The Bride (Kill Bill)
The Assassin: Turned on by her fellow assassins, trained hitwoman Black Mamba takes on a new name, The Bride, in memorium of the fact that she was nearly killed at her own wedding.
She sets out for revenge, and to ultimately kill former boss Bill.
Deadliest Kill: If it’s sheer volume you’re looking for, you’ve got to go with the Crazy 88s.
Wearing a blood-splattered yellow tracksuit similar to the one worn by Bruce Lee in Game of Death , The Bride makes mincemeat of her opponents.
Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield (Pulp Fiction)
The Assassins: Working together, Vincent and Jules are the hired guns of their gangster boss Marsellus Wallace.
They talk a lot.
Deadliest Kill: “Allow me to retort!” scoffs Jules Winnfield, lecturing his target before he offs him. Vincent smokes in the background.
Angered by backstabbing Brett's jabber, Jules recites Ezekiel 25:17 to said target. Then unloads his gun into him.
Things we’ve learnt? Never say “what” around Jules.
Miho (Sin City)
The Assassin: Owing a debt of honour to Dwight McCarthy, who saved her life when she was caught out during a fight with Tong gangsters, Miho is a mute assassin whose past remains in shadow.
She has a giant katana, which makes her very cool.
Deadliest Kill: “Oh sugar, you’ve just gone and done the stupidest thing in your whole life,” murmurs Becky to Jackie Boy.
Yep, cos Miho is on a rooftop, and she’s not happy. Throwing a blade that slices off Jackie Boy’s hand, Miho swiftly does away with his henchman, then blocks the barrel of JB's gun. When he tries to shoot, it backfires, killing him. Sweet.
Bishop (The Mechanic)
The Assassin: An efficient, clean killer, Bishop is canny enough about the business of killing that he leaves no traces whatsoever.
Deadliest Kill: Warning: here be spoilers. At the film’s end, Bishop’s apprentice, the ominously named Steve, turns rogue and poisons poor Bishop in Naples.
But Bishop ain’t as naive as all that. When Steve goes to Bishop's house to assume his life, he trips a timed bomb in Bishop’s swish car.
“Bang you’re dead.” Ain’t life a bitch?
Lon
The Assassin: A lone hitman who lives in solitude in New York’s Little Italy, Léon works for mafia lynchpin Tony.
He also likes Gene Kelly musicals, and counts a potted plant as his only friend. Until Mathilda, of course.
Deadliest Kill: His deadliest is his last.
Shot in the back by corrupt cop Stansfield, Léon lies dying.
As Stansfield stands gloating, Léon hands the rogue a pin from a grenade, saying it’s “from Mathilda”. By the time Stansfield realises that Léon is wearing a grenade-packed vest, he’s dead as a doornail.
Anton Chigurh (No Country for Old Men)
The Assassin: Styled by the Coen brothers as a modern day update of Death from The Seventh Seal , Anton is an expressionless force of nature with a terrible haircut.
He uses a captive bolt pistol to quietly and effectively destroy his targets.
Deadliest Kill: Tracing Josh Brolin's Moss, who has nabbed two million dollars from Mexican drug lords, Anton bursts into the motel room previously occupied by Moss.
There he finds Mexicans who are lying in wait for Moss, and calmly kills them all.
Zam Wesell (Star Wars)
The Assassin: A shape-shifting Clawdite bounty hunter who is also contracted to kill. Trained as a Mabari warrior, she can look like a human woman. But really she’s scaly as hell and has the kind of face only a mother could love.
Deadliest Kill: Makes a damn good stab at killing Padme in Attack of the Clones by blowing up her ship, but only manages to kill the Senator’s decoy.
She has another go, letting venomous insects loose in the Senator’s bedroom while she sleeps, but is foiled by Obi-Wan and Anakin.
Vincent (Collateral)
The Assassin: What do we know about Vincent? Well, jack all, really. He’s as much of a silver fox as he is a dark beast.
Deadliest Kill: Taking out anybody in his way, Vincent incapacitates the bodyguards of a packed LA club by breaking their legs.
Seeking out his latest target, the appearance of the FBI turns the entire operation into a bloody shoot-em-up.
Vincent makes a lot of deadly kills.
Nikita (La Femme Nikita)
The Assassin: Quite obviously the inspiration for Bridget Fonda’s The Assassin , this thriller from Luc Besson follows former heroin addict Nikita, who works for French Intelligence.
Given a sexy makeover and a new .44 Magnum, she carries out their orders.
Deadliest Kill: While staying in a hotel with her none-the-wiser boyfriend, Nikita receives a phone call telling her to assemble a weapon in the bathroom and kill a woman from the bathroom window.
As she awaits orders, her boyfriend is on the other side of the door wanting to talk about their relationship...
Michael Sullivan (Road to Perdition)
The Assassin: Working during the Great Depression era, Sullivan is mob enforcer to Irish crime boss John Rooney, who raised him after the death of his parents.
Deadliest Kill: When his young son witnesses Sullivan’s other son Connor killing a man, Sullivan’s family are murdered.
Sullivan eventually takes revenge on Rooney in a rainwashed street.
“I’m glad it’s you,” says Rooney. We blub.
The T-1000 (Terminator 2)
The Assassin: Sent back through time to kill a pre-pubescent John Connor, eradicating him as a future threat, the T-1000 is faster, leaner and shinier than the T-800.
Made of mimetic metal alloy, the T-1000 is essentially a fancy technological shapeshifter.
Deadliest Kill: Discovering the house of Connor’s foster parents, the T-1000 morphs into his foster mother and demands to know where the boy is.
Evidently his act is so convincing that the real foster dad falls for it, and has his babbling swiftly curtailed by a metal spike through the head.
Jane Smith (Mr & Mrs Smith)
The Assassin: Married “five or six” years to her undercover spy husband, Jane Smith works as a hired gun for a company that appears to only be populated by women.
Deadliest Kill: Tasked with offing some rich guy in a high rise, Mrs Smith dons a leather dominatrix outfit and poses as a whip-for-hire.
Having done him in, she then makes a classy getaway by using a handbag contraption as a bungee and leaps off the building... straight into a waiting cab. Girl’s got style.
The Kids in Battle Royale
The Assassins: A load of bratty kids who have no respect for authority are taught a proper lesson by their teacher when they’re gassed and taken to an island where they must fight to survive. Kill or be killed.
Deadliest Kill: They’re all pretty deadly (kids are vicious, y’know).
One of the most tragic is when Sugimura dies at the hands of Kotohiki, the girl he loves.
And there’s the bit in the kitchen, when all the girls turn on each other.
And... Oh, we could go on.
Charly Baltimore (The Long Kiss Goodnight)
The Assassin: Suburban schoolteacher Samantha Caine leads a normal life in Pennsylvania.
Except several years ago she was found injured and suffering from amnesia. What Samantha doesn’t know, is that she is in fact called Charly Baltimore, and is an assassin for the CIA.
Deadliest Kill: Attacked by an escaped convict, Samantha manages to overpower and kill her assailant with skills that she never even knew she had.
Georgia Sykes (Smokin Aces)
The Assassin: Georgia is femme fatale through and through. She doesn’t kill women, and she uses her sex appeal to cover as a hooker.
Everybody buys it.
Deadliest Kill: Hired along with her partner Sharice Watters to abduct a wannabe crime boss before another assassin gets to him, Georgia gets trapped in an elevator during a stand-off.
She may or may not inadvertently kill a genuine prostitute, but gets out alive thanks to Ryan Reynolds believing she’s just another street-walker.
Martin Q Blank (Grosse Point Blank)
The Assassin: Back in 2000, you lot voted this the 21st greatest comedy film of all time.
Hitman Martin Q Blank is depressed and sick of competing against other assassins. With good reason; when he returns to his high school for a reunion, a collection of rival hitmen decide it’s time to take him out.
Deadliest Kill: Blank kills a guy in a school hallway.
Using a fountain pen.
Live and learn, kids.
Maggie (The Assassin)
The Assassin: Maggie is a junkie-rebel-without-a-cause on a collision course to total self-destruction. Or just any old destruction; she’s on death row for murder.
Until a top secret, covert government organisation take her in, train her in etiquette, arms and hand-to-hand combat, and set her loose on the world as a deadly assassin.
Deadliest Kill: Let’s go with her first. A dolled up Maggie is handed a gun and told to kill a couple of business man on the restaurant balcony.
Putting bullets in the blokes’ brains, too late she realises that the real test is to see if she can get out alive...
El Mariachi (Desperado)
The Assassin: Consumed with grief over the death of his girlfriend Domino at the hands of Bucho, El Mariachi has made it his mission to take revenge.
Travelling with a guitar case stuffed with weapons, he seeks out Bucho and kills anybody who gets in his way.
Deadliest Kill: El confronts Bucho at his ranch and discovers that they are brothers.
As Bucho threatens the life of El’s new love, Carolina, he pops pistols from his sleeves and shoots Bucho at point black range.
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