Plot info:
Kill Bill is one story, divided into two volumes with five "chapters" each, presented in a nonlinear style (as is common among Tarantino's films).
Volume 1:
The Bride (Thurman) is introduced to the audience in a blood-spattered wedding gown immediately after a violent showdown at an El Paso, Texas wedding chapel. She attempts to tell her would-be killer, Bill (Carradine), that she is pregnant with his baby, but he shoots her in the side of the head.
Four years later, The Bride arrives at the house of Deadly Viper Vernita Green (Fox), codenamed Copperhead. Vernita and The Bride engage in a brutal fight, with The Bride eventually killing Green in front of her four-year-old daughter Nikki. She tells the girl that she's sorry for killing her mom in front of her, and that if the young girl wishes to avenge her death when she grows up, The Bride will be waiting. The Bride then leaves in a yellow pick-up truck.
A flashback to the events after the wedding reveals that the comatose Bride is the only survivor of the massacre. Elle Driver, a.k.a. California Mountain Snake, the one-eyed assassin who has replaced the Bride as Bill's lover, slips into the hospital ward intending to inject poison into The Bride's intravenous line. She is stopped at the last second by Bill via cellphone, who believes The Bride deserves a more honorable death.
The Bride wakes up from her coma in the present and escapes from the hospital after killing an orderly named Buck, who has been selling sexual access to her body as she lay unconscious. She steals Buck's truck, the Pussy Wagon, and hides in the back seat as she slowly works her limbs out of atrophy. In the back of the truck, The Bride narrates the story of another Deadly Viper, O-Ren Ishii (Liu), codename: Cottonmouth. The events are shown in anime form. O-Ren rose to the top of the Japanese crime world as well as working as a highly paid assassin. The segment introduces her personal bodyguard Go-Go Yubari, her friend and lawyer Sofie Fatale (another protege of Bill), and Johnny-Mo, leader of O-Ren's personal army, the Crazy 88.
The Bride travels to Okinawa to get a katana from Hattori Hanzô (Chiba), a renowned sword-smith, who has retired. Though Hanzo has taken an oath to never make another sword, The Bride is able to convince him of the merit of her mission, and he forges for her the best sword he has ever created.
The Bride tracks O-Ren to a hangout called the "House of Blue Leaves", where a band (The 5,6,7,8's) is performing. The Bride arrives wearing a yellow motorcycle jump suit (an homage to Bruce Lee movies), taking Fatale hostage to lure O-Ren from her dinner. O-Ren dispatches Yubari and dozens of the Crazy 88 to deal with The Bride, who proceeds to wage war on her henchmen. The Bride then turns her attention to O-Ren, climaxing in a dramatic swordfight in a snowy garden (which borrows heavily from the Japanese sexploitation film Sex & Fury).
The film ends with the revelation by Bill that The Bride's daughter is still alive, though this is not revealed to her.
Volume 2:
A few minutes before the events that open the first volume, Bill (Carradine) tracks down The Bride and her friends as they are gathered for her wedding rehearsal. He is polite and mild-mannered, and even consents to being introduced to the groom as her father. She takes her place at the altar as the other four Deadly Vipers arrive at the chapel, weapons in tow, to kill everyone at the rehearsal.
In the present, Bill ventures to the California desert to talk to his brother Budd, aka "Sidewinder" (Madsen), another former Deadly Viper. Bill warns him that The Bride will come for him next. Budd, now overweight and alcoholic, has put his assassin days behind him, lives in a trailer and works as a bouncer at a local strip club and has lost his former respect to his new boss.
The Bride arrives at Budd's trailer that night to take his life. Anticipating her entry, Budd shoots her in the chest with rock salt the moment she opens his door, then injects her with a sedative. Budd calls Driver and offers to sell her The Bride's Hanzo sword for one million dollars. The Bride is buried alive by Budd.
As she lies in her grave, The Bride remembers her early training in China, when Bill took her to the temple of legendary martial arts master Pai Mei (an intentionally classic example of the elderly martial arts master stock character). He uses cruelty as a tool for discipline and obedience. Although he "hates Caucasians, despises Americans and has nothing but contempt for women", he takes The Bride in. Her training was extremely rigorous, and she endured many hardships, but she became a formidable warrior under his tutelage. In the present, The Bride calls on Pai Mei's training to break out of the coffin and claw her way up to freedom.
The Bride arrives back at Budd's to see Elle Driver, aka "California Mountain Snake," pulling up in her Pontiac Trans Am and Budd standing in his doorway. Elle hands Budd a suitcase containing his money, which contains a hidden black mamba, the deadly snake that shares The Bride's codename. The snake bites Budd in the face, and Elle explains that she felt more regret over relief because The Bride was killed by a miserable scrub like him when she deserved better. After Budd succumbs to the venom, Elle calls Bill and says his brother was killed by The Bride, who now lies in the grave of a Paula Schultz, as it is the final resting place of Beatrix Kiddo - revealing for the first time The Bride's real name (previously, several people had called her "Kiddo", although this could have been interpreted as simply a pet name). Beatrix attacks her as Elle prepares to leave. As they fight, Elle reveals why Pai Mei snatched out her right eye, and that she killed him for it. Beatrix plucks out Elle's remaining eye and departs, leaving the blinded Elle in the trailer with the same black mamba that killed Budd. Elle's fate is left unknown, yet is suggested in a fleeting moment as the black mamba hisses in strike position at Beatrix as she exits the trailer.
Beatrix travels to Mexico and visits Esteban Vihaio (Parks), an old pimp who raised Bill from childhood. He forthrightly tells her Bill's whereabouts, explaining to an incredulous Beatrix that Bill would have wanted him to. When she finally finds Bill, she is shocked to find that B.B., her four-year-old daughter, is alive and apparently expecting her mother's return. The family spends the evening together peacefully, and B.B. falls asleep watching the chambara film Shogun Assassin in her mother's arms.
With B.B. safely in bed, Beatrix confronts Bill. Bill immobilizes her and shoots her with a dart filled with self-made truth serum; Beatrix is forced to reveal that when she decided upon becoming pregnant that she had to put her unborn daughter's future above Bill. Bill calls into question if she will truly save her daughter's future by taking her away from and killing him.
Bill draws his sword and attacks Beatrix. She disables Bill using a fatal dim mak move named Five-Point-Palm Exploding Heart Technique, taught to her without Bill's or the audience's knowledge by Pai Mei. Bill, defeated, says a tender goodbye, and walks unsteadily away, collapses after five steps, and dies in silence. Beatrix sheds a few tears at the death of her lover, and returns to the house to collect her daughter. As the movie ends, the two ride off to start their new life together.
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