Japanese Subcultural Violent Aesthetics and the Reconfiguration and Redefinition of Female Characters--Taking O-Ren Ishii from "Kill Bill" as an Example

Abstract

In recent years, the violent aesthetic images in Japanese subculture have continued to attract attention in global popular culture, but the cross-cultural reconfiguration mechanism of female characters in this context still lacks systematic exploration. This article takes O-Ren Ishii from the movie "Kill Bill" as the core case. From three dimensions, cultural symbol collage, construction of violent aesthetics, and translation of gender politics, it analyzes how it presents a violent visual image in the form of a "cultural hybrid body". The research reveals that the character portrayal of O-Ren Ishii not only integrates symbols such as bushido, gang rituals, and mechanical bodies but also breaks the traditional passive setting of female characters through a calm and authoritative attitude of seeking revenge, demonstrating a new form of gender agency. Meanwhile, its mixed-race identity and the combination of cross-cultural symbols reveal the re-encoding logic of Hollywood in the context of global cultural dissemination, regarding the encoding of foreign cultures. Based on these, this article proposes strategies such as promoting the visualization of local culture, diversifying characters, and narrating marginalized identities, to achieve effective dissemination and re-creation of culture in the global context.