The '70s Japanese Action Star Who Inspired Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill

Writer and director Quentin Tarantino has made a name for himself delivering violent, dialogue-heavy dramas that draw heavily from exploitation cinema. His two-part ode to revenge movies, "Kill Bill," is likewise part kung fu epic, part Spaghetti Western, and part samurai film, with some other exploitation genre references sprinkled throughout. However, the biggest inspiration for the film is probably none other than actor Meiko Kaji. 

Kaji is a Japanese action star best known for playing the title character in the 1973 samurai revenge thriller "Lady Snowblood," though she appeared in more than 100 film and television roles across her career, helping to shape 1970s Japanese exploitation cinema along the way. Those movies, in turn, made "Kill Bill" the rip-roaring tale of revenge that it is, especially "Lady Snowblood" and its sequel, along with the four "Female Prisoner Scorpion" films. Kaji also sang the official theme songs for many of her movies, including "Flower of Carnage" for "Lady Snowblood" (which appears on the "Kill Bill: Volume 1" soundtrack) and "My Grudge Song" from "Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion" (which plays in "Kill Bill: Volume 2").

Few female action stars get to play the kind of stoic, steely characters that their male counterparts do, but Kaji made that her specialty and was absolutely killer at it. There's a direct line from Kaji to "Kill Bill," as the actor inspired everything from the climactic fight between "Kill Bill" protagonist The Bride (Uma Thurman) and one of her opponents, O'Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), in "Volume 1" to The Bride's very attitude. Other major Japanese stars from that era similarly influenced "Kill Bill," including martial arts legend Sonny Chiba and legendary stuntman Kenji Ohba (both of whom also appear in "Volume 1"), but not like Kaji did.

Again, the most obvious and direct connection between the "Kill Bill" movie and Kaji (besides the soundtrack) is the O'Ren Ishii character. The revenge-driven character is clearly modeled after Kaji, particularly her work in the films "Lady Snowblood" and "Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance." "Lady Snowblood" follows Yuki (Kaji), who was the product of assault and swears to get revenge for her mother, who died giving birth to her. By the same token, O-Ren also witnesses the death of both of her parents as a young girl and dedicates the rest of her life to revenge.

The parallels between the pair don't stop there, either. The final fight between The Bride and O-Ren in the snow in "Kill Bill: Volume 1" is almost directly taken from the climax of "Lady Snowblood," for starters, and O-Ren's past is told via an anime sequence, just like Yuki's is shown via manga panels. Both women fight exclusively with bladed weapons with a focus on katanas as well, and both absolutely rock their traditional formal attire. "Flower of Carnage" even plays over O-Ren's death, further cementing the connection. It makes sense, too: "Lady Snowblood" is one of the best Japanese movies of all time, and the references in "Kill Bill" helped a whole new generation to discover the film (and Kaji along with it). 

Aside from her musical career and the "Lady Snowblood" movies, Kaji is best known for playing Nami, the Scorpion, in the "Female Prisoner Scorpion" films. She's an antihero of very few words, sort of a Japanese "Man with No Name" who spends the first two films in prison before escaping and spending the third movie, "Beast Stable," on the run. Nami is a total badass who doesn't take names (or prisoners), and it's easy to see how she inspired the revenge-driven Bride in "Kill Bill." Sure, the Bride is a fair bit more talkative, but she's also an ice-cold killer who will do what it takes to get her revenge. Both have their limits, though, as Nami befriends a woman who witnesses her trying to remove a severed cop's arm from her wrist in "Beast Stable," while the Bride leaves her own witness in Vernita Green's (Vivica A. Fox) young daughter, potentially leading to her being the target for future revenge herself.

Despite her fame at the height of her career, Kaji stepped away from acting for the most part in the late 1970s due to overwork and the physical toll of doing repeated stunts. Because of that, she's not as well known outside of Japan as she really should be, but at least "Kill Bill" helped pay tribute to this incredible performer.