10 Things You Didn't Know About Kill Bill Vol. 1 & 2
10. O-Ren's Duel With The Bride Is Exactly 4 Minutes And 59 Seconds Long
Without context, the title for this entry offers little more than some boring trivia that's no use to anyone. Rather than go with a ridiculously long sub-heading though, we thought we'd just explain the significance of the running time here - that is, after all, what these very paragraphs are for. Anyway, before Beatrix and O-Ren get started with their climactic duel to the death, O-Ren exclaims that she doesn't expect the yellow-clad assassin to last any longer than five minutes before she loses her pretty head to the blade of O-Ren's katana. Never one to skimp on the fine details, Tarantino filmed the fight scene to be exactly 4 minutes and 59 seconds long - making O-Ren right about the length of the duel, but wrong about the part that mattered. Instead of the cakewalk that Lucy Liu expected her fight with Beatrix to be, she instead loses her scalp to her enemy, exposing her rather fleshy brain to the harsh elements. You could chalk the running time down to coincidence in any other film, but this being a Tarantino flick basically guarantees that the time stamp was an intentional one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s_e7a4_VCA The incredibly specific limit on the sequence must have been a nightmare for choreographers and the amount of re-takes required; but it was obviously worth it in the end - the scene is one of the best in the entire film.
Joe is a freelance games journalist who, while not spending every waking minute selling himself to websites around the world, spends his free time writing. Most of it makes no sense, but when it does, he treats each article as if it were his Magnum Opus - with varying results.
