Sonny Chiba Story.

[arnisador]

Scroll down to see it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/30/movies/30FLIC.html

After John Travolta in "Pulp Fiction" (1994) and Robert Forster in "Jackie Brown" (1997), the comeback kid in Quentin Tarantino's new movie, "Kill Bill: Vol. 1," is Sonny Chiba, a veteran Japanese martial-arts star best known in the United States for the ultraviolent "Streetfighter" films of the 1970's.

 

[arnisador]

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?ff20031029a3.htm

Thurman on her sword

"I've kept very few things from movies I've worked on. I possess my own sword, though, the one made by [Sonny Chiba's character] Hattori Hanzo. The sword that I took on hundreds of people with. It doesn't even deserve to be called a prop. It is the dearest artifact of my career that I possess. It moves me when I take it out and open it. I feel like that sword changed my life. I became one with that sword.

. . . and her plastic prop

"This isn't really representative of a Japanese sword. This looks more like a sex tool."