paulduane Review of Ichi the Killer

Ichi the Killer (2001)

Is the wildest director working in the 21st century...TOO wild?

[14 November 2001]

Miike (pronounced Mickey) Takashi is something special. I think you need to see quite a few of his movies to get an idea of what he's about. If you just see Fudoh and this film, you think he's a splatter-crazed manga freak. If you just see Audition, you think he's from another planet. But his movies as a whole are like some kind of overblown fantasy about Japanese society, families who can't communicate, sexuality gone into overdrive, violence behind every facade. Ichi is truly the most over-the-top movie I have ever seen. It reminds me a bit of first discovering John Woo. Except that while Woo was inspired by Peckinpah and Jean-Pierre Melville, this guy's influences seem to be gore comics, metal videos and his own unflinching take on modern life. Specifically, we're talking about EXTREME s&m, rooms full of entrails, sadist twin cops wearing haute couture, an insane Yakuza with slits in his face, a man stuffed into a TV set and executed with skewers, a hero who is probably mentally ill and cries all the time, a man sliced in half, and a LOT of very disturbing rape fixations. That's only the stuff that jumps to mind immediately. Pretty much every scene will surprise, shock, disturb or (depending on how hardened you are) amuse you. I left this film wondering who the intended audience could be. Japanese people, certainly. Committed seekers-out of the bizarre like myself, yes. But even the film festival audience I was with reeled out, punchdrunk and silent. It's kind of like industrial music, it makes sense while you're experiencing it, afterwards it's all just a ringing in your ears and a disoriented worldview.