O-Ren Ishii: Quentin Tarantino’s vengeful head of the Yakuza
It’s undeniable that each member of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films are some of the most iconic cinematic character creations of the 21st Century. However, one of the most intriguing was O-Ren Ishii, also known by her code name Cottonmouth and played by Lucy Liu.
O-Ren was born on an American military base in Tokyo, Japan, and it seems like her early childhood was uneventful, as little is known of it. Her father was a high-ranking officer in the American army, and her mother was a Chinese-Japanese housewife.
However, O-Ren’s life changed forever when she was just nine years old, and assassins broke into her house under the order of the Yakuza crime boss Matsumoto. O-Ren’s father fought hard against the assassins, killing two of them, though he ultimately succumbed to the violence of Matsumoto’s right-hand man Riki.
Matsumoto then killed O-Ren’s mother, her screams piercing through the house and her blood falling onto O-Ren’s face from the mattress to where she had been hiding under the bed. Matsumoto’s men burned down the house, and although O-Ren escaped, she would forever be traumatised.
Two years later, at eleven years of age, O-Ren took her revenge, having begun training as an assassin herself. She exploited Matsumoto’s known paedophilia and lured him into a trap posing as an innocent schoolgirl. O-Ren plunged a katana deep into Matsumoto’s guts, echoing how he had killed her mother.
At the age of 20, O-Ren had become one of the top assassins in the world and had been sought out to join the highly-skilled Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. She was then part of the crew that wreaked havoc on The Bride’s wedding, killing all the guests bar the actual Bride. From there, O-Ren grew in notoriety and stature until she became “queen of the Tokyo underworld” and assumed the position of head boss of the Yakuza. When another boss, Tanaka, disagreed with her role, she ruthlessly sliced off his head. No one else spoke up in disagreement.
While O-Ren successfully sought revenge against those who killed her family, she was a target of vengeance from The Bride. One of the best scenes from Kill Bill Vol. 1 comes in its last act; once The Bride has had her sword made by the master sword maker Hattori Hanzo, she takes on O-Ren’s accomplices at the House of Blue Leaves.
A long battle ensues, with The Bride somehow killing or decapacitating the entirety of the Crazy 88 and telling those still alive to leave their limbs, for they belong to her now. O-Ren’s end comes in the garden of the House of Blue Leaves, a perfect snowy setting straight out of the finest moments of Kurosawa.
O-Ren and The Bride fight with their katanas, with O-Ren mocking The Bride, saying, “Silly Caucasian girl likes to play with Samurai swords”. However, The Bride gains the upper hand and beheads O-Ren. O-Ren’s final words are delivered from her decapacitated her rolling on the floor: “It was truly a Hanzo sword”.
As O-Ren had previously expressed slight remorse during the Massacre at Two Pines (The Bride’s wedding), The Bride subsequently feels an inkling of regret at the fact that her quest to take vengeance on her former associates has led to her having to kill even her friends. But who can say that O-Ren did not have it coming? Perhaps she even respected The Bride’s need and died with honour.
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