Uma Thurman Talks ‘Kill Bill’s’ Positive Impact On Women

Uma Thurman opened up about the positive impact her “Kill Bill” film series has had on women.

During an onstage interview at the 52st Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic on Sunday, Thurman revealed how her role as Beatrix Kiddo in the Quentin Tarantino-directed film series has helped women feel empowered about themselves.

“Women would come up to me and they would say … that that film helped them in their lives whether they were feeling oppressed or struggling or had a bad boyfriend or felt badly about themselves, that that film released in them some survival energy that was helpful,” Thurman said, according to Variety. “And that is probably one of the most gratifying things that I have ever experienced in response to a piece of art.”

READ: Quentin Tarantino Engaged to Israeli Singer Daniella Pick

Primarily known as The Bride, Kiddo is a former member of the elite, shadowy group of assassins called Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Trained under martial arts master Pai Mei (Gordon Liu), Kiddo served as the right hand of her boss and lover Bill (David Carradine). Kiddo is the only Viper to learn the five-point palm-exploding heart technique, an assassination method of killing a person by quickly striking five pressure points around the heart with the fingertips. Pai Mei initially refused to teach this technique to Kiddo, but the latter’s determination won the former’s respect, and that caused Pai Mei to teach the forbidden technique to Kiddo. Bill didn’t know that Kiddo had learned to perform the technique until they meet for their final showdown.

After debuting as Kiddo in 2003’s “Kill Bill: Volume 1,” Thurman reprised her role in “Kill Bill: Volume 2” in 2004. Although nothing is official yet, Tarantino said that “Kill Bill: Volume 3” might still happen in the future. “We’ll see. Never say never. We’ll see when it comes to ‘Kill Bill 3,’” Tarantino said at San Diego Comic-Con in 2015. “Uma would really like to do it, we talk about it every once in a while.”

Later that year, Tarantino said in an interview with What the Flick?! that his plan for the third installment of the “Kill Bill” series has always been to pick it up in real time. However many years have gone by in real time is how many will have passed in the film world as well. So the longer Tarantino takes to get back to the film, the longer Kiddo will live in peace. “I put the character Beatrix Kiddo through a lot, and so I wanted her to have this much time for peace. I wanted her to have some time with her daughter and not have to be in the genre machine,” Tarantino said.