Quentin Tarantino: “I admit using a dash of Ichi in Kill Bill” (©Japattack, August 28th, 2003)

First, we watched the completely uncut and uncensored version.

imageIchi the Killer is a movie based on the manga ‘Ichi’.  Essentially, it’s a movie about revenge.  However, as the film progresses, it seems to become less about revenge and more about pure masochism, sadism, and gore.  I would venture to say that some of the younger monkeys may not enjoy this quite so much, it packs a punch that the weak stomached may not be able to handle.  I found it to be one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.

The Boss of the Anjo gang is missing, and with him all the gang’s money.  Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano) sets out to find him, believing (although told otherwise) that he isn’t dead.  While at first it seems like he’s so eager to find him because of the fact that he’s boss (and supposedly has all the money,) it turns out that Kakihara is actually looking for him for one reason.  He enjoys the extreme and brutal beatings that the sadist Boss Anjo would inflict on him, and had been for some time.  After terrorizing members of rival gangs on the grounds of suspicion, Kakihara finally comes to believe the actual source of Boss Anjo’s dissapearance is a guy named Ichi.image

Ichi (Nao Omori -  whom I might add got his start in acting in a tv commercial for Suntory Whisky in 1996…. mmm…whisky..) is a man with a troubled past.  At least what he thinks is a troubled past.  In his mind, he remembers watching the brutal rape of a schoolmate.  In reality, it never happened and he’s being controlled by a hypnotist (whom he also lives with) named Jijii (Shinya Tsukamoto).  The hypnotist makes him think that he has witnessed such a horrific event, so that he can use Ichi to kill.  He shows him similarities between the people he wants dead and the non-existant boys who ‘tortured’ him as a youth, therefore giving Ichi reason to kill them.  Not to mention his schizophrenia…  Pretty sneaky, eh?image

Director Takashi Miike is famous for pushing the limits, and this movie is no different.  Here’s some of the gore you can expect; rooms full of bodies so mangled the blood appears to be dripping like rain from the ceiling.  Slicing of tongues.  Brutal beatings.  Pouring of boiling oil.  I’ll leave the extra-special stuff for you to see yourself.  These listed are some of the more tame moments.  Now, you may be thinking, ‘I can’t watch this movie.  Gore makes me projectile vomit all over my parents with the force of a thousand hurricanes!’  Think Evil Dead.  Comical gore.  Not side splitting rolling on the floor comical, but in Ichi enough that it makes you feel bad to be laughing at some moments.  Kind of tongue-in-cheek humor.  After all, what’s funnier than slicing off your own tongue to prove a point and then talking to your buddy who’s just called you on your cell phone? Classic.  Or when a man from the clan dons a pair of fake dog ears and sniffs at a woman’s crotch to find a sex-obsessed man, then tracks him by smell and takes him back to torture him?  Genius.image

In Japanese with English subtitles, it takes a little while to get used to reading the text at the bottom of the screen and at the same time paying attention to the myriad of images.  (Luckily, I’ve been watching a lot of Initial D lately… not the horrid Tokyopop version, but the original Japanese.)  Subtitles are usually a problem for someone like me, one who has the attention span of a fruit fly.  These were very clearly done, easily readable, and the movie being in the original language prevented it from becoming a overdubbed nightmare.

Overall, I really enjoyed this movie.  I love horror movies anyway, but this was something special.  For plot, I’d give Ichi the Killer 4 1/2 out of 5 monkeys (I wish the pasts of the characters were developed a little more,) and for gore 5 out of 5.image

Ichi the Killer, Horror
Director - Takashi Miike
Ichi - Nao Omori
Kakihara - Tadanobu Asano
Jijii - Shinya Tsukamoto
Karen - Alien Sun (Pauline Suen Kai-Kwan)
http://www.ichithekiller.net/
Other movies by Takashi Miike