Ichi the Killer

10 Ratings: 2.8

A movie directed by Takashi Miike

Welcome to a world where violence is a virtue and depravity is a way of life. This is the underside of Shinjuku, and the home of Kakihara, a sadistic yakuza killer. He relentlessly tears apart the underworld searching for the man who killed … see full wiki

Tags: Drama Movies, Japanese Movies, Takashi Miike

Cast: Sabu, Tadanobu Asano, Nao Omori, Shinya Tsukamoto, Alien Sun

Director: Takashi Miike

Genre: Drama, Horror

Release Date: January 1, 2001

MPAA Rating: R

1 review about Ichi the Killer

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Ichi the Killer' is Brutal and somewhat of a Stylish film.

Oct 20, 2006

by MzJen_2_review
posted in Movie Hype

Rating:

I loved `Audition' by Miike and so I had to see `Ichi.'. While the style is definitely Miike's, I found that I didn't like it quite as much as `Audition.' It is hard to care much about many of the people being tortured because there is no character development in most of them with the exception of Ichi and Kakihara. Kakihara likes to be tortured, but only by those who are the best at inflicting pain. Therefore he is very studied in the art of giving pain and practices this with relish. There is a poor slob in the movie who is tied to a chair and has grossly enlarged needles thrown at his exposed face and who knows what else is done to him before they get the idea to cut his unmentionables into several ribbons with a pair of scissors. While there was little to no character development with this man it is hard not to be sympathetic to his plight. I felt a large rush of horror even though I am a female.

Ichi is interesting and has a strangely boyish face for one who is so unbalanced and capable of massive human destruction. It is hard not to feel sympathy for him as well because he is manipulated and used by someone who engages in mentally torturing him to achieve his ends.

This film is not just a straight forward slasher as many critics have said - it grabs you from many different angles and keeps the brain ticking away throughout. One minute you're laughing your head off, and the next you're trying your hardest not to look away. Then two minutes later you're deep in thought giving both the main leads a good psychological going over. At the end of the film we get some mixed up mental messages and have to decide what to do with this information-Miike's trademark as far as I can tell.

Whilst there are people out there who will absolutely hate this film and find themselves trying not to vomit, those of you who can take some comic book ultra violence and have a slightly darker sense of humour and are as curious as I am can defiantly check this title out.

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