Customer Reviews

Ichi the Killer [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(89)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(19)
2 star:		(15)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

After watching Takashi Miike's powerful "Audition," I thought following up with "Ichi the Killer" an excellent idea. I don't see much of a comparison between the two films unless you wish to look at the disturbing scenes of gory violence and the fact that "Audition" has more of a social message than this gore extravaganza. I have come away with the impression that Miike is a brilliant filmmaker capable of forcing extreme reactions from his viewers. Hollywood should take note of this guy and bring him over here for a project or two. But doing so probably wouldn't work out; Miike's warped visions would send American censors scrambling for a sedative, and most mainstream viewers would recoil from the graphic nature of this director's films. A word of warning for those thinking of indulging in "Ichi the Killer": the movie is loaded with sadism, gore, black comedy, and all around unpleasantness. It's as though this movie turns upside down everything we associate with cleanness and decency. It's a tough watch, even for a gore fan like me, so prepare thoroughly--how, I cannot really tell you because I do not know--before diving in. Good luck.

"Ichi the Killer" is based on a "manga," a Japanese comic strip of a type often embodying grotesque images and disturbing themes. The film follows several Yakuza gangs as they do what they do best: murder, torture, plot, and generally cause lots of unpleasantness. I am unfamiliar with the structure of the Yakuza, but I gathered from the film that there are numerous gangs (or families, as the mafia would say) each headed up by a boss. These bosses then report to a committee composed of other gang leaders and a sort of "boss of bosses"--played here by a wheezy little runt who pops up to mediate disputes every now and again--designed to keep everything from getting out of hand. When an anonymous killer named Ichi takes down a yakuza leader, the boss's underlings, including a bleach blond thug by the name of Kakihara, seek revenge. At first, Kakihara thinks rival groups had something to do with the disappearance, so he kidnaps some thugs and tortures them in an effort to get information. These gruesome antics go so far beyond the pale that the yakuza overlords send Kakihara and his fellow gang members into exile. Instead of putting an end to the out of control violence, this judgment only encourages Kakihara to even more extreme acts of nastiness. It turns out that this blond goon worshipped his boss because the leader possessed the ability to fulfill Kakihara's S&M cravings. This is sick stuff, to be sure, but it only gets worse as the movie progresses.

Kakihara seeks out Ichi to avenge the boss but also to challenge the enigmatic assassin to a showdown. We soon learn Ichi is far from the icy killer we have come to expect. He's actually a meek sort who witnessed a brutal incident as a child and has since become a victim to his own guilt. A guy named Jiji expertly manipulates Ichi's psychological problems in order to carry out assassinations. All Jiji needs to do is tell his friend that certain people were involved in Ichi's childhood trauma and mayhem rapidly ensues. Clad in a black suit bristling with razor sharp blades, Ichi can turn a room full of people into sushi in about thirty seconds. After the murders take place, he often sinks into a weeping, cringing depression over what he has wrought. Jiji, completely indifferent to his friend's remorse, always has a few more targets lined up for the slaughter. Women, children, and men: all are fair game when Ichi goes on a rampage. As the movie progresses, and as Kakihara comes closer to his final showdown with the hyper violent Ichi, Miike throws in enough plot twists and turns to keep the viewer constantly guessing as to character motivations and the very nature of the reality these people move in.

I am guessing I missed out on a ton of inside jokes and cultural references, probably because I do not speak the language, am not Japanese, and do not live in that country. I have never even seen, let alone read, a manga comic strip. Fortunately, Miike's film boasts plenty of black humor and gory violence to the point that being non-Japanese makes little difference in understanding the picture. You don't have to be an expert on Japanese cinema to laugh at Jiji's "muscular" transformation or the scenes where Kakihara expresses his disappointment at Ichi's subservience when the two finally meet (Kakihara actually attempts to pick his foe up in order to get him to fight! Funny!). And you definitely don't need any inside knowledge to gape at the violence. This is an insanely sick film packed to the rafters with bloodshed and carnage. My mouth dropped open, and stayed that way, when Kakihara administered a hot oil "bath" to a particularly close-mouthed gangster.

Gorehounds the world over will flock to "Ichi the Killer." While you will need an iron stomach to get through this one, the film goes to great lengths to prove this is all cartoonish fantasy. I quit taking the whole thing seriously after the tongue scene, when Kakihara said, "It will get better if I keep talking," and then spoke normally in the following scene. I took this as a wink-wink, nudge-nudge from Miike, a message to the viewer that one should not take the film to heart. As far as the DVD goes, I think it should go without saying that watching the unrated edition is the way to go. If you really want to watch a movie like this one, why waste time and money fiddling around with a cut version?

Live Action Anime...yes it is an oxymoron, but it's one way to describe what Director Takashi Miike has done with Ichi the Killer. It's like a live action version of Akira or Ninja Scroll.

The film's plot is secondary so I won't dwell on it here, but if you have never seen Miike's films, get ready for a ride through the imagination of a complete mad man. The best part about the film is that Miike and his team are actually outstanding technically, and his sense of humor is both original and in my opinion hilarious.

Ichi the Killer is as glossed over and stylized as it is sadistic and violent, and believe me when I say that this film is violent. It's sexually violent content is out of whack as well and alone might earn Ichi an NC-17 stamp but it's violence is so fantastic it almost seems cartoon-like. If you didn't find humor in films like Dead Alive, Robocop, Evil Dead 2 or Kill Bill pass on Ichi, but if you like those films like I do, give Miike a chance, you won't regret it.

"Ichi the Killer" ("Koroshiya 1") is a stylistic, well-made film representing a Japanese idea that seems strange to most non-Japanese, the idea that violence, even extreme violence, can be beautiful. As seen in films such as Kenka Ereji's "Elegy to Fighting," violence is an art form and a genre of Japanese movies.

This film is about killing for the sake of killing, by those who love doing it with a sexual passion. Kakihara, the masochistic Yakuza killer featured on the box cover, complains while receiving a beating that "There's no love in your violence." To commit violence without love is like having sex without emotion, and empty physical act. Director Miike Takashi has put love in his violence, and style and art.

Kakihara is the star of the film, being both brash and beautiful, but it is Ichi the Killer who is the true protagonist. Mentally unstable and boyish to the extreme, Ichi is a deranged assassin who wears a superhero costume with a bold Number 1 ("Ichi" means "Number 1" in Japanese) emblazoned on the back. Ichi is an almost-controllable tool of Jijii, who plays the gangs against each other for a mysterious motive. Jijii aims Ichi like a gun, then pulls the trigger. Kakihara deepest fantasy is to be slain by Ichi, the ultimate killer, but not before the time is right.

As you can see from this description, "Ichi the Killer" is a trip into a dark underworld of sado-masochism, lustful violence and other avenues of human nature that most people would not willfully venture into. It is without a doubt the finest film in the genre.

The actual film gets 4 out of 4 from me (amazon and most sites only let you rate 5 out of 5), but after close to a year of waiting after this disc got pushed back and back, the end result is a completely unacceptable Bluray disc. The image quality, I'm sorry to say, is no different than the DVD and looks to be derived from the DVD with marginally increased sharpness. The sound quality is what made me return the disc. The Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 track sounds AWFUL! Worse than the DVD, which had a great 5.1 mix. Also, it looks as if the only Dolby True-HD tracks on the disc are both English and Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0! Why would you include an HD 2.0 mix on an HD disc that most definitely has 5.1 audio. I've seen 'Ichi the Killer' theatrically and know all too well that it looks and sounds better than this. Sorry I had to burst the bubbles of many eager 'Ichi' fans (myself included), but I sent this back almost immediately after buying it. A shame.

This movie is the true definition of a car wreck. From the opening credits to the ambiguous ending, you cannot turn away from the shock and horror director Takashi Miike serves up.

Sadism is the true star of this flick as we travel a road filled with unrepentant pain and suffering. Unless you have seen the movie, then you have no idea how confrontational a film can be to your very senses. Rape, torture, murder, gore and general brutality are relentless traits of this movie. Sometimes cartoonish (its Manga roots showing), sometimes jet black in its humor, the savage pace of Ichi never slows even with a 2+ hour run time.

This is not a film for the squeamish. It makes no apologies for what it is and dares you to eject it from your DVD player. But, you simply can't. This movie can only be described as beautiful revulsion.

Just a quick comment about the packaging (which is the only downside to this release). The "Blood Pack Edition" contains 2 discs of excellent material including a commentary with Takashi Miike and Ichi's Manga artist/writer Hideo Yamamoto and an intensive "making of" documentary. However, the plastic blood bag housing the discs is a sadistic joke. The suction cup like plastic sleeve makes it incredibly difficult to actually get the damn discs out of the bag to watch them! Great gimmick, poor execution.

If you are a true horror and gore enthusiast, your collection is incomplete with this brutal slice of Japanese genius.

While the packaging can be a little tricky and isn't super effective in the way of disc protection, this is a great collectors set for a great classic film. There are openings on the side of the pouch for each disc so that they APPEAR to be floating in blood. They slide in and out. Please ignore the section in the earlier review about cutting the blood pouch open. Aside from that just look at every other review for the movie to decide. While not for everyone, Ichi is a movie that doesn't hold back and this a solid release for it.

"Ichi the Killer" is a cinematic tone-poem to ultraviolence, a sleek red-hot super-sized serving of cinematic slaughter and winking nihilism that, in a supreme credit to its creator Takashi Miike, persuasively advances the argument that bloodletting can indeed be a thing of sublime beauty.

Whatever you think about Japanese uber-director and cinestylist Takashi Miike---cinematic God-Emperor, criminal mastermind, visionary, genius, madman, pornographer, sadist, lunatic---you have to admit four truths about him hold: 1) he's fearless; 2) he's prolific; 3) he doesn't skimp on the special sauce; and 4) within about 2 minutes you can figure out if one of his masterworks is going to exceed your personal puke threshold. It's all about setting realistic expectations.

Take "Ichi the Killer" then: 'Koroshiya 1' is its Japanese title, 'Ichi' being Japanese for "Number 1" and 'koroshiya' meaning "killer", the title reading effectively "Number One Killer" and the correspondent Japanese ideograms rising up in bas-relief constructed from the eponymous idiot-savant [...] own seminal juices that form the film's opening credits (NOTE: you must watch "Ichi" in the original Japanese with English subtitles, or you're just wasting your time).

Within the first iconic five minutes of this thing, you'll know whether "Ichi" is for you, and---coincidentally---you'll also have pretty much all the plot the movie has to offer. Things are already wrong in the techno-neon glittering sprawl of Tokyo's crime-infested Shinjuku district, where a Yakuza clean-up team has been dispatched to scrub the site of the [...] Ichi's latest killing.

Ichi, evidently, is not a believer in the "Clean Hit". The team has to wear bio-hazard gear, industrial booties, and goggles to enter the once sleek apartment of top Tokyo crime boss Anjo, which the still unseen Ichi has turned into an abbatoir festooned with the crime-lord's body parts: the walls still run slick and wet with blood, and intestines are tossed about on the expensive furniture like plump red sausages.

Soon enough Anjo's loyal thugs show up, lorded over by his deputy, lover, top [...] and all-around hipster Kakihara (played to the acid-envenomed hilt by Tadanobu Asano, who owns this movie), whose battle-scarred face looks like a Tokyo streetmap. One of his opponents has thoughtfully expanded Kakihara's mouth by about three inches; he holds it together with two little hoop earrings, and when he takes a philosophic drag on a cigarette, smoke vapor trails out through his flayed cheeks. But the clean-up crew has been thorough: not a trace of Anjo is left, the Yakuza decide the Big Boss is missing along with 100 million Yen, and Kakihara is determined to find him.

Seconds later---and mind you, this all occurs in the film's first few minutes---we catch a glimpse of Ichi, avidly watching a brutal rape through apartment blinds and enjoying himself.

Squeamish? Then you've probably already checked out. Otherwise, turn off any moral faculties you possess and enjoy a visually kinetic, insane, brutal little travelogue through Hell.

This is what "Ichi the Killer" is about: brutality, butchery, rape, massive atrocity, torture, murder, degredation, and high good humor and insane dollops of style. Oh, and something about a gang war. Kakihara is all kinds of cool, the film's Crawling King Snake: he struts about in his platinum punk hair and leather trenchcoat exuding malice, serenely and maliciously presiding over his doomed victims like one of Hell's more stylish demons.

On the other side we have the character of Ichi (Nao Omori). I found Ichi annoying at first: when he's not flying through the air and slicing his victims into sushi with his razor-blade track shoes, he's writhing on the ground in angst-ridden torment and crying like a little girl. Hell, sometimes he flies through the air, blades a-twitching for fresh meat, crying all the time.

And that, precisely, is what makes him fascinating and terrible: Ichi is a monster. He's an automaton, once taunted at school, now working a wretched job as a short-order cook and snivelling pathetically for time off (to go slaughter Yakuza, which he's ordered to do by the mysterious JiJi, who issues his Manchurian Candidate-esque orders over the telephone): Ichi is what would happen if you spliced the genes of Bob Cratchit and "Taxi Driver"'s Travis Bickle. Brrr.

Miike is not a simple director, and thus, delightfully, "Ichi the Killer" is not a straightforward revenge flick. Kakihara is professionally and personally dedicated to destroying Ichi, but he is perversely fascinated by and attracted to him as well. Ichi, when not traumatized and crying or razoring to pieces some unfortunate Yakuza, is likewise drawn to Kakihara: indeed, the two orbit each other, like tiny ferociosly violent little planets, spiralling closer and closer to some orgasmically apocalyptic collision.

And apocalyptic is what you get. That's really what "Ichi the Killer" is all about: there is no sub-text, no ur-message, no wry social commentary here; I truly believe Miike has painted a compelling picture of highly stylized nihilism on his blood-spattered canvas, something the happy Droogies from "A Clockwork Orange" would instantly recognize as a little of the old ultraviolence.

People are not simply 'killed' in "Ichi": they are galactically ripped apart; raped and squished; stomped on and exploded; suspended from the ceiling from fish-hooks, from which position they can be flayed, boiled alive, or treated to tiny little needles being shoved through their tongues and eyeballs. Faces are ripped off, sliced in half, and slither/slide down the walls of countless rooms turned, by Ichi and Kakihara's magic, into charnel houses. It's all movingly beautiful, surprisingly repulsive, and highly addictive. Even the theme is simple and stark and beautiful, a little riff that calls to mind the old spaghetti western anthems of Ennio Morricone (fittingly, Kakihara's cell phone ring tone is the movie's theme).

I have written before about the viral quality of much of the best Asian horror, and "Ichi the Killer" is no exception. If there is such a thing, "Ichi the Killer" itself is a pure chunk of evil, highly toxic and contagious. You don't want to look but you have to watch, and the price of watching is having to replay the scenes on your closed eyelids long after the final credits have rolled---and being happy to do it. You are arrested, halted, infected, probably fatally compromised. "Ichi the Killer" is genius masquerading as virus.

When I was 10 years old a friend of mine told me that "The Lord of the Flies" was such a great book because it was about a group of lost schoolboys who went crazy and started eating eachother. I was so horrified that I went straight to the library and read the book cover to cover in about three days (I found out by the end that my friend had lied to me, but it turned out to be a good book anyway). The point of the story is that I have always been fascinated by things that shock/horrify me. I call it the car crash syndrome; the inability to turn away or lose interest in something that is universally seen as shocking or grotesque.

In order to sit through Ichi the Killer you need to have at least a little bit of that syndrome lurking inside you. Ichi the Killer is quite possibly the most disgusting film ever made (ever seen Braindead? say no more); a human embodiment of Itchy and Scratchy if you will.

The film situates us in the underbelly of the Japanese underground, where the Yakuza rule the streets and every taboo imaginable roams free and unapologetically. Our protagonist, a Yakuza cappo known as Kakigahara, is a sadist who is sexually aroused by pain. He might actually be one of the greatest characters ever put on screen, with his bleach-blonde hair, flamboyant clothing and piercings that are so cringe-worthy that you have to see the film in order to truly get the picture (let's just say that his mouth has exceedingly more potential than most mouths do). His boss is (or was) a masochist who essentially fulfilled all of Kakigahara's sadistic needs until one day he dissapears. Kakigahara spends the rest of the movie searching for his boss with only one lead: Ichi. Ichi is another great character - he is a super human slicing and dicing machine whose power derives from his costume. He is bent on mutilating all that stand in his way; he leaves a disgusting trail of clues for our protagonist to track him down with, i.e. corpses cut in half, disemboweled, decapitated etc... not to mention the glob of semen that he leaves behind as well because of how aroused he gets whenver he inflicts pain.

Takashi Miike directed this film so you cannot really expect anything less than shocking, but this really takes the cake even for Miike's standards. Underneath the blood and gore there is, actually, a very good story that deals with interesting themes (considering the circumstances) such as love, loss; there is even an interesting existential sensibility to this film. The film leaves little space for characters to develop but there are very interesting characters nonetheless.

As a fan of Japanese film I really enjoyed this, although even as a car crash syndromee I found it really tough to sit through. If you have a sensitive gab reflex, or a weak stomach, I advise you to ween yourself onto this film by checking out some of Miike's less-gruesome works, such as Dead or Alive. I don't think there is anything in the history of film quite like Ichi the Killer, so I assure you that it is worth a look, but don't come crying to me if the man who cuts his own tongue out scares you.

In the gritty streets of Tokyo, a mysterious avenger named Ichi prowls the streets during the night, Stalking rapists and other vicious criminals. He uses a special pair of shoes with sharp as hell blades that can literally slice through anyone like cheese. Hardcore gangster known only as Kakihara sends out Yazuka members to find this crime fighter before Ichi comes to claim his life. Featuring a legendary scene in which Kakihara slices off his own tongue.

A hardcore and gory as hell Japanese horror comedy actioner based on a graphic Manga of the same name! It's Takashi Miike's finest next to "Audition" and "Visitor-Q". It's one of the best films of it's kind in Japan, And one of the most violent. In the beginning of this film there is a scene in which actual dog semen is used. Don't ask me how they got it.

Takashi's definite best!

This review is from: Ichi the Killer: Blood Pack

I'm a huge Miike Takashi fan ever since I saw "Audition" in the theater and I have seen a lot of his other films including the "Dead or Alive" trilogy, "Fudoh", "Gozu", "Visitor Q", but "Ichi the Killer" is my favorite. The violence in "Ichi" might be too over-the-top for most to handle, but it is so over-the-top that it is comedic to watch. Clearly, Kakihara, is the star of this film with his blonde hair, bright shiny suits and severed mouth that he holds together with metal clips. I've yet to see a character in film as sadistic as he was. I like the scene where he smokes a cigarette and you can see the smoke exhale through the severed sides of his mouth. This is the best U.S. version DVD set of Ichi to get with oodles of bonus features to browse. The double disc set includes interviews with the Japanese cast and American directors/actors in the horror film industry reactions to the film as well as commentary tracks with Takashi (with commentary subtitles). There are also many trailers to other Miike Takashi films. "Hostel" director, Eli Roth, is prominently present in the featurettes and he even shows clips about how he wanted to look like Kakihara, complete with the scars and severed mouth make-up. The behind-the-scenes features are very interesting because the film-makers reveal how some of the films' special effects are executed including the scene of Kakihara's cutting of his own tongue and the woman's nipple, cutting scene (ouch!).

Now for the blood packaging that many reviewers have complained about. I tend to agree with the majority. Great packaging idea, but poor execution. If you manage to sucessfully extract the DVD's from that sticky, blood bag, don't put them back in the bag. Instead, get a ultra-slim, double disc holder for the two discs and slide it behind the blood bag in the original clear box. It's a little tight mainly because of the flexible blood bag, but I managed to get it all to fit snugly while maintaining the original look of the original packaging. Everytime that you want to watch the movie again, just slide the slim disc holder out. I used a black color, slim-double disc holder, but I think a clear or white color holder would work better so the transparent writing from the original packaging would be more legible. Just a suggestion!