The Bride (Kill Bill)

Beatrix Kiddo
Kill Bill character
The Bride fights the Crazy 88
First appearance	Volume 1
Last appearance	Volume 2
Created by	Q & U
Portrayed by	Uma Thurman
In-universe information
Alias	The Bride Black Mamba Arlene Machiavelli
Occupation	Assassin
Children	B.B. (Daughter)
Nationality	United States

Beatrix Kiddo, primarily known as "The Bride", is a fictional character and the protagonist in the movie Kill Bill by American director Quentin Tarantino. She is portrayed by Uma Thurman and was selected by Empire Magazine as one of The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.

Beatrix Kiddo's past

The Bride, codenamed "Black Mamba", is a former member of the "Deadly Viper Assassination Squad", an elite, shadowy group of assassins. A formidable, ruthless warrior trained under martial arts master Pai Mei (Gordon Liu), she served at the right hand of Bill (David Carradine), her boss and lover, a position that provoked the furious envy of Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah), who was also Bill's lover.

Kiddo, a master of the Tiger/Crane style of kung fu, is the only Viper to learn the "Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique", a method of killing a person by quickly striking five pressure points around the heart with the fingertips. After the victim takes five steps, the heart explodes and he/she falls dead. Pai Mei supposedly refused to teach this technique, which was said to be "the deadliest blow in all of martial arts", to Bill or anyone else. Kiddo's determination wins his respect, however, and he teaches her the forbidden technique - a secret that Kiddo withholds from Bill until they meet for their final showdown.

Kill Bill Vol. 1

These events are described in chronological order. The film's sequence varies.

Kiddo is first seen on the day of her wedding rehearsal in rural Texas, living under the name "Arlene Machiavelli", having previously left Bill and abandoned the Vipers. Bill finds her, however, and gate-crashes her wedding rehearsal with the other Vipers and murders everyone inside. Bill then shoots her in the head, leaving her in a seemingly irreversible coma. She remains comatose for four years, during which she is repeatedly prostituted and raped by an orderly named Buck (Michael Bowen).

Awakening just as one of Buck's "clients" is about to violate her, she kills the would-be rapist and then Buck, before beginning a mission of revenge on the other Vipers.

She then travels to Okinawa, where she convinces the legendary swordsmith Hattori Hanzō (Sonny Chiba) to come out of retirement and forge one of his peerless katana for her. After getting the sword, Kiddo arrives at the "House of Blue Leaves" where she faces O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu).

Kiddo encounters Sofie Fatale (Julie Dreyfus) in a washroom, where she recognizes her cellphone's "Auld Lang Syne" ringtone, and remembers her from the El Paso massacre. Kiddo captures her and brings her to O-Ren Ishii, where she cuts off her left arm, as a means of both seeking revenge on her for her presence at the massacre in El Paso and showing Ishii her intentions for a duel. O-Ren Ishii sends a few of the Crazy 88 gang and Gogo Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama) to fight and kill Beatrix; however, Beatrix kills the few Crazy 88 members and then kills Gogo. Johnny Mo (Gordon Liu) then arrived with dozens of the Crazy 88, who are then dispatched by the Bride in a brutal fight. The Bride then faces off against Ishii, but not before she tells the defeated and still living members of the Crazy 88 to leave, but also orders that their dismembered limbs be left as they belong to her now just as her arm belonged to Pai Mei. The Bride then faces off against O-Ren, climaxing in a dramatic swordfight in a snowy garden.

After killing O-Ren, Kiddo then tortures Sofie Fatale for the locations of the rest of the members of the Vipers. She then sends her rolling down a hill to a hospital for medical attention so she could live on and tell Bill what had transpired, and that Kiddo is still alive.

Kiddo then finds Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox), who had renounced her life as a hired killer and started anew in a quiet suburban neighborhood with a new husband and daughter. Kiddo shows up at her doorstep and engages her in brutal hand to hand combat. However, during the fight, Green's daughter Nikki comes home from school, and Kiddo is unwilling to kill Green in front of her child. Green tries to apologize for what she had done, but Kiddo is implacable. Thinking quickly, Green shoots at her with a handgun concealed in a cereal box, but misses. Kiddo quickly throws a knife at Green, killing her.

Nikki goes to the kitchen just in time to see Kiddo kill her mother. Pained but unremorseful, Kiddo tells the girl that it was not her intent to kill Green in front of her; and that if the young girl wishes to avenge her mother's death when she grows up, Kiddo would be waiting.

Kill Bill Vol. 2

Vol. 2 expands on the circumstances of Kiddo's shooting. Bill finds her on the day of her wedding rehearsal and pretends to give her his blessing; moments later, however, he leads the Vipers in massacring the chapel and putting Kiddo in a coma.

The film then returns to where Vol. 1 left off. After killing Vipers O-Ren Ishii and Vernita Green, Kiddo goes after Budd (Michael Madsen), Bill's brother. Laying in wait underneath Budd's trailer, she charges in the front door only to be shot in the chest by Budd with a shotgun loaded with rock salt, so as not to kill her. He sedates her and calls Elle Driver, Kiddo's archrival within the Vipers, to bargain a price for the Hanzo sword. Budd and an accomplice then take her to a graveyard and bury her alive. During her imprisonment, she recalls her rigorous training sessions under the tutelage of the martial arts master, Pai Mei. Using one of the many techniques she learned from him, Kiddo escapes and goes back to Budd's trailer where he lies dead, having been bitten by a black mamba hidden in the suitcase Driver brought that contained $1 million in return for the Hanzo sword. Driver, still in the trailer after Budd's death, engages Beatrix in a brutal battle, in which Driver reveals that she had killed Pai Mei as revenge for tearing out her eye. Enraged, Beatrix tears out Elle's other eye, leaving her completely blind, and leaves Driver to (presumably) die in the middle of the desert. Beatrix then pursues her final target, Bill.

When she finds him, from information provided by Esteban Vihaio (Michael Parks), she discovers that their daughter, B.B. (Perla Haney-Jardine), whom she presumed had died in utero, is alive and well. They spend the evening together as a family until B.B. goes to bed, and then Bill and Kiddo settle their differences; Bill explains his reasons for trying to kill her, while she admits she could not be happy as anything other than a warrior — except, perhaps, as a mother.

At the end of their conversation, a brief fight ensues where Kiddo fatally strikes Bill using the "Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique". As Bill dies, the two forgive each other and make their peace. The Bride then disappears with B.B. in the middle of the night. The next morning, she lies on the bathroom floor of the hotel that she and B.B stayed in after she fled Bill's villa, crying and laughing at once. The two then drive off into the sunset to begin a new life.

See also

• List of women warriors in folklore, literature, and popular culture

External links

• Template:Imdb character