Ichi The Killer

TIFF [2001]

(Japan, 2001, 129 minutes)
Directed by Takashi Miike
Written by Sakichi Sato, based on the comic "Koroshiya 1" by Hideo Yamamoto
Cast: Tadanobu Asano, Nao Omori, Shinya Tsukamoto, Alien Sun, Sabu

Movie Review

As a die-hard horror/splatter geek since my early teens, who hid Savini's "Grande Illusions" behind his textbook and counts sneaking in under-age to "Scanners" as an initiation into manhood, I've sought out my fair share of screen violence at the grindhouses, drive-ins, and dealer's tables across this great continent (each time praying that Canada Customs doesn't search my bag upon my return from another Fangoria "Weekend Of Horrors"). Romero's "Dead" trilogy, the foreign director's cut of "Man Bites Dog", and the restored "Bloodsucking Freaks" line my video collection beside esteemed AFI-approved classics like "Citizen Kane" and "Lolita". Thinking that I'd perhaps finally "seen it all", I was both delighted and sucker-punched when the lights came up on "Ichi The Killer" -- truly, one of the most repulsive films I've ever seen. It's also screamingly hilarious, if you have any energy to chuckle between retching, flinching, and doubting your sanity.

"Kakihara is one of the most despicable, but truly unforgettable heavies you'll ever seen in a film"

When yakuza Boss Anjo disappears without warning, pierced-psycho-to-the-extreme Kakihara leads the search, inflicting the most hideous of mutilations on other yakuza suspects, as well as himself, to prove his loyalty to the organization. Through a club hostess, Kakihara learns of the existence of the near-mythic "Ichi", an evasive killing machine clad in black armour with a berserker temperament as fatal as his martial arts prowess and twin razors. Ichi is no noble Dark Knight -- he kills not for justice, but for the psycho-sexual kick he gets from the act of vengeance, in his underdeveloped mind, payback to the childhood "bullies" who forged his cowardly, boy-man exterior. Given his targets by an elderly former gangster (who cleverly uses the boy as an unwilling personal hit man), Ichi butchers without discrimination or restraint, like Frankenstein's monster, even his most sincere attempts at tender gestures result in snapped limps and severed heads.

"Not convinced that he's completely mad after he dangles a suspect from Clive Barker hooks and adds boiling tempura sauce to the procedure?"

According to the program notes, "Ichi The Killer" is a "moral fable", forcing us to confront our own collective and individual "fantasies of vengeance". Yeah, whatever -- I'll admit the last part; like a marathon session of "Resident Evil 2", "Ichi The Killer" excels in awakening the sleeping Lupo The Butcher inside us all. Kakihara is one of the most despicable, but truly unforgettable heavies you'll ever seen in a film: his face gashed from ear to ear like "The Man Who Laughed" (held together by matching cheek rings, leaving the slits to exhale cigarette smoke), peroxide razor cut and neon clothing giving him the veneer of a pervo Joker. Not convinced that he's completely mad after he dangles a suspect from Clive Barker hooks and adds boiling tempura sauce to the procedure? Okay, get this: Kakihara cuts off his own tongue as a gesture of loyalty, then, makes an immediate call on his cell phone to his informants.

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But I hesitate to say the movie is 100% polyunsaturated F-U-N, for much of it depicts acts of sexual humiliation, torture, and outright mutilation primarily against comely young women that are closer to the stuff of "Rapeman" or Tim Vigil's "Faust" than the summer camp FX reels of even the worst of 80s slasher programmers (Lustig's "Maniac" included, so let THAT be an indication...).

I never liked it when critics assigned political subtext to movies that were probably created for no other reason than to shock -- remember Siskel And Ebert's intolerant anti-slasher campaign in the early 1980s? All that psychobabble about how Jason Voorhees' POV shots made young men "identify" with the killing of coeds? Rubbish, I said then -- and now -- so I hesitate to attribute anything more to "Ichi The Killer's" gory spectacles other than Takashi Miike's bad-boy impulses probably fueled by boredom with a safe, PG-13 friendly screen world. It's the equivalent of showing someone your chewed food, cracking a bad taste joke at the Sunday service, or putting one of those fake joke shop scars on your face and stumbling into homeroom. To paraphrase the great Spinal Tap guitarist, with "Ichi", Takashi Miike has turned the gore factor up to "eleven". It's sick, it will contribute nothing good to society, and if you defend it in certain company, it'll probably cost you friends. But what's even more unsettling than the realism of its illusions is the inevitable reality that one day, "Ichi" will look as tame as an old Herschell Gordon Lewis flick.

- Robert L

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