"It's a paradox, but Ichi the Killer, a film that sets new boundaries in the portrayal of violence and bloodshed, takes a strongly critical stance towards the portrayal and the consumption of the violent image. However, it does so without ever taking a moral stance towards either the portrayal or the consumption, thus circumventing any accusations of hypocrisy on the part of the director. Miike does not moralize or chastise, but provokes the audience into questioning their own attitudes towards viewing images of violence. He steers them into a direction but leaves it up to them to draw their own conclusion"
-Tom Mes, Film journalist
The British Board of Film Classification refused the release of the uncut film in the United Kingdom, citing "scenes of mutilated, raped or savagely beaten women or of sexual pleasure from violence." A compulsory cut of three minutes and fifteen seconds of content was required for the film's release. For the Hong Kong release, sixteen minutes and 59 seconds were cut. The movie has been banned outright in Norway and Malaysia, and banned for distribution in Germany.
In 2018, a digital restoration of the film was made by L'Immagine Ritrovata. that restoration is the version i am covering, so consider yourself warned
There are very few movies I refuse to watch, but there are some movies so nasty I tend to avoid them. You really have to be in the right mood for MARTYRS, and unlike martyrs I found myself unwilling to finish this movie. We will get into why later in the review, but needless to say this movie has been a blind spot of the genre for me. I hope you aren’t eating while watching this
Also lets just get this out of the way right now, ICHI THE KILLER is hot as fuck. The content of this movie will kill any boners to be had, but i cant help but find this little golden retriever boy a little cute.
but still fuck him
Ichi the Killer is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hideo Yamamoto. A first series, titled Ichi, was serialized in in 1993; Ichi the Killer was in the same magazine from 1998 to 2001, with its chapters collected in ten volumes. In 2001 the manga was adapted into this movie, A second live-action film 1-Ichi was released in Japan would be made in 2003, and a prequel animation titled Ichi the Killer: Episode 0 was released in Japan in 2002. This series has quite a legacy in various forms of media, so let’s finally buckle up and watch this yucky as fucky film.
When a Yakuza boss named Anjo disappears with 300 million yen, his chief henchman, a sadomasochistic man named Kakihara, and the rest of his mob goons go looking for him. After capturing and torturing a rival Yakuza member looking for answers, they soon realize they have the wrong man and begin looking for the man named Jijii who tipped them off in the first place. Soon enough Kakihara and his men encounter Ichi, a psychotic, sexually-repressed young man with amazing martial arts abilities and blades that come out of his shoes. One by one Ichi takes out members of the Yakuza and all the while Kakihara intensifies his pursuit of Ichi and Ichi's controller Jijii. What will happen as the final showdown happens between the tortured and ultra-violent Ichi and the pain-craving Kakihara?
I'm normally fairly slow paced, but this movie feels like taking a thousand uppers. this movie opens with Ichi is on a balcony, masturbating while spying on a pimp raping and assaulting a prostitute. When the pimp discovers him he runs off, and this movies title card rises from a pile of his cum. It instantly sets the expectation of this movie being both beautifully directed and horribly repulsive, and its nice to have that Noe meets Edgar Wright style of directing to focus on. the camera work is fast paced and shaky as hell when the action starts, and floaty and dream like when things are slowing down. Its quite the same feeling as IRREVERSIBLE where the camera is one of the characters at times, but there is unquestionably a sort of dark fantasy comic book style in the directing.
as far as the plot goes... i had a much easier time understanding TESUO THE IRON MAN. Who are all these people? what the fuck is happening? Why are they torturing this dude? what's the end goal of all this? Fucked if i know, but not knowing makes this movie a slideshow of nasty as practical effects that i will never complain about. Its only because of the incredibly real looking effects, that this movie is effective as it is, and i cant help but be impressed at the shear number of crazy ass scenes back to back. A man cutting of a chunk of his tounge, a man hanging by hooks in his back having hot oil dumped all over him, a room literally covered in blood and guts, Countless scenes of torture and intimidation, and of course a fair amount of rape and sexual violence.
long story short i cant enjoy this movie no matter how hard i try. its to all over the pace, and the rape stuff seriously makes me want to curl into the fetal position and hide for awhile. Horror is all fun and games when its obviously fake, but this shit is so real looking it hurts to watch.
no thanks, but nice directing/10
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