.
  • Girl with Psycho Weapon: Sh and her deadly chain iron meteor hammer.
  • Hard-Drinking Party Girl: She's shown gulping booze straight from the bottle, then asking a salaryman if he wants to have sex with her. When the salaryman says yes, she gets her kicks in a different manner: by gutting him.
  • Improbable Age: Gogo isn't even old enough to drink, but is the personal bodyguard of the leader of the Yakuza.
  • Kubrick Stare: She gives this almost all the time, particularly in her face-off with the Bride.
  • Little Miss Badass: She's the youngest fighter in the Kill Bill saga, and one of the most dangerous.
  • Mook–Face Turn: Defied. The Bride gives her a Last-Second Chance to walk away, apparently believing that she's under O-Ren's control; Gogo laughs it off, and pays for it.
    The Bride: ...I beg you. Walk away.
    Gogo: [giggling] You call that begging?
  • Psycho for Hire: Gogo, a murderous schoolgirl who works as the personal bodyguard to boss of all Tokyo yakuza bosses O-Ren Ishii. The Bride describes her as mad.
  • Psycho Supporter: It's unclear if she's truly loyal to O-Ren (as the Bride suggests), or if she's just in it for the murder.
  • Sailor Fuku: Never has this trope been so terrifying as this meteor hammer-wielding girl.
  • School Uniforms are the New Black: She fights in a school uniform instead of the black suits that make up the gang colors of the Crazy 88.
  • Tears of Blood: As she is dying from having a nailed board driven into her skull.
  • Teens Are Monsters: She's a 17-year-old sadistic murderer.

    Johnny Mo 

Johnny Mo

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/mo_johnny_5172.jpeg

Played By: Gordon Liu

The head general of O-Ren's personal army, the Crazy 88.


  • Asskicking Leads to Leadership: As The Dragon to O-Ren, he turns out to be a pretty good fighter, and gives the Bride more trouble than all the other members of the Crazy 88 combined.
  • Bald of Evil: His baldness helps distinguish him from the other mooks.
  • Badass in a Nice Suit: Like the rest of the Crazy 88, he's a professional mob enforcer who fights in his suit and tie.
  • Bifurcated Weapon: Unlike the rest of the Crazy 88 (who use katanas), his weapon of choice is a short fighting staff which he can pull apart into two swords.
  • Boss in Mook's Clothing: Despite being dressed exactly the same as the other members of the Crazy 88, Mo is much tougher and more skilled than the rest.
  • Cool Mask: Like his cohorts, Mo wears a Green Hornet type mask.
  • The Dragon: He's the main general and top subordinate to O-Ren Ishii.
  • Dual Wielding: As mentioned, his staff is actually a double-sheath for two blades that he uses in tandem.
  • Le Parkour: He leaps up a katana embedded in a pillar to the second level of the House of Blue Leaves to pursue the Bride during the Crazy 88 fight scene.
  • Railing Kill: When the Bride kills him, he falls off a rail to a pool below.

    The Crazy 88s 

The Crazy 88s

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/5755c65046004e4aabecea34d114250a.jpg
"You have to say 'yes yes yes' to any selfish demands they make. Do you know what would happen if they heard you?"

O-Ren's personal army.


  • Collateral Damage: A couple are killed by their comrades; one gets an axe thrown into his chest by a missed shot and another gets shoved onto his fellow's katana.
  • Epic Flail: One of them is briefly seen wielding a meteor hammer similar to the one used by Gogo, but it disappears after the opening shot of the battle.
  • Katanas Are Just Better: Most of them wield katanas, but they aren't nearly as effective as the one the Bride wields, nor do they fight as formidably as she does.
  • Made of Plasticine: Armed with a freshly-minted Hattori Hanso sword, the Bride cuts through the whole army like a hot knife through butter.
  • The Men in Black: They are apparently a simultaneous Shout-Out to The Green Hornet and The Matrix (Yuen Wo Ping was the fight choreographer for all three Matrix films—and for Kill Bill).
  • Mook Chivalry: Subverted. The Crazy 88s are a little less chivalrous than most mooks. It doesn't really help them, though.
  • Non-Indicative Name: Bill claims there aren't actually 88 of them. Though if you keep track, the Bride kills or maims 78 people while fighting them, so there could actually have been that many...
    Bill: There wasn't really 88 of them, they just called themselves the Crazy 88.
    Budd: How come?
    Bill: I dunno, I guess they thought it sounded cool.
  • The Notable Numeral: Crazy 88.

    Boss Tanaka 

Boss Tanaka

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/boss_tanaka.png
"And what exactly are we celebrating? The perversion of our illustrious council?"

Played By: Jun Kunimura

A Yakuza who is disgruntled when O-Ren assumes power.


  • Asshole Victim: The moment he expresses a racist sentiment against O-Ren's partial Chinese heritage, she chops his head clean off with her katana. The rest of the Yakuza bosses get the message, and the subject is never raised again.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Averted. He admits that he loves his criminal empire more than he loves his own children. It really goes far in showing what a scumbag he is.
  • Jerkass: Tanaka insults O-Ren at her own table, which quickly became the last thing he ever did.
  • Off with His Head!: How O-Ren murders him.
  • Politically Incorrect Villain: He hates O-Ren due to her heritage.
    Tanaka: I speak of the perversion done to this council... which I love... more than my own children... BY MAKING A CHINESE JAP-AMERICAN HALF-BREED BITCH ITS LEADER! [Cue O-Ren decapitating him.]
  • Suddenly Shouting: Twice. The first time he quietly and solemnly recalls how the council was first founded, then goes on to loudly insult its members, claiming that while now they're laughing, they will weep after death. The second time, when explaining what got him so upset, he begins by calmly speaking about the "perversion" of said council and after a Beat, throws a bunch of racist insults at O-Ren (see above). He gets away with the former, but the latter is what gets him killed.
  • Too Dumb to Live: He insults a formidable Yakuza crimelord at her own table in front of all of her top subordinates. He's lucky that one of the other crimelords didn't kill him immediately for his insolence. Except that the insult just so happened to press O-Ren's Berserk Button, so she did it herself.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: He only appears in one scene with the Yakuza bosses and O-Ren, and gets his head chopped off when he opens his big mouth about O-Ren not being pure Japanese, which is only a few lines of dialogue.

Two Pines Church

    Tommy Plympton 

Tommy Plympton

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/plympton_6.jpg
"Well, I guess I just believe in living dangerously."

Played By: Christopher Allen Nelson

Beatrix's fiancé who was killed in the wedding chapel massacre.


  • Dramatically Missing the Point: When Bill points out that it's bad luck to see one's bride-to-be in her wedding dress before the wedding, he says they might as well get their money's worth out of it by using the dress for the rehearsal as well. You can just see Bill deciding he's Too Dumb to Live at that point...
  • Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: It's made obvious to the audience (but not Tommy) that Bill is the father of the Bride's baby, not Tommy.
  • Nice Guy: The unlucky bastard seems like a friendly, if dim, fellow.
  • Unwitting Pawn: The Bride marries him just to have a legitimate father for her child, even though she knows full well the marriage won't last. He ends up being killed by his fiancĂ©'s ex without even knowing why.
  • We Hardly Knew Ye: He's killed before we get to know much about him.

    Rufus 

Rufus

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rufus_4.jpg
"I was a Drell. I was a Drifter. I was a Coaster. I was part of the Gang. I was a Bar-Kay... If they come through Texas, I done played with them."

Played By: Samuel L. Jackson

The organist who was to perform at Beatrix and Tommy's wedding.


Other Criminals

    Boss Matsumoto 

Matsumoto

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/matsumoto_1.jpg

The Yakuza boss who killed O-Ren Ishii's family.


  • Asshole Victim: When O-Ren Ishii kills him, it is fully deserved, and no one will miss him.
  • Dissonant Serenity: Matsumoto seems to smile and simply look happy while he's killing an innocent family.
  • Hate Sink: Although he has little screentime — in fact, he only appears in a short, animated but memorable flashback scene — Matsumoto manages to establish himself in such a short time as one of the worst people in both films.
  • High-Pressure Blood: When O-Ren kills him and pulls her katana out of his belly, a fountain of blood erupts from the wound and sprays over O-Ren and most of the walls.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: He intended to have sex with O-Ren (who was pretending to be a prostitute) before she killed him; what makes this even worse is that she's eleven at the time of the flashbacks, which would have made it statutory rape.
  • Small Role, Big Impact: He's the one behind Ishii's Start of Darkness as a feared assassin, but he has very little screentime.
  • The Sociopath: Matsumoto has no emotions but happiness when he kills innocent people.
  • The Tooth Hurts: He grits his teeth so hard when he gets stabbed by O-Ren that all of them break into bloody pieces.
  • Would Hit a Girl: He personally murders O-Ren's mother by impaling her with a katana.
  • Would Hurt a Child: He's a Yakuza boss and a sadistic pedophile.

    Buck 

Buck

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/buckbowen_854.jpg
"My name is Buck, and I'm here to fuck."

Played By: Michael BowenOther Languages 

An orderly at the hospital where the Bride lay comatose for four years. He has been selling sexual access to her body, as well as partaking himself.


  • Ain't Too Proud to Beg: He tries in vain to stop the recently awoken Bride from smashing his head in with a door. He fails.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Almost, as the Bride doesn't quite manage to cut off his foot. Still, eeeeeew.
  • Asshole Victim: He's one of the first chronological kills by the Bride in the film on-screen (after the guy who was about to rape her had her bite his tongue off, leading to a lot of blood and likely killing him. Once he admits to the Bride that he pimped her comatose body out, he gets his head smashed in by a door.
  • Beard of Evil: Buck has a beard and is a thoroughly detestable piece of work.
  • Cool Car: The Pussy Wagon, an outrageously pimped-out yellow Chevy pickup truck which is appropriated by the Bride when she kills him. It's so garish that it literally makes the Bride do a double-take.
  • Door Fu: The Bride kills him by smashing his head up against a doorjamb repeatedly.
  • Dude, She's Like in a Coma: He likes to rape comatose patients, and has a side hustle of pimping their bodies out to his customers.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Buck can present himself as friendly and chummy with his customers... but doesn't overshadow the fact that he's an utterly repulsive rapist.
  • Hypocrite: This rapist douchebag actually wears a crucifix around his neck.
  • Jerkass: He abused his position of trust to rape a comatose woman. Plus, he pimped her out for other sickos to do the same.
  • Karmic Death: Buck is killed by one of the formerly comatose patients he pimped out.
  • Meaningful Name: His name's Buck, and he likes to... well, you know.
  • Mugging the Monster: He's been pimping out the comatose body of a super-assassin, not prepared in the least for the possibility that she may wake up. When she does, she rips the tongue out of an attempted rapist, then smashes Buck's head in, and finally steals his truck.
  • Orderlies are Creeps: Buck abuses his power as an orderly to pimp out coma patients to whoever will pay.
  • Pink Is Erotic: Buck is the perverted nurse who has been using the unconscious Bride as a sex slave and had been selling her to clients so they can rape her. Buck's van keys and the van itself are decorated with pink text reading "Pussy Wagon".
  • Pragmatic Villainy: He tells his clients to not physically harm Beatrix, but it's done because he doesn't want to risk losing both his medical license along with facing a substantial prison sentence if he's caught having his patients harmed by his clients, rather than out of care for them. Additionally, even if his clients weren't caught, if other doctors notice their patients having any and all bodily harm inflicted upon then, Buck would've gotten a serious prison sentencing.
  • Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The Bride originally starts beating Buck's head in a doorway to interrogate him on Bill's location, but once she remembers him selling her comatose body for sex she just outright kills him; he and his most recent "client" are the first people the Bride kills in the movies chronologically.
  • Slimeball: He takes advantage of his power as an orderly to offer a comatose woman's body up for rape, and charges money for it. He even used the proceeds to buy himself an incredibly garish pickup truck emblazoned with the words "Pussy Wagon" on the back.

    Karen Kim 

Karen Kim

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/kim_karen_8419.jpg
"Not that I have to be at this range, but I'm a fucking surgeon with this shotgun."

Played By: Helen Kim

An assassin sent to kill Beatrix. Her attack comes moments after Beatrix learns that she is pregnant.


  • Alliterative Name: Karen Kim.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Befitting an assassin. She lures the Bride near the door by pretending to be an employee of the hotel, then blasts the door with a shotgun. If the Bride hadn't dropped the tester and bent down to retrieve it, the movies wouldn't have happened at all.
  • Dark Action Girl: For her unseen employer, Lisa Wong.
  • Gunpoint Banter: When the Bride asks her if she's good with her shotgun, they trade a few barbs.
    Karen: Not that I have to be at this range, but I'm a fucking surgeon with this shotgun.
    Bride: Well, guess what bitch? I'm better than Annie Oakley and I got you right in my sight.
    Karen: I could blow your fucking head off.
    Bride: Not before I put one right between your eyes, so let's talk.
  • Hitman with a Heart: She lets the pregnant Bride leave after she promises to abandon her assignment, even congratulating her on her pregnancy before fleeing.
  • Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: In a complete inversion of what happens to Vernita, she blocks the knife thrown at her by the Bride with the butt of her shotgun before trying to shoot again. It remains stuck in place for the remainder of the scene.
  • Shotguns Are Just Better: Her preferred weapon.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: Her fate is unknown after she leaves the Bride, though considering Bill was said to have hunted down and killed everyone suspected in the Bride's "death", it's possible she met her end at his hands.

Other Characters

    Spoiler Character 

B.B.

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/bb_kiddo_kill_bill.png

Played By: Perla Haney-Jardine

"Freeze, Mommy!"

The daughter of Beatrix and Bill. She was raised by her father while her mother was comatose.
  • Cheerful Child: B.B. is absolutely delighted to meet Beatrix, and thinks she's just the most beautiful woman in the world.
  • Creepy Child: Poor, poor Emilio. She took her goldfish out of its bowl, and then stepped on it, seemingly just to see what would happen.
  • Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: She doesn't seem to, well, understand how to take care of a pet. Her upbringing hasn't really helped. We can only hope that being taken care of by her mom after the second movie will help her drop that. She's four, but she also thinks the R-rated film Shogun Assassin makes a fine bedtime story. Overall, this is pretty much an example of exactly why Beatrix didn't want Bill involved in B.B.'s life.
  • Walking Spoiler: Her existence in the second film, particularly her being very present in the trailer, spoils The Reveal of the first movie.

    Nikki Bell 

Nikkia "Nikki" Bell

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/nikki_bell.png

Played By: Ambrosia Kelley

Vernita's 4-year-old daughter.


  • Children Are Innocent: She's a typical young girl who lives in a white-picket-fence suburb and loves her parents.
  • Dissonant Serenity: She takes her mother's murder right in front of her eyes with surprising aplomb. Or maybe she was just too shocked to manage to do, well, anything.
  • Dull Surprise: She seems pretty calm and collected for a 4-year-old girl seeing her mom die.
  • Sequel Hook: Tarantino has said that if he ever makes a sequel to Kill Bill, it will involve Nikki seeking revenge on the Bride for killing her mother. He's even hinted at the possibility of a fourth movie; assuming Nikki is successful, the fourth will continue the Cycle of Revenge by having B.B. hunting down Nikki. However, Tarantino has admitted that if it does happen, it "won't be for quite a while".

    Earl McGraw 

Earl McGraw

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TropeMcGraw_7048.jpg
"This tall drink of cocksucker ain't dead."

Played By: Michael Parks

A policeman who investigates the wedding chapel massacre.


    Larry Gomez 

Larry Gomez

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1565.jpg
"Well, I'm not the boss of the customers. I'm the boss of you. And I'm telling you — I want you to keep that shit-kicker hat at home."

Played By: Larry Bishop

"You're saying that the reason... that you're not doing the job that I'm paying you to do... is that you don't have a job to do? Is that what you're saying?"

Budd's employer and owner of the Texas strip club he works at as a bouncer.


  • Bullying a Dragon: He has no idea the employee he chews out was once a champion assassin.
  • Drugs Are Bad: He snorts cocaine, and it makes him act hostile towards Budd.
  • Jerkass Has a Point: His conversation with Budd indicates that this isn't the first time the latter has arrived to work late, so he has the right to be pissed off at him. Also, telling your boss that it's okay to be late if there is no job for you to do at the moment is a pretty lame excuse.
  • Mean Boss: He gives Budd a harsh slating and suspends him for an indefinite period of time for being twenty minutes late. He also insults him over his hat and tells him not to wear it while at job for no reason other than "because I said so".

    Jay 

Jay

Played By: Sid Haig

One of Bud's coworkers at the strip club.



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