According to Liu, Quentin Tarantino was “completely open to it”.
This October will mark the 20th anniversary of Kill Bill: Volume 1, the first part of Quentin Tarantino’s martial arts epic and one of the best action movies of all time.
So, when JOE recently interviewed one of its stars, Lucy Liu, for her latest blockbuster, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, we felt compelled to get the actress’s thoughts on the masterpiece 20 years on.
In the movie, Liu played O-Ren Ishii, a former assassin turned leader of the Japanese Yakuza who finds herself the target of Uma Thurman’s The Bride in the latter’s quest for revenge.
JOE asked Liu if there was one standout moment she remembers from shooting the movie.
“I remember it so well,” she replied. “I remember that the snow was made out of soap. When you’re doing samurai sword work, as one does, you don’t make walk when you’re moving, you slide and boy did I slide.”
“But most of all, I remember that well and the sound of it became almost like a metronome and I thought that was such a magical touch that they added into that scene.”
Liu also recounted to JOE how she requested to writer-director Quentin Tarantino that a particular detail be added into O-Ren and The Bride’s climactic showdown.
She explained:
“I asked Quentin if I could add taking off the shoes and bowing because ultimately, we were equals and it was a showdown and you need that moment of respect. He was completely open to it and he was like ‘yes’.
“I think that’s something that elevated that moment between the two women, that we acknowledged that here we are, we always knew we were going to get to this point.
“Because O-Ren knew what she had done and she knew [The Bride] was going to come for her at some point and she was always going to die by the sword, not necessarily by [The Bride’s] sword but someone else’s. So, she was never going to die of old age.”
Shazam! Fury Of The Gods arrives in Irish cinemas on Friday, 17 March, and you can check out our full interview with Lucy Liu and Rachel Zegler below. Meanwhile, you can find our chats with Shazam himself Zachary Levi here, Asher Angel and Jack Dylan Grazer here, as well as the movie’s director David F. Sandberg here.
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