20 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Kill Bill: Vol. 1

One of Quentin Tarantino's most enjoyable movies, Kill Bill Vol. 1 was his first attempt at action cinema. And what an attempt.

You're probably a fan, but how much do you know about the movie? Slice your way through these chunks of trivia and find out.

(Images: AllStar)

1

Quentin Tarantino offered Uma Thurman the role of The Bride as her 30th birthday present.

2

Warren Beatty was offered the role of Bill but turned it down, suggesting to Tarantino that he hire David Carradine.

3

After O-Ren (Lucy Liu) tells The Bride she might "not last five minutes" in their fight, it's 4:59 seconds exactly until the fight ends.

4

The Japanese characters on the poster spell 'Kiru Biru', the closest possible translation of Kill Bill.

5

Over 450 gallons of blood were used in the production of the film.

6

Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox) originally had the codename Cobra, but it was later changed to Copperhead.

7

Tarantino took a massive 155 days to shoot the movie. Kill Bill was originally supposed to be one film but it was decided in the edit to cut it in two, rather than risk releasing a single movie that ran longer than four hours.

8

The long 'single take' shot of The Bride walking through The House of Blue Leaves took six hours to rehearse and seventeen takes to get right.

9

Tarantino discovered The 5,6,7,8's, The House of Blue Leaves house band, while shopping in Japan. He heard the band in a shop and asked the sales assistant to sell him the CD, then went home and signed them up for the film.

10

The fight in The House of Blue Leaves took eight weeks to shoot. The MPAA insisted that Tarantino cut the scene due to the amount of blood. Instead he changed it to black and white, which the MPAA approved. The Japanese version of the scene remains in colour.

11

Tarantino decided to cast Lucy Liu as O-Ren Ishii after seeing her in Shanghai Noon. He rewrote the character as Japanese-Chinese-American to accommodate her.

12

Quentin Tarantino asked Uma Thurman to watch three films prior to shooting: The Killer, A Fistful of Dollars and blaxploitation movie Coffy.

13

The character of Gogo Yubari was originally supposed to be two people, twins called Gogo and Yuki.

14

A total of 95 people are killed in the film.

15

The sunglasses The Bride steals from Buck are the same as the ones Christian Slater wears in True Romance, which was also written by Tarantino.

16

Daryl Hannah was instructed to watch the Swedish film They Call Her One Eye as preparation for playing one-eyed killer Elle Driver.

17

The start of shooting had to be delayed by a year when Uma Thurman found out she was pregnant.

18

Kevin Costner was offered the role of Bill but turned it down in favour of making Open Range.

19

A combined print of Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, known as The Whole Bloody Affair, exists and was shown at the Cannes Film Festival prior to the decision to cut the film into two parts.

20

Tarantino makes a very brief cameo as one of the bodies in the aftermath of the Crazy 88 massacre.