The Bride fought just armies of bad guys in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill back in 2003, that’s excluding the film’s follow up which saw her killing even more villains. However, out of all the characters who appeared on screen, one fighter Beatrix Kiddo faced gave her the hardest time: Gogo Yubari (played by then 19-year-old Chiaki Kuriyama). In the fight between the yellow tracksuit fighter and the school-uniform fighter, The Bride barely made it out alive. But what happened to the star and why hasn’t she been in more Hollywood films?
What many people missed at the time was that Kuriyama wasn’t a lucky find. Quentin Tarantino cast her after seeing Battle Royale, where she played Takako Chigusa with the same calm menace as she did Gogo Yubari. Kuriyama already modeled throughout the 1990s as a child and worked steadily in Japan. Western audiences were just late to the party.
Now, in 2026, Kuriyama is back on Hollywood radars, but not in the way nostalgia usually works. When Tarantino revived a long-shelved Kill Bill chapter titled “Yuki’s Revenge”, fans hoped for a return. The short premiered through a Fortnite collaboration on November 30, 2025 with Gogo’s sister hunting for revenge in Los Angeles. Unfortunately, Kuriyama didn’t appear and the role went to Miyu Ishidate Roberts instead, even though Uma Thurman returned, with Zoë Bell back doing her stuntwork.
Kuriyama hardly slowed down over the years, though. She’s stacked up over 20 films, nearly as many TV dramas, including CSI: Crime Scene Talks and a lead role on TV Asahi’s 24 Japan. She crossed into music too. Her 2010 single “Ryūsei no Namida” became a theme for Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn, and her album CIRCUS charted in Japan.
Back in 2014, when she received the Rising Star of Asia Award at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, she joked about Hollywood and language hurdles when asked if she would appear in more Western roles. “Of course I would like to,” she said. “In Kill Bill my lines were in Japanese, not English. I guess I could get a role of a Japanese person who spoke English badly.” She admitted she keeps meaning to learn English and keeps putting it off.
People still stop her about Kill Bill, even overseas. “It makes me realize that films are enduring,” she said. Twenty-two years later, she’s right. The fringe is gone. But Chiaki Kuriyama is still very much Gogo Yubari. It’s such a pity Hollywood didn’t catch on. She could have been the next Jet Li. If Kill Bill 3 ever happens, we hope she returns.
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