The Deadly Viper Assassination Squad is the group of assassins led by Bill in Kill Bill. Its English name, Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, is often abbreviated as DiVAS. It includes six characters: Bill and the five professionals who work under his authority, including Beatrix Kiddo. That is why the five names on The Bride’s revenge list do not add up to the entire team: she was also part of it.
The squad’s relationships combine work, kinship, affection, and rivalry. Bill is Budd’s brother and had a relationship with Beatrix, with whom he has B.B. That mix means the breakup with the protagonist affects an organization whose decisions are never entirely separate from its leader’s personal interests.
The film lets us identify its members by name and alias, but it presents them in very different situations. Their later paths help distinguish the former team from the allies, employees, and bodyguards around some of its members.
The squad members share a professional past and a central authority. The revenge story finds them scattered, with different jobs and relationships among themselves. Understanding that difference makes it possible to identify the group without turning every character who helps one of its members into another member.
Members, aliases, and performers
The Portuguese Cinematheque program for its 2022 screening of Kill Bill records these correspondences between characters, aliases, and performers:
- Bill — Snake Charmer: David Carradine.
- Beatrix Kiddo, The Bride — Black Mamba: Uma Thurman.
- O-Ren Ishii — Cottonmouth: Lucy Liu.
- Vernita Green — Copperhead: Vivica A. Fox.
- Budd — Sidewinder: Michael Madsen.
- Elle Driver — California Mountain Snake: Daryl Hannah.
The aliases give the group a shared identity, although Bill occupies a different position in that vocabulary as well. Snake Charmer means someone who charms snakes: it designates the person who controls them. The choice reinforces his position of command.
The total of six includes Beatrix before her split with Bill. When she prepares the Death List Five, the other five become targets of her retaliation. These are two different sets of people: one describes the team she belonged to, and the other selects the people she is after. Beatrix’s absence from the second does not erase her past within the first.
Bill as boss, brother, and former lover
Bill’s authorityBill is clear in concrete decisions. In the hospital, one phone call from him is enough for Elle to interrupt the attempt to kill Beatrix. Elle shows her disagreement, but she obeys. The scene establishes who can order an operation and who has to stop it, even when the assassin tasked with carrying it out has a personal interest in continuing.
With Beatrix, that leadership overlaps with a former romantic relationship and with B.B.’s parenthood. His decision to leave that life affects both the organization and Bill. The attack against her uses the former teammates as the agents of a response that comes from that personal conflict. The working relationship does not protect her from the boss’s will.
Budd has a different bond with Bill: they are brothers. The conversation between them in the second volume shows a disagreement that kinship does not erase. Budd acknowledges reasons for Beatrix’s revenge and keeps his own way of facing the threat. Having direct access to Bill as his brother does not turn him into an obedient extension of Bill’s decisions.
Elle’s rivalry with Beatrix also cannot be reduced to a work order. Elle expresses hostility toward her and, at the same time, recognizes her skill as a fighter. That combination explains why she cares who defeats her and under what circumstances. The competition between former teammates continues even when it seems that one of them is already gone.
Between Beatrix and O-Ren, respect for the other’s skill survives the enmity. O-Ren apologizes for having underestimated her former teammate after seeing how she fights. With Vernita, Nikki’s arrival brings the confrontation to a pause and a brief cooperation to keep the girl from seeing what is happening. Familiarity makes it possible to recognize ability or accept a truce. None of those gestures, however, restores an alliance between them.
The former team and the circles around it
The chapel massacre brings together Bill, O-Ren, Vernita, Budd, and Elle against Beatrix. That group attack is the backdrop that links the five revenge targets. When the protagonist goes after them, she no longer finds them gathered in a single operation: she has to enter the spaces and lives each one occupies.
O-Ren exercises power within her criminal organization in Japan; Vernita appears in a domestic setting, while Budd works in a club. Those situations do not erase their responsibility for the attack. They do change the conditions of the encounters and show that belonging to the same squad does not mean maintaining the same life or sharing the same resources.
O-Ren’s circle requires an additional distinction. Sofie Fatale is a close associate; Gogo Yubari acts as her bodyguard, and Johnny Mo is in charge of the Crazy 88. The three belong to her circle, but they are not part of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Their involvement in the conflict comes from their relationship with O-Ren, not from holding a position among the group’s six members.
Distrust reaches the former teammates too: Elle kills Budd when the arrangement between them seemed to benefit both of them. Shared history does not guarantee help or loyalty. The squad’s story unfolds through these broken ties, as well as through Beatrix’s actions against those who took part in the attack.
The way the members are introduced also distributes information unevenly. For much of the story, the protagonist is known as The Bride or Black Mamba before her full name is revealed. Bill, meanwhile, can issue orders and enter the story before the viewer learns his face. The group’s identity is built gradually through voices, names, and appearances that do not all arrive at once.
O-Ren receives an animated account of her childhood; Vernita is introduced inside a family home, and Budd in a work setting that places him under someone else’s orders. Those differences broaden what can be known about each one beyond the alias. The squad provides a common link for recognizing them, while the staging places them in concrete conditions. Belonging explains where their relationship with Beatrix comes from; the way they are presented shows what each life has become.