Old Takashi Miike certainly clings to his garnered reputation as an extreme cinema master. Indeed it seems the only thing that keeps him afloat. Covering up barren characters and inane plot lines with explicit ultra violence seems to be staple procedure in Miike's portfolio.
Ichi The Killer is no different, and perhaps enforces that point. Although it is based on a comic book, the film itself adopts a garbled approach to telling its story, using a mishmash montage of nonsensical imagery, bizarre dialog and bucket loads of sex and violence. Consider the following: Yakuza mob the Anjo clan have recently lost their leader. Right hand man Kakihara goes on a mission to find his boss, despite every suggestion that he might be dead, while fending off attacks from embittered ex-members of his clan who seek its total annihilation. He must also deal with the unwanted attention of gibbering, sexually frustrated retard Ichi The Killer who has a patent for slicing people into pieces with his deadly knife-boots and masturbating in public places.
Clearly attempting to bring such a perplexing plot onto a level that a human being could understand was too unrealistic a task for Miike, so he didn't bother. Instead he resorted to filling the film with explicit scenes of torture and mutilation that include a man being methodically impaled with giant needles and burnt with boiling frying oil, a tongue being cut out, an arm being wrenched from its socket and an entire body literally being cleaved in half. Most of the victims of this violence seem more puzzled at being skewered and torn apart then afraid. Indeed the lead character Kakihara, after effortlessly cutting off his own tongue, manages to have a polite yet muffled telephone conversation while blood spits out of his mouth.
Obviously the complete disregard for realism is meant to be funny, but the reaction it gets is more like the uncomfortable silence we hear when some idiot tells a stupid joke, and then laughs feebly to himself. This movie leaves you feeling almost as numb and empty as the characters themselves, with a slight residual sense of repulsion.
Ichi The Killer is no different, and perhaps enforces that point. Although it is based on a comic book, the film itself adopts a garbled approach to telling its story, using a mishmash montage of nonsensical imagery, bizarre dialog and bucket loads of sex and violence. Consider the following: Yakuza mob the Anjo clan have recently lost their leader. Right hand man Kakihara goes on a mission to find his boss, despite every suggestion that he might be dead, while fending off attacks from embittered ex-members of his clan who seek its total annihilation. He must also deal with the unwanted attention of gibbering, sexually frustrated retard Ichi The Killer who has a patent for slicing people into pieces with his deadly knife-boots and masturbating in public places.
Clearly attempting to bring such a perplexing plot onto a level that a human being could understand was too unrealistic a task for Miike, so he didn't bother. Instead he resorted to filling the film with explicit scenes of torture and mutilation that include a man being methodically impaled with giant needles and burnt with boiling frying oil, a tongue being cut out, an arm being wrenched from its socket and an entire body literally being cleaved in half. Most of the victims of this violence seem more puzzled at being skewered and torn apart then afraid. Indeed the lead character Kakihara, after effortlessly cutting off his own tongue, manages to have a polite yet muffled telephone conversation while blood spits out of his mouth.
Obviously the complete disregard for realism is meant to be funny, but the reaction it gets is more like the uncomfortable silence we hear when some idiot tells a stupid joke, and then laughs feebly to himself. This movie leaves you feeling almost as numb and empty as the characters themselves, with a slight residual sense of repulsion.