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The Crazy 88 are supporting antagonists of the 2003 film Kill Bill Vol. 1, the first installment of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill film series.
They are a group of Yakuza assassins founded by it's queenpin O-Ren Ishii, whose top enforcer Johnny Mo leads the army for O-Ren Ishii. In the film, they all fight the Bride (also known as Beatrix Kiddo) as she attempts to kill their leader as revenge for her involvement in the Bride's own assassination; with O-Ren Ishii having partaken in the incident with the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad on behalf of their gangland boss Bill.
Most of the Crazy 88 members have died whilst some others survive at the expense of having their limbs severed. The only one there with no injuries was presumably the youngest member present.
Actors[]
- Tetsurô Shimaguchi
- Kazuki Kitamura
- Yôji Tanaka
- Issey Takahashi
- So Yamanaka
- Juri Manase
- Xiaohui Hu
- Michael Kuroiwa
- Quentin Tarantino
Appearance[]
Members of the Crazy 88 wear pretty much the same outfit; wearing a black suit, wearing a black "Kato" mask. Aside from Johnny Mo, who wielded a pair of shōtō short swords, most of them carried a single sword with only two exceptions seen; one wielding dual axes and another a meteor hammer.
Biography[]
The Crazy 88 was O-Ren Ishii's personal army, under the leadership of Johnny Mo.
History[]
The Crazy 88 have resided in Japan for an unknown amount of time as a major Yakuza gang. One year after the Two Pines Massacre, O-Ren Ishii, with the help of Bill was able to take control of many major companies in Japan and became what Beatrix Kiddo referred to as the "Queen of Tokyo's underworld." With her financial power, she was able to gain leadership of the Crazy 88, and thus they were to follow her orders from then on.
Showdown at the House of the Blue Leaves[]
Four years after the massacre at Two Pines, Beatrix Kiddo awoke from her long coma and sought revenge against the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Since O-Ren Ishii wanted power before The Bride's massacre, O-Ren was the easiest to locate and the first on The Bride's Death List Five.
The Bride found out that O-Ren, her lawyer and second-in-command Sofie Fatale, personal assistant Gogo Yubari, and several members of the Crazy 88 were going to the House of the Blue Leaves. When she arrived, she challenged O-Ren and sliced off Sofie's arm. O-Ren ordered the Crazy 88 members to kill The Bride, but she quickly dispatched them.
After that, Gogo and The Bride fought, but The Bride also killed Gogo as well. O-Ren then ordered the rest of the Crazy 88 to kill The Bride. All of them, led by Johnny, quickly arrived and surrounded her.
The battle began and all the Crazy 88 attacked. Despite their numbers, The Bride possessed greater skill than them. She was able to kill or injure every one of them, including Johnny Mo. After the battle ended, The Bride told the surviving injured Crazy 88s to go, but they should leave their limbs behind. Surviving members are hospitalized and arrested by police offscreen.
Despite Johnny Mo being the last member killed, one of the last of the gang The Bride confronts before O-Ren is a very timid teenage boy whose katana she cuts into several pieces with her own, after which he surrenders immediately. Deciding to spare him, the Bride spanks the boy with the flat side of her blade, and orders him to quit criminal life and leave the world of crime business with the words "Go home to your mother". The boy is the only Crazy 88 member who is not injured, killed, or dismembered. His fate is left unknown after he fled but it is implied that he had given up the life of crime, deeply traumatized by the events.
After the Showdown at the House of the Blue Leaves, it is unknown what happened to the Crazy 88 as an organization, but it may have dissolved, given so many of their number killed or incapacitated.
Known Members[]
- Johnny Mo (Deceased)
- Miki (Deceased)
- 42 other nameless members (Deceased)
- Unnamed Teenage Member (Spared by Beatrix)
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- The Crazy 88 doesn't actually have a total of 88 members. According to Bill, the gang chose the name because they thought it sounded cool. The actual number of the group remains uncertain.
- Only 40 actors were billed as portraying the Crazy 88, including Quentin Tarantino himself as the "Slit Throat" immediately after the "Plucked Eye".
- The mask worn by the Crazy 88 is similar to that worn by kung-fu legend Bruce Lee in his role as Kato, the Green Hornet's partner on the classic 1960's TV series.
- Although most of the Crazy 88 members fight using katanas, three use different weapons.
- One member throws two axes.
- Another member wields a meteor hammer prior to the fight with the Bride.
- Johnny Mo uses a modified shoto.
- To create the Crazy 88, Tarantino uses instrumental metaphors, which is done in all of his films.
- The number 8 is considered lucky in Chinese culture and Chinese numerology, which could be a reference to O-Ren Ishii’s “mixed blood”.
- The number 4 (8/2=4) is related to tetraphobia and the word “death” in Chinese numerology and Asian cultures.
- The number 8 (八 hachi, ya) is considered a lucky number in some Eastern cultures. It suggests growing prosperous, because the letter (八) broadens gradually. Eight (や ya) was also seen as holy in ancient times.
- There are 88 keys on a standard piano, which are black and white. The Crazy 88 wear black and white clothing.
- Black and white was chosen and serves as an underlying obscure/random reference to the 1970s and 1980s.
- The yakuza originated in Japanese gambling dens where players played with Hanafuda (flower cards). Special card combinations are called "yaku"--from which the word "yakuza" is derived. The most popular game with hanafuda is named "88".
- Yoji Tanaka a.k.a. BoBa, who appeared in "Juon: The Grudge", "Yuji Toyama", and as Sasaki the bus driver in "Death Note", is the Crazy 88 member number 2. He can be first seen in the entrance scene of O-Ren Ishii and her henchmen.
- At least 2 women could be counted among the Crazy 88.
- During the House of Blue Leaves Fight, several actors were re-used and can be seen being killed or maimed more than once.
- The Crazy 88 fight was heavily censored during its release and there are are two different versions of the fight scene .**The original version was released as a Japanese Unrated Limited Edition DVD in Japan and U.S. which has the fight in full color.
- The standard version is in black and white due to the extremely bloody and violent nature of the scene. Tarantino was forced to tone down the violence of the whole fight scene to limit the visual of obscene gore. The MPAA did not specify how to do this, so producers had few scenes cut and adding a black and white effect to the finished product.
- Black & White was also intended for artistic purposes and to fit the flow of the movie (such as the beginning) that happened to fit well with censorship of the fight scene for worldwide releases.
- During production, they underestimated the amount of blood needed to shoot the scene. They ran out of blood and thus made the scene B/W to hide some of the clear splatters and spray effects.
External Link[]
- Crazy 88 - Quentin Tarantino Wiki
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 Villains
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Deadly Viper Assassination Squad Tokyo Yakuza Others | ||
