Biography: American fans of Asian action cinema will recognize Chiaki Kuriyama instantly from Kinji Fukasaku's 2000 cult classic Battle Royale, a savage SF satire in which teams of school-uniformed teens are pitted against each other in lethal elimination games. Kuriyama made an indelible impression as the fetching but ruthless flick-knife fighter Takako Chigusa.

Kuriyama was a successful child model who began acting in films and on television at age 11. A recent high school graduate with only four feature films and a handful of TV appearances to her credit, at nineteen she is a full-fledged teen idol in Japan, with all that implies in terms of custom-produced record albums and coffee-table photo collections.

Chiaki Kuriyama has studied classical ballet and gymnastics and cites Trainspotting and Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction as her favorite movies.

Chiaki Kuriyama began her career at the age of 11, already acting in movies and television shows in her native Japan. A recent high school graduate with only four feature films and a handful of TV appearances to her credit, at nineteen she is a full-fledged teen idol in Japan, with all that implies in terms of custom-produced record albums and coffee-table photo collections. Kill Bill producers discovered Chiaki when they saw her in the Japanese cult classic, Battle Royale. Chiaki Kuriyama plays Go Go Yubari, whose fight scene with Uma Thurman begins the climactic battle of Kill Bill: Volume 1. Her other feature film appearances include Toire no Hanako-san (1995), the popular horror thriller Shikoku (Dead Country, 1999), and the upcoming Kamen Gakuen (Persona). Her TV successes include the series Multiple Personality Detective Psycho (2000). Chiaki Kuriyama has studied classical ballet and gymnastics and cites Trainspotting and Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction as her favorite movies.

Kill Bill is full of memorable villains, from the feisty Vernita Green (Vivica Fox) to the calm and cool Oren Ishii (Lucy Liu). Then there are subvillains like Go Go Yubari, the Japanese school girl who wields a ball and chain. Chiaki Kuriyama plays Go Go Yubari, whose fight scene with Uma Thurman begins the climactic battle of Kill Bill: Volume 1.

Kuriyama does not speak English, so I had to conduct the interview through her translator, Kennedy Taylor. His English accent didn’t quite sound like a Japanese school girl, though hearing Kuriyama speak Japanese set more of the Kill Bill mood. You may have also seen Kuriyama in Battle Royale, but if not, Kill Bill will be quite an introduction.

Did you read the script in English or Japanese? In Japanese.

What did you think of the script? An extremely dramatic script, really exciting and really exciting to think that I might be a part of.

Did the script change during shooting? It was pretty much the way that it was when I first read it, although one exception would be that some ideas that I had were also incorporated into the script.

What were your ideas? Without going into too much detail, the end of my major action scene, after the climax of the scene, there was one little change that I suggested regarding the way things should turn out. It was in the detail of the tears of blood.

Did you understand all the Asian cinema references? Yes, I think so. Especially at least in the references to Japan, Japan’s beauty and Japan’s culture.

What are your favorite Samurai and martial arts movies? Up until doing this movie, I hadn’t really paid a huge amount of attention to those genres, but after finishing this movie, it really gave me a different sense of appreciation of the way the movies play out. I certainly look at them very differently now, and enjoy Jackie Chan movies and movies like that.

What movies did he ask you to watch? Certainly during the training period, we had lots of downtime and in those moments, Quentin would show us snips of different movies and anime films which I’m not able to remember because we never saw the whole thing.

Did you train the entire three months with the cast? Yes, for three months.

Had you ever had physical training before? I’d done a certain amount, a small amount, for Battle Royale, but not to that extent at all.

Describe the training. We started with the basics of kicking and punching, then we moved on once we got proficient in that, we moved on to working with the weapons, and from then on working with the wires.

What special ball and chain training did you have? Just going through the separate moves and techniques and nailing them down one by one.

How heavy was it? I can’t really give you a precise measurement, but there were two. There was one heavier one and one lighter one.

Did you have to gain strength to use it? Yeah, certainly my right arm has bulked up a certain amount compared to how it was before.

Is the schoolgirl outfit challenging to work with? Not especially. Obviously, a skirt does present certain problems that I had to be aware of. But when it came to the shoot and we were rolling, I didn’t really pay it any attention. It wasn’t too bad.

Was it taped down? No, we didn’t do that.

Were there any mishaps filming the fight scene? Yes, I once hit Quentin on the head with my ball and chain.

How did that happen? Yeah, the setup was the camera was behind me and the action was for me to turn around quickly and wield my mace, my ball and chain, towards the camera. Quentin was just outside of the lens and I clobbered him.

Good thing you didn’t hit the camera. But I actually hit the camera too.

Did it break? No, it wasn’t that bad.

Did you accidentally hit Uma? No, thankfully.

Did Uma ever hit you? No. We were respectful of each other.

Kill Bill's Japanese Schoolgirl

From Fred Topel,
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Chiaki Kuriyama (Go Go Yubari) Interview

Do you understand the American fascination with the Japanese schoolgirl? No, I don’t think I can, really. In the case of this film, I think the idea of a schoolgirl who’s wielding this deadly ball and chain is itself as a character, the portrayal is inherently interesting so I think that’s why in this movie people might find it interesting.

Why do audiences like to see women fight? I think probably because women are generally not thought to be strong, especially in the case of this movie. My character is somebody who is smaller in stature and yet who’s strong, so to see the fighting situations between people who are not generally thought of being strong is in itself unusual and therefore interesting, I think.

What did you think of Tarantino’s previous films? Very fond of them.

Which was your favorite and why? Pulp Fiction was my favorite.

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I’d never seen a movie, anything vaguely like that previously, so when I saw it, it felt tremendously fresh to me and really opened up my eyes to wow, movies can actually be like this.

Did you see it translated? It was subtitled in Japanese.

What of your Japanese films would you recommend to people? Well, the reason that I was in Kill Bill was because of my performance in Battle Royale, so I’d love people to see that movie.

Any dramas we should see? My dramatic stuff has mostly been for TV. There’s a TV series that I’ve been appearing in on NHK, the Japanese state broadcaster [and] my first movie is a film called Shikoku, which is a romantic horror movie.

What are you hobbies? I’m very fond of video games and I also love anime.

Favorite video games? Lots of different games, but I’m very fond of musical games, for example Parappa the Rapper.

Does hand eye coordination help you with fighting and training? Obviously, the difference between a game and actual training is you’re using your whole body, so in that sense, maybe not, although maybe something to do with reaction, the speed of reaction, maybe that was of use during the training.

How much time have you spent in America? I’ve only been to America twice actually. The three months training period last year before the movie, and this present trip for the premiere.

Are you excited about the premiere? Yes. I can’t imagine I’m going to get many opportunities in my life to do this, so yes, I’m pretty excited about it.

Is this your first time doing interviews? It’s my first time in America certainly, but I’ve done a certain amount of press activity in Japan.

What did you do when you were off during the training? Generally, I’d just go for walks and things like that. But I went with Quentin to Disneyland. That was the one trip I remember.

Are you hoping to do more American films? Yeah, as much as possible.

Are you learning English? Yes, absolutely.

What are the difficulties? I think the biggest difficulty is that when I’m here in America, there’s a necessity of using English, so I really have a great sense of really wanting to learn, but unfortunately when I head back to Japan, the necessity vanishes and so does my enthusiasm about learning.

Did you spend a lot of time with Julie Dreyfus? Yes.

Could you relate because she’d spent time in Japan? Yeah, she was very kind to me. We got on very well.

What did you have in common? We were both afraid of heights and in one scene, I had to be quite high up and I was rather terrified, but Julie was very kind ,encouraging me and we got through that together. And just telling me about her past and her journey through life was very encouraging to me.

What roles do you have coming up? A movie of mine is going to be released in Japan next year. I play a waitress who’s a really regular girl in this movie. The English title isn’t decided yet, but in Japanese it’s I’ll Get on the A Train Sometime.

What kind of movies do you like to watch? Trainspotting, Pulp Fiction.

Have you seen Lost in Translation? No, I haven’t.

Thank you for your time.

I've seen all of Chiaki's major films and thanks to Japanese fans, I have clips of some of her TV shows. Unfortunately the shows are in Japanese without subtitles. Until I see (and understand) more of her TV shows, I feel uncomfortable writing a full Chiaki biography. Please consult the Kill Bill cast profile and the Chiaki Kuriyama bio at All Movie Guides until my own extensive Chiaki biography is ready. And don't miss the Trivia section, where you'll find many points of interest.

The Offical Kill Bill Website's Chiaki Kuriyama cast profile is probably an English-language fan's first encounter with biographic information on the teen princess. It suffices as a basic guide to her career but unfortunately there are a number of errors. For instance, while many Japanese idols do issue musical albums, Chiaki is not one of them. As far as I know, Chiaki never had "custom-produced record albums." The profile also states that Kamen Gakuen (Persona) is an "upcoming" feature but the film was releasd in 2000. The one TV work explicitly mentioned in the profile is Multiple Personality Detective Psycho. This is a perplexing choice since Chiaki had only a cameo role in this short (6 episode) mini-series. The TV show that really brought Chiaki a lot of acclaim in Japan is Rokubanme no Sayoko where she was a lead character. The author of the Kill Bill profile used information from IMDB. While IMDB is a fantastic resource for movies, it comes up short on TV shows.

Jason Buchanan of All Movie Guide wrote an excellent Chiaki Kuriyama Bio after the release of Kill Bill. It successfully summarized her movie career but again points to MDP Psycho when TV work was mentioned. There's also a major error in reference to Chiaki's first appearance in film. Chiaki had a small part in 1995's Toire no Hanako-san. While that film is sometimes called The School Mystery in English, it is definitely not The Carrington School Mystery, a 1958 UK film. Why All Movie Guide linked to this old b&w film as Chiaki's film debut is puzzling. With that said, what Jason Buchanan wrote is still a wonderful primer for anyone interested in Chiaki Kuriyama. Jason was able to merge information from IMDB and the Kill Bill cast profile with his own encyclopedic knowledge of movies to produce a well-written bio no Chiaki fan should miss. New: Jason updated the bio with the mention of Rokubanme no Sayoko. Cool.

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