O-Ren Ishii

O-Ren Ishii was one of the main villains of the Kill Bill movies and the final enemy faced by the Bride in the first one. She is portrayed by Lucy Liu.

History
O-Ren Ishii was a half - Chinese / Japanese American who was born to an American Japanese man and Chinese woman. When she was 9 years old, she witnessed her parents being brutally murdered under the orders of a deadly Yakuza leader known as Boss Matsumoto while she hid under the bed and she swore revenge. Two years later when she was 11 years old she became a student under Hanzo Hattori, a famous swordmaker and swordsman. Since Matsumoto was a pedophile, she killed him by gutting him on his bed with her sword and she successfully avenged her parent's death. By the time she was 20 years old, she became one of the world's top most deadly female assassins because of her expertise in sword fighting and espionage tactics and she eventually became part of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad where she was code-named Cottonmouth. She worked for the squad for 5 years, and then she left the squad after torturing The Bride, a fellow Viper Squad member, during her wedding ceromony along with the rest of the squad members. Four years later, when she was 29 years old, she became the head of the Tokyo Yakuza with the help of Bill, who was her leader in the Deadly Viper Squad, and was known as the Queen of Underworld Tokyo. She even has her own bodyguard army known as the Crazy 88 led by Johnny Mo, and her own personal bodyguard, Gogo Yubari.



Personality
For being born an American, O-Ren was very skillful in speaking English as well as Japanese, her native language. She was extremely proud of her heritage and will not hesitate to kill anyone especially her own subordinates who dared to insult her family heritage because she loved her parents very much and would not tolerate being spoken to in an ill mattered way. Despite this, she was calm and level headed most of the time. She even encouraged her subordinates to speak their minds about her plans if they are not too convinced, as long as it is in a respectful matter and does not have anything to do with her background. For being a female, she was an expert in business leadership. She did show some concern for her close subordinates. This was shown when she saw her best friend and Second-in-Command Sofie Fatale, who had her left arm cut off from The Bride with her sword.

Plot
While visiting the club called " The House of Blue Leaves", she was pursued by The Bride since she was part of The Bride's assassination list. During her encounter with The Bride, she had Gogo and the Crazy 88 fight against The Bride while she makes her quiet escape. However, The Bride managed to kill nearly all of O-Ren's bodyguards and finally caught up with her. Outside the club, O-Ren and The Bride engaged in combat with their swords in the snow. As the fight resumes, O-Ren injuried and mocked the The Bride by referring to her as a foolish white girl who likes to play with Samurai swords, which leads O-Ren to recieve a wound from The Bride. She apologizes for her earlier insult, and The Bride forgave her, but she kills O-Ren by scalping off her head, revealing the top of her brain cut off. In her last, dying breath, O-Ren was able to recognize the Bride's sword as a Hanzo Hattori blade after being close enough to actually see the symbol and for feeling the sharpness of the blade.