Does anyone know if Hatori Hanzo really existed? From kill bill i assumed he was just another character but from playstation games pre dating kill bill have referances to hatori hanzo. Any wisdom?

he is a character from old school kung fu flicks Quintin admired this character and wanted to bring him back again.

Yes hatori hanzo existed, he was a ninja, and is as such mentioned in some books relating that theme.

Ah great stuff, thanks a lot, just a few different media have told me different things...so how come he wound up as a smithy in kill bill?...i noticed oreni shi's (not sure on the spelling, lucy lu anyway)counsil were based on famous generals from wars if anyone cares

Everything in Kill Bill is a reference to or an homage to something that inspired Tarantino. I mean characters, music, imagery, ... everything.

Yeah i noticed quite a few charaters names were the same to figures from history. either tarantino's pretty lazy or its a nice touch anyway [IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/biggrin.gif[/IMG]

Hi there. Hatori Hanzo is probably the most famous ninja in Japanese history. He was from the Iga region, which is famous for its ninja schools (Miyamoto Musashi's famous yamabushi adversary, the one who was an expert at kusarigama jutsu, was from this region, and the famous ninja Momochi Sandayu as well). Hanzo was one of the very few ninja to escape massacre by Oda Nobunaga (for those who're not familiar with Japanese history, here's what happened: after a long period of wars between top japanese daimyos, Oda finally managed to unified Japan shortly after his main challenger, Takeda Shingen, died. Oda had used ninja on numerous occasions, but once victory was finally his, he started seeing the ninja more as a potentially very dangerous community and had them all slaughtered.). Oda didn't have time to enjoy his supremacy and at last make shogun: he was assassinated in revenge by a ninja sent by Hatori Hanzo (or maybe by Hanzo himself). The one who finally made shogun instead was one of Oda's generals, Tokugawa Ieyasu.

Hatori Hanzo was from a japanese series in the 90s. If you have Kill Bill Vol.1 or Vol.2 you will know

True. Sony Chiba was the famous ninja Hatori Hanzo in this series (although this series wasn't anything historically accurate as far as I know, but I must admit I've never watched it; I just assume, according to what I've heard about it), which is why Quentin Tarentino, a fan of the said series, found it fun to have him play a character with the same name in Kill Bill.