The Journey of Vengeance
/Everyone has been wronged at some point in their life. Which brings up the question; How far are you willing to go to get revenge? Which brings me to my main topic: The bride AKA Black Mamba: the main protagonist of Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol 1 and 2.
(Spoilers warning)
When we first see The Bride in Volume 1, she’s already on her vengeance spree targeting her former comrades. She’s in Pasadena and goes to Vernita Green AKA Copperhead’s house. We see that Vernita is now living under the name Jeannie Bell, now married and has a daughter named Nikki. They both plan to have a final battle out at a baseball diamond, but Vernita plays dirty and attempts to shoot her with a gun in a cereal box. However, the bride is quick to respond and kills Vernita with a knife in front of Nikki. Though she does apologize and say that she’ll be waiting if Nikki decides to get revenge when she grows up, implying that she knows deep down the repercussions of her mission, but going through it anyway.
Prior to this, we see a black and white shot of The Bride lying on the ground bruised, bloody and heavily breathing with an unseen man standing over her (Bill) before getting shot in the head and the opening credits being shown soon after.
The bride before getting shot
IMage provided by filmstudies2270.wordpress.com
Next, we see the first target on her list and the main antagonist of Volume 1, O-Ren Ishii, AKA Cottonmouth (please keep in mind that not everything in these films is chronological). We get an anime segment detailing O-Ren’s backstory.
O-Ren was born to a Chinese American father and Japanese mother on an American military base in Tokyo. As the Bride tells us, O-Ren made her first acquaintance with death at the age of nine. At that age, she witnessed her parents’ death at the hands of a yakuza boss, Boss Matsumoto. When the carnage is over, her house is set on fire, but she escapes and swears revenge. And she gets it a couple of years later when she brutally murders Boss Matsumoto in his bedroom. By 20, O-Ren is one of the top female assassins in the world globally, shown in a pretty funny scene where O-Ren assassinates a politician with two women present and after the deed is done, the women look at the body for a couple of seconds before letting out a scream. At 25, she was there with the other vipers during the El Paso wedding massacre that would put the bride into a four-year coma and kill her unborn daughter (the bride was pregnant, and it’s implied she had a miscarriage because of the beating she received).
The bride goes to Tokyo and eventually kills O-Ren by scalping her in a sword fight. Before the movie ends, we hear this wise quote from Hattori Hanzo: “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.”
By the time we get to Volume 2, her priority hasn’t changed, though this time she’s bringing closer to her main target: Bill. We find out more about the Bride and her relationship with Bill before the massacre put her on the warpath, to begin with. First, she tries to kill Budd, AKA Sidewinder, but the plan fails, and she gets trapped underground in a coffin.
During this time, we get a flashback seeing how the bride was taught how to fight. Back when she and Bill were still lovers, he dropped her off at the temple of Pai Mei, Bill’s former master, to receive more formal training. Before Bill leaves, he gives her warnings about Pai Mei and his… less than pleasant personality. “He hates Caucasians. Despises Americans and has nothing but contempt for women.” Despite hearing this, she proceeds onward, and when she meets Pai Mei, he’s everything Bill said he was. Worst of all, much to the bride’s and the audience’s surprise, he kicks her ass easily in a fight but then again, he was the one who trained her, so it was also expected. We then see a montage of the bride’s training, and boy is it brutal. But we do see that over time, Pai Mei sees how hard she’s working without any complaint, gradually making a lot of progress and respecting her more in turn, even though she represents everything he hates.
When the bride does eventually get out of the coffin using the one-inch punch taught to her by Pai Mei in the flashback, Elle Driver, AKA California King Snake, comes to Budd’s trailer and kills him using a real black mamba. We finally get the Bride’s real name: Beatrix Kiddo. Elle and Beatrix have a battle during which Elle says she killed Pai Mei by poisoning his fish heads after snatching out her eye, though to be fair, Elle called him a miserable old fool. Beatrix avenges him by plucking out Elle’s remaining eye and squishing it, leaving her blind with the black mamba. Beatrix had a shred of remorse for killing O-Ren and Vernita, but she felt no remorse for Elle.
Beatrix’s final fight with bill
Image provided by The Code Is Zeek
By the time she finally finds Bill, she gets caught by surprise when she sees… her daughter, who is still alive with him (Hey, I did warn you about spoilers). And when they put BB to bed, Bill and Beatrix have a discussion before their final battle ending with her saying “You and I have unfinished business.” Bill replies “Baby, you ain’t kidding.” and Beatrix kills him with the five-palm exploding heart technique (another move taught to her by Pai Mei). Although you couldn’t tell, Beatrix still loved Bill despite everything, even sharing a heartfelt goodbye with her crying in a mix of relief and sorrow.
But in the end, Beatrix has things work out for her and her daughter. But keep in mind, revenge is the solution to some things; it’s not the solution to everything.
Jhadiva Elliott
Hi, my name is Jhadiva. I’m a college student studying Professional Writing and the technical editor of this group.
My hobbies are writing, watching movies and karate. My favorite genres to write about and watch are horror, action, thriller, mystery and fantasy. I enjoy being creative and I find the flawed characters of stories to be the most interesting.
