Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)
Trivia
The shot where the Bride splits a baseball in two with a samurai sword was done for real on the set. It was done by Zoë Bell, Uma Thurman's stunt double.
Quentin Tarantino originally intended to cast a Japanese actress to play O-Ren Ishii, but before casting began, he saw Lucy Liu's work in Shanghai Noon (2000) and immediately changed O-Ren into a Chinese-Japanese-American, so that Liu could play the part.
When Chiaki Kuriyama (Gogo) was shooting the scene where she flings her ball and chain out, she accidentally hit Quentin Tarantino on the head as he stood by the camera.
The Bride's yellow outfit was inspired by the outfit worn by Bruce Lee in his final film, Game of Death (1978).
At the beginning of the fight scene between O-Ren and The Bride, after O-Ren says, in Japanese, "I hope you saved your energy. If you haven't, you may not last five minutes." It is exactly four minutes and fifty-nine seconds from the time she steps forward, and the music cues, until the fatal blow of the duel. From the time she says "five minutes" until the fatal blow, it is precisely five minutes and thirty seconds.
According to Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman in the DVD documentary, the idea for doing "Kill Bill" began during the filming of Pulp Fiction (1994). The two began talking about the kinds of movies that they would like to do, and Quentin said he would like to do a 70's style kung-fu flick. Uma came up with the film's opening shot of her beaten up and wearing a wedding gown.
Quentin Tarantino owns the "Pussy Wagon" and drove as his everyday vehicle to promote the release of Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004). He licensed use of it for the Missy Elliott music video, "I'm Really Hot". It also appears in the video for "Telephone" by Lady Gaga and Beyoncé.
Christopher Allen Nelson, who worked on the special effects, revealed in an interview that over four hundred fifty gallons of fake blood were used in the two Kill Bill movies.
The black-and-white photography in the Crazy 88 fight scene is known as a homage to '70s and '80s U.S. television airings of kung fu movies. Black and white (as well as black and red) was used to conceal the shedding of blood from television censors. Originally, no black-and-white photographic effects were going to be used (and in the Japanese version, none are), but the MPAA demanded measures be taken to tone the scene down. Tarantino used the old trick for its intended purpose as well as an homage.
Despite being bleeped out in the film, the name of The Bride is revealed on her plane tickets to Okinawa and Tokyo.
As Quentin Tarantino was leaving Japan after initial location scouting and securing the studios, he heard the all girl band "The 5,6,7,8's" playing over the store's speakers. He was so intrigued by the music that he asked a clerk who the band was. When he was told, Tarantino, who didn't have enough time to go to a music shop to get their CD, begged the clerk to sell him their copy. Quentin took the disc home, listened to it, and immediately signed the band to play during the "Showdown at the House of Blue Leaves" segment. All of the band's songs, including the stand-out "Woo Hoo" are covers of early 60's surfer songs.
DIRECTOR TRADEMARK (Quentin Tarantino): (long take): After The Bride leaves O-Ren's door at the House of Blue Leaves (when Go-Go returns inside) the camera follows her down the stairs through the bar, past the kitchen, into the ladies room. We then go out of the ladies' room, back to the stairs and follow Sofie Fatale along the exact same path to the ladies' room, ending with the ring of her cellphone. The shot is done in a single, unedited take.
Quentin Tarantino delayed the start of the production because Uma Thurman was pregnant.
Quentin Tarantino revealed in an interview that the music used in Kill Bill was all from other films. He used music from his soundtrack collection.
It took six years to write the entire script before being split into two parts. The original draft was about two hundred twenty pages long.
DIRECTOR TRADEMARK (Quentin Tarantino): (Red Apple cigarettes): When the Bride arrives at the Tokyo airport, she walks in front of a Red Apple cigarettes advertisement. Red Apple is a "Tarantino brand", one of several fictional products that are often seen in his films. Julie Dreyfus (Sofie Fatale) is the Red Apple model.
The church scene was shot in the Mojave Desert outside of Lancaster, California. Keep an eye out during this scene for cameos by Samuel L. Jackson as the dead organ player and Bo Svenson as the preacher.
Stunt woman Zoë Bell injured her back while working on this film, but didn't mention it, for fear of being replaced.
During filming, actors and actresses often provided a "Hello, Sally!" take. This involves the actor or actress finishing his or her take, turning to face the camera, and yelling "Hello, Sally!" Whether editor Sally Menke appreciates this is yet to be reported.
Quentin Tarantino was a big fan of Battle Royale (2000) and Ju-on: The Curse (2000), so he cast Chiaki Kuriyama (who played in those movies) as Gogo Yubari.
According to Uma Thurman, Quentin had her watch three movies in preparation for this film: John Woo's The Killer (1989), Coffy (1973) (Starring Jackie Brown (1997) star Pam Grier), and Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars (1964).
Quentin Tarantino, in his conversation with Indian director Anurag Kashyap, admitted that the celebrated manga animation-action sequence in Kill Bill was inspired from the Hindi-Tamil film, Aalavandhan (2001) starring Kamal Haasan. Tarantino was quoted saying 'Yes, saw this Indian serial killer film which showed violence as animated'.
The miniature sets used to depict Tokyo when the Bride arrives in Japan were actually leftovers of the Yokohama set used in the then most recent Godzilla film (Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)).
The closing title card, "Based on the character of 'The Bride' created by Q and U", refers to the first initials of Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman.
The infamous long take scene took six hours to rehearse, and was shot in seventeen takes. After that, Steadicam operator Larry McConkey was rumored to have passed out from exhaustion.
The Japanese symbols on the background of the poster spell "kirubiru" which is the Japanese spelling for "Kill Bill".
There has been speculation among fans of the film that the reason behind Hanzo's blood oath to never "make something that kills" again, was a direct result of being deceived by Bill. While under Hanzo's training, Bill convinced him to craft swords for several of the DiVAS (namely himself, Budd, and O-Ren), under the guise of presents or some other innocent excuse, when the swords were in fact to be used as part of the group's arsenal of weapons to assassinate people for hire. When Hanzo discovered Bill's true motivations, he was so disgusted and scandalized by this, Hanzo fled to Okinawa and swore the blood oath, only making the sword for The Bride as a way of evening the scales and atoning for having his creations used by those who would assassinate people for money.
The original trailer for this film, although featuring no actual bloodshed, raised the ire of the MPAA with the sight of The Bride's blood-stained clothes. As such it became the first to be subjected to the MPAA's new "no blood" policy for trailers, in which all sight of the bodily fluid must be alternately colored or removed entirely. This is why the trailers for this film (and similarly for every film released in the U.S. thereafter) feature The Bride's clothes covered in blackish-brown stains where the blood would be. Incidentally, the color of dried blood is blackish-brown, which means that the MPAA unknowingly made Tarantino change the color from fresh blood (red) to that of dried blood.
The license plate for Buck's truck is a Texas plate that reads PSY WGN. When the movie is shown on network television, and the name of the truck is edited to "Party Wagon", the license plate remains the same.
On the The Making of 'Kill Bill' (2003), Tarantino noted that the split-screen scene, where Elle (Daryl Hannah) is about to enter The Bride's (Uma Thurman's) room and kill her, was an homage to Brian De Palma.
To entice Robert Richardson to work on the project, Quentin Tarantino had the script sent to his house on Valentine's Day 2002, along with a bouquet of roses.
The name Hattori Hanzo was borne by four ninjas in feudal Japan but the most famous was born in the mid sixteenth century. As well as being an excellent strategist and a master of the spear, he and his ninja were instrumental in ushering in the Tokugawa Period of Japanese history (1603-1868).
Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) whistles the theme from Twisted Nerve (1968) while entering the hospital. The whistling from Bernard Herrmann's composition is isolated until Elle enters a changing room.
In order to achieve the specific look of Chinese "wuxia" (martial arts) film of the 1970s, Quentin Tarantino gave director of photography Robert Richardson an extensive list of genre films as a crash course in the visual style they used. The list included films by genre pioneers Cheh Chang and the Shaw Brothers. Tarantino also forbade the use of digital effects and "professional" gags and squibs. As such, he insisted that bloody spurts be done in the fashion made popular by Chang Cheh: Chinese condoms full of fake blood that would splatter on impact.
Quentin Tarantino had intended for three actors of different nationalities to represent their respective countries. Chia-Hui Liu represents China, Shin'ichi "Sonny" Chiba represents Japan, and David Carradine represents the United States. Tarantino said that had Bruce Lee had still been alive, he'd have been asked to appear in Kill Bill as well.
The Bride refers to Bill's assassins as the vipers. Their formal title is "The Deadly International Viper Assassination Squad". Or, for short THE DIVAS.
Quentin Tarantino only had Uma Thurman in mind to play The Bride.
This film and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) are the only Quentin Tarantino films in which there is no mention of the word "n*****."
Michael Madsen's character is named "Budd" as a tribute to Budd Boetticher, one of Quentin Tarantino's favorite directors.
Gogo Yubari is not a real Japanese name. "Gogo" derives from Mach Go Go Go (a.k.a. Speed Racer), a Japanese animé that Quentin Tarantino liked when he was young. Yubari is the name of a small town in Hokkaido, northern Japan, that is famous for melons and film. Tarantino's first visit to Japan was to showcase Reservoir Dogs (1992) at the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival.
Quentin Tarantino chose Jun Kunimura to be Boss Tanaka after seeing him scream in Ichi the Killer (2001).
Warren Beatty was originally offered the role of Bill. After turning it down, he suggested to Quentin Tarantino that he use David Carradine.
The members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad are all named after snakes. Bill drives a De Tomaso Mangusta. "Mangusta" is Italian for "Mongoose", which are well-known for their ability to fight and kill venomous snakes, particularly cobras.
Shin'ichi "Sonny" Chiba, who plays the sword maker Hattori Hanzô, played a character by the same name in the hit Japanese television show Shadow Warriors (1980), and depicted ninjas of feudal Japan.
The conversation between Hanzo and the assistant, where the assistant says "If this were the military, I'd be General by now!", is taken almost verbatim from Fighting Back (1948).
"The Bells" sign seen on the letterbox at the beginning of Chapter One was given to Uma Thurman's stunt double Zoë Bell by Quentin Tarantino. Bell presented it to her parents, The Bells.
In Hattori Hanzo's sushi restaurant, there is a four-character Chinese saying hanging above the bar. It says "zui sheng meng si," literally "drunk birth, dream death." A rough meaningful translation is "To lead an unimportant and often dissipated life."
DIRECTOR TRADEMARK (Quentin Tarantino): (bare feet): Lucy Liu is barefoot as she runs to kill Boss Tanaka. The band at the House of Blue Leaves is barefoot. The Bride is barefoot as she escapes from the hospital, and tries to regain control of her legs. Uma Thurman's bare feet were introduced in Pulp Fiction (1994) before her face is shown.
Sofie Fatale's (Julie Dreyfus') cell phone ring is "Auld Lang Syne", specifically the tune for the line, "Should auld acquaintance be forgot". However, the tune is also a popular tradition in Japan, where it is known as "Hotaru no Hikari". This version contains completely different lyrics, and is commonly associated with graduation ceremonies.
The characters streaming down the left side of the screen in the opening scenes are Japanese kanji and hiragana. They read "Hana yome ga kuru, hana yome ga kuru" ("The Bride is coming, the Bride is coming") over and over again.
The original script featured Bill to be a master chemist. The liquid in the syringe was pointed out to be a concoction created by Bill, dubbed "Goodbye Forever". These potions and elixirs were to be detailed by on-screen subtitles. The Bride would also use a mix called "The Undisputed Truth" to get information from Sofie Fatale. In Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), Bill would use "The Undisputed Truth" on The Bride.
The sunglasses The Bride (Uma Thurman) takes from Buck (Michael Bowen) at the hospital are the same style Christian Slater wore in True Romance (1993), also written by Quentin Tarantino.
In the original script, Johnny Mo was called Mr. Barrel. He had a Kato mask on a stick, like someone from a seventeenth century costume ball. Mr. Barrel didn't like the rubber bands on the typical Kato masks because they "fucked up his hair". The Bride convinces him not to fight her, and he walks away, leaving O-Ren with no bodyguards.
During the fight scene between Gogo Yubari and the Bride, the sound of bowling pins being knocked over can be heard as Gogo flips over after being hit in the back of the head with a flail.
The entrance to the traffic tunnel in Tokyo is in fact the entrance to the second street tunnel in Los Angeles (Blade Runner (1982)) with Japanese traffic signs added.
When Tarantino planned to cast Gogo and Yuki Yubari, his first choices were Chiaki Kuriyama and Ko Shibasaki. Both had roles in the hit movie, Battle Royale (2000).
Vernita Green's (Vivica A. Fox's) original codename was "Cobra", before it was changed to "Copperhead".
On the wall of the House of Blue Leaves are the letters Q and U. These refer to the first names of Quentin Tarantino and Uma Thurman, as the creators of The Bride.
The paintings on the walls of Vernita's (Vivica A. Fox's) house, in the opening scenes, were provided by visual artist Rodney Grier, brother of Pam Grier, the star of Tarantino's earlier film Jackie Brown (1997).
During production, Quentin Tarantino wrote new scenes as he shot, thus compiling massive amounts of footage.
Although the siren sound heard before The Bride goes on a rampage is credited to Quincy Jones' theme from the television show Ironside (1967), it is more of an homage to the Shaw Brothers' kung-fu classic Five Fingers of Death (1972) (a.k.a. King Boxer). The U.S. release of Five Fingers of Death (1972) used the siren from the Ironside (1967) theme whenever its protagonist went on a vengeful rampage.
Part of the movie was shot at the legendary The Shaw Brothers Creative Group studio in Hong Kong. Quentin Tarantino has seen so many movies made at the studio, he felt it was important for him to work there.
David Carradine is only heard in the film, never seen (barring his hands in the opening scene, and in the closing scene).
Tarantino said the Grindhouse films were also an influence on Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003). He later got to make a Grindhouse film with Death Proof (2007).
Quentin Tarantino said the scene when The Bride spits on the church floor while comatose was inspired by the Australian horror film Patrick (1978).
Kevin Costner was also considered for the title role of "Bill", but turned it down to do Open Range (2003) instead.
Quentin Tarantino has said in interviews that had Warren Beatty taken the part of Bill, the character would have been more of a suave, James Bond-type.
During the scene when O-Ren Ishii celebrates her ascension to the head of the Tokyo Yakuza, she is wearing a black kimono. It is a kurotomesode with long sleeves (dangling near the floor). The kurotomesode is the most formal kimono, is for married women only, and would only be made with short sleeves.
In an interview, Quentin Tarantino stated that the Raquel Welch western Hannie Caulder (1971) is one of his influences behind the film. In that film, Hannie Caulder becomes a vengeful gunwoman after her husband is murdered, and when she is raped by the three outlaws responsible. In this film, The Bride (Thurman) seeks vengeance upon Bill, and the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, after they wronged her at her wedding, in which her husband-to-be, and the wedding guests, were slain, and The Bride was raped by Buck, while in her coma.
The music sampled for "Ode to O-Ren Ishii" is the title track from the film Murder to the Tune of the Seven Black Notes (1977). Since an instrumental version is not included on the soundtrack, it has become an increasingly popular download.
Shin'ichi "Sonny" Chiba was cast in this movie due to the reason that Tarantino is a big fan of Chiba, especially his Street Fighter movies.
Lucy Liu wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post in April 2021 to push back against Teen Vogue for calling her "Kill Bill" villain, the Yakuza leader O-Ren Ishii, a recent example of Hollywood's harmful Dragon Lady Asian stereotype. In an essay titled "Hollywood Played a Role in Hypersexualizing Asian Women," writer India Roby defines the Dragon Lady as "cunning and deceitful" and a character who "uses her sexuality as a powerful tool of manipulation, but often is emotionally and sexually cold and threatens masculinity." Roby then cites O-Ren as a contemporary example. For Liu, calling the O-Ren character a Dragon Lady doesn't make sense when writer-director Quentin Tarantino populated a lot of "Kill Bill" with similarly-minded female assassins. As Liu asked, "'Kill Bill' features three other female professional killers in addition to Ishii. Why not call Uma Thurman, Vivica A. Fox or Daryl Hannah a dragon lady? I can only conclude that it's because they are not Asian. I could have been wearing a tuxedo and a blond wig, but I still would have been labeled a dragon lady because of my ethnicity. If I can't play certain roles because mainstream Americans still see me as Other, and I don't want to be cast only in 'typically Asian' roles because they reinforce stereotypes, I start to feel the walls of the metaphorical box we AAPI women stand in." Liu wrote she "feels fortunate to have moved the needle" for Asian and Asian-American actresses in Hollywood because "Hollywood frequently imagines a more progressive world than our reality."
During the animé sequence explaining O-Ren's (Lucy Liu's) origins, you briefly see that O-Ren's father held the rank of Sergeant Major in the U.S. Army.
The line "My name's Buck, and I'm here to fuck" was taken from the opening line in Tobe Hooper's horror/exploitation film Eaten Alive (1976). Robert Englund's character says "The name's Buck, and I'm rarin' to fuck."
The idea for Kill Bill could have been inspired by The Bride Wore Black (1968). The storyline is about a woman who takes vengeance on five men who shoot to kill (accidentally) her husband just after the wedding ceremony. The killing occurs at a church and the woman makes a list once she knows the names of the men involved.
As Earl McGraw (Michael Parks) arrives at the Two Pines crime scene, there are several shades of sunglasses side-by-side on the dashboard of his car. Tarantino is paying homage to the H.B. Halicki car chase classics Gone in 60 Seconds (1974) and The Junkman (1982) where star/director Halicki also placed sunglasses next to each other on the dashboard of cars he drove.
Daryl Hannah's character is called "Elle Driver". The production team for the documentary Full Tilt Boogie (1997), a documentary about the production of From Dusk Till Dawn (1996) (which starred Quentin Tarantino), is called "L. Driver Productions".
The Bride draws the figure of a square in the air using her finger. In Pulp Fiction (1994), Mia Wallace (Uma Thurman) makes a similar gesture while talking to Vincent (John Travolta).
Michael Bowen (Buck) and David Carradine (Bill) share three siblings, but are themselves not related. Carradine is the son of John Carradine and Ardanelle McCool, while Bowen is the son of Sonia Sorel and Michael Bowen, Sr. However, Sorel and John Carradine had three children together, including Keith and Robert Carradine.
Despite the fact that this was filmed in Super 35 (3-perf), "Filmed in Panavision" is listed in the end credits.
When Uma Thurman is approaching "The Bells" house, "Music Box Dancer" is playing in the background. Frank Mills composed this song after several years of performing in a band called "The Bells".
The House of Blue Leaves fight sequence took 8 weeks to film, the same amount of time it took for Quentin Tarantino to film Pulp Fiction (1994).
The members of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad are all named for snakes: Sidewinder, Black Mamba, Cottonmouth, Copperhead, and California Mountain (King) snake. Of the five, only the kingsnake is non-venomous.
Odd Future sampled O-Ren Ishii saying, "Now, if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, now's the fucking time!" for their 2010 song "Alright".
When The Bride is standing outside Vernita Green's house, an ice cream truck jingle is played. It's "Music Box Dancer" by the Canadian pianist Frank Mills, a 1978 hit single, also used in the Nickelodeon television series Pinwheel (1977). In the original script, Yuki Yubari (attempting to avenge the death of her sister, Gogo) stalked The Bride in an ice cream truck.
The name the sword maker, Hattori Hanzo, is also the name of a samurai who was a warrior for the shogun, Oda Nobunaga, in the year of 1570.
Of all the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad codenames only 3; Sidewinder, Cottonmouth and Copperhead are actually Pit Vipers. The Black Mamba is actually a member of the Elapidae family of snakes like the Cobra. The California Mountain Snake ( Kingsnake ) belongs to the colubrid New World constrictor family. They are non venomous. The "king" in the name (as with the king cobra) refers to the fact that they prey on other snakes including venomous species. Fittingly and perhaps purposely the name is given to Elle Driver who Bill may have thought was most likely to "prey on" her fellow team members.
When it was pointed out to Uma Thurman that her character's codename in the film - Black Mamba - is also the name of a type of vibrator, she replied "In my personal experience, I've never come across that particular model. And I've tried a few."
The blurry lights scene transition is the same as was used in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), which would also explain the title card for Chapter 4 "The MAN from Okinawa". If you listen really close, you can even hear the drum background used in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), which would suggest that writer and director Quentin Tarantino either went to a great deal of trouble to duplicate it, or just borrowed it from an actual The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964) episode.
The view of the trees through the windows of the Bride's hospital room (just before Elle enters as a nurse) is taken from I.D. (1995).
When The Bride's sword gets stuck in one of the Crazy 88, the same music plays as when Major Hellstrom arrives outside Shosanna's movie theater in Inglourious Basterds (2009). The music appears to suggest impending danger.
Xena: Warrior Princess (1995) has been speculated as one of Quentin Tarantino's inspirations behind the film. Quentin Tarantino admitted in an interview that he is a Xena fan. He praised the show for its action, storytelling, and the magnificence of Xena's backstory.
The Bride's nickname when she was a member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad was "Black Mamba", one of the deadliest land snakes in the world.
Included among the "1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die", edited by Steven Schneider.
One of the songs used in the film is the main theme of the western The Grand Duel (1972) starring Lee Van Cleef.
The restaurant where The Bride fights O-Ren is called The House of Blue Leaves. "The House of Blue Leaves" was a play written by John Guare.
Yôji Tanaka and Chiaki Kuriyama played supporting characters in the Ju-on horror franchise, the former appearing in Ju-on: The Grudge (2002) and the latter appearing in the earlier film Ju-on: The Curse (2000). Quentin Tarantino is a fan of the Japanese horror franchise.
While O-Ren Ishii's age is never mentioned, we can gather that she is either twenty-nine or thirty, since The Bride states that she was twenty-five when she took her part in trying to kill her, and it is four years later.
Michael Madsen only gets a couple of lines, and even then, it's right at the end of the film.
The split-screen effect used in the hospital scene, in which the audience sees The Bride (Uma Thurman) on the left, and Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah) on the right, in two separate but simultaneous shots, is a homage to director Brian De Palma (Carrie, 1976).
Vivica A. Fox dated 50 Cent (2003) who dated Chelsea Handler (2011) who dated André Balazs (2011-13) who dated Uma Thurman (2003-06; 2006-07; 2014-2015).
The Bride's killing one of the Crazy 88 by slicing him vertically & instantly with her sword is a possible nod to The Big Boss (1971), in which the main protagonist Cheng Chao-An (Bruce Lee), kills one of the Boss' henchmen with a saw. In that film, the scene was ultimately cut before release, due to its lack of realism. See The Big Boss (1971).
RZA was originally brought in by Quentin Tarantino to help him find sound effects and music from Kung-Fu films to use in his film because Tarantino felt RZA's knowledge of the genre matched his own. RZA has large library of sound effects and music from Kung-Fu films which he utilizes when producing the Wu-tang Clan which he used to help Tarantino find the right sounds. Their collaboration eventually evolved into RZA creating some original music for the film.
The Bride's killing one of the Crazy 88 with a hatchet is a possible nod to Mannaja (1977), in which the main protagonist Blade (Maurizio Merli), a bounty hunter whose weapon of choice is a hatchet, seeks revenge upon McGowan for the death of his father.
The one scene where the violence was unprovoked portrays the killing off-screen heightening the poignancy of the wedding chapel murder. All the other scenes of violence that are considered "justifiable" are graphically displayed in typical Tarantino fashion.
Uma Thurman and Vivica A. Fox were both in the critically panned DC movie, Batman & Robin (1997) six years earlier both interact with Arnold Schwarzenegger (Mr. Freeze) in that film, ambroisa Kelley was born when Batman Forever (1995) came out.
The use of music in the film in many ways matches the use of music in Kung Fu/martial arts films of the Shaw Brothers and such. In in lieu of an original score or production music, the films would use pop music or the score from from Blaxploitation films or Spaghetti Westerns. This was often done without permission. The music in the House of Blue Leaves fight even uses the same cues which many Kung-Fu films used illegally. When O-Ren retreats Super 16 by Neu! is heard which was used in Master of the Flying Guillotine (1976). during the switch to black and white the main theme from Day of Anger (1967) by Riz Ortolani is played briefly. The theme was also used in Bloody Struggle (1972), My 12 Kung Fu Kicks (1979) and The Invincible Armour (1977). When the Bride's sword get's stuck, music from White Lightning (1973) by Charles Bernstein is heard, the same music (among with much of the score from White Lightning (1973)) used in Hitman in the Hand of Buddha (1981). The revenge theme "Ironside" by Quincy Jones was used in Five Fingers of Death (1972), which also happens to be one of Quentin Tarantino's favorite martial arts-films.
Right before O-Ren fights The Bride, O-Ren says she's worried The Bride might not last five minutes. The time it takes between when she says that until she gets her fatal injury is five minutes and thirty seconds.
Chiaki Kuriyama's birthday shares the same day when this film was released in the American theaters (October 10).
Director Cameo
Quentin Tarantino: When The Bride stands over the remains of the Crazy 88s, a masked Quentin Tarantino is among them.
Director Trademark
Quentin Tarantino: [Trunk Shot] While The Bride is interrogating Sofie Fatale, we see from Sofie's point of view inside the trunk of her own car looking up at the masked Bride.
Spoilers
According to David Carradine, the man in the animé flashback who kills O-Ren's father was a younger Bill.
In the early stages of filming, O-Ren was supposed to be decapitated at the end of her battle with The Bride, but it was changed because she would have never known that The Bride's sword was truly a Hanzo sword had she been beheaded.
When The Bride is walking towards the stairs, in the House of Blue Leaves, to fight the first round of bodyguards, you see a shot taken from underneath through the glass floor. The soles of her shoes read "Fuck U".
Bill calls The Bride by her last name, Kiddo, in the film's opening scene. The audience, not knowing her last name, is meant to assume it is simply a term of endearment.
Julie Dreyfus speaks three different languages in the movie. She speaks fluent Japanese until the end, where she speaks in her native French to insult The Bride, and then in clear English when she talks to Bill. In real life, Julie Dreyfus is trilingual.
The line that O-Ren and The Bride speak together in the House of Blue Leaves, "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids", refers to an advertising slogan for Trix breakfast cereal. It is also a cryptic reference to The Bride's name, which in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) is revealed to be Beatrix Kiddo.
The character Gogo was originally written as two characters: the twin Yubari sisters, Gogo and Yuki. Gogo had almost no lines, and after her death at the hands of The Bride, Yuki would seek her out, only to be killed as well, in the "lost" chapter "Yuki's Revenge". All of Gogo's dialogue in the final film would have been spoken by Yuki.
Quentin Tarantino and producer Harvey Weinstein have been quoted as saying that Kill Bill was separated into two parts well into production. By splitting the movie into two parts, the film's advertising tagline, "In 2003, Uma Thurman Will Kill Bill!" was made false.
Originally, Quentin Tarantino wanted Michael Madsen to play Johnny Mo. However, he decided that Madsen would be better as Bill's brother, so he had him play Budd instead.
The final fight scene in Django Unchained (2012), in which Django (Jaime Foxx) tells Steven (Samuel L. Jackson) to stay right where he is mirrors the scene in which The Bride tells Sophie Fatale to stay right where she is in the aftermath of the sword battle with the Crazy 88.
Warren Beatty was Tarantino's first choice for Bill. He ultimately did not use him over creative differences. Beatty thought that Bill should not appear until the bride arrives at his home.
The scene in which The Bride (Uma Thurman) kills Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox), and the "I'll be waiting" speech she makes to Nikki (Ambrosia Kelley), mirrors a similar scene from another revenge film, The Punisher (1989). In a similar scene from that film, Frank Castle (Dolph Lundgren) says to Tommy Franco, "Because if you don't... I'll be waiting", when he kills his father Gianni (Jeroen Krabbe).
