10 Movie Sub-Plots That Were More Interesting Than The Main Story

Volume 1 of Tarantino's two-part revenge saga opens with an unforgettable scene in which The Bride (Uma Thurman), in her wedding dress and heavily pregnant, is shot in the head by Bill. She awakens from a coma four years later to find her child gone and swears revenge on the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad and their leader Bill - her former colleagues and the father of her missing child.

The film is a homage to traditional martial arts and samurai movies with occasional nods to the spaghetti western and blaxploitation movement Tarantino adores so much, though the most interesting inclusion was a section of anime detailing the back story of Deadly Viper member O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Lui).

O-Ren's story begins in the last third of the movie as The Bride turns her attention to the half-Japanese, half-Chinese-American, and her sub-plot is so rich in violent detail and past tragedy that it almost puts you in her corner when the fight begins.

After witnessing her parents being murdered by Yakuza under the orders of their child-molesting boss, O-Ren trains in combat for two years straight and uses the boss' sexual urges against him. Aged just 11, she bargains her way into his bedroom and proceeds to gut him like a fish. In the years that follow her time with Bill she works her way to the top of the Japanese underworld, with her vicious army the Crazy 88 by her side.

While The Bride's story is indeed a tragic one, O-Ren's rise from mixed-race orphan to deadly assassin to Japanese crime lord is a more interesting one, and when the two come face to face in the snow it is harder than it should be to decide who you want to walk away.