Plot from Imdb: " Yakuza boss Anjo disappears with three hundred million yen. His loyal gang members, lead by the masochist Kakihara, start a search, but their aggressive and gory methods worry the other yakuza gangs. Kakiharas most frightening counterpart is the mysterious Ichi, a psychopathic killer with a dark childhood secret, who is controlled by a retired cop"
One of my favorite movie of all time. The one that blew my mind for good and made me understand that Miike was some sort of catalyzer for all the weird cinema I love. Adapted from a manga by Hideo Yamamoto, this movie also as an animated prequel, voiced by Miike himself. It seems that the manga universe of Sadomasochism and Yakusa's underworld fitted Miike's universe perfectly, as this movie is, really, without limits. It doesn't stop to violence, gore, trauma, graphic effects, weird imagery, strange behavior, iconic characters, it goes all the way to the cartoon-style just to get back to the violent and dry style of Yakusa's Eiga. It's a trip. I think that it also represent very well all the sources of inspiration that a Japanese creator like Miike can draw from: Graphic novels, traditional movie genre, experimental video style (Tuskamoto plays one of the main character), video games, porn, music video, etc...
The casting is perfect, Paulyn Sun is beautiful and speaks badly Japanese, Tsukamonto mentioned before is perfect as a non charismatic conspirator, Susumu Terajima (who plays in almost every Kitano movies) is a great unlucky Yakusa, Nao Omori as ichi demonstrate a great talent but the most amazing actor of all is, of course, Tadanobu Asano ! Where does the talent of this guy stops ? I've seen him in almost 10 movies and he's always great. His interpretation of Kakihara is one for the records.
In depth, the story is also rather interesting: amongst the ones that inflict or are victims of violence, Ichi represents the "neutral", the "traumatized" and "repressed" kid, witch enable others to control him. Don't be fool by the westerners indignation about the violence, it's not what the film is about. It's about social control. A recurrent theme in Japanese cinema.
I saw this movie maybe 15 times and I'm still amazed by it. An absolute MUST-SEE !
The casting is perfect, Paulyn Sun is beautiful and speaks badly Japanese, Tsukamonto mentioned before is perfect as a non charismatic conspirator, Susumu Terajima (who plays in almost every Kitano movies) is a great unlucky Yakusa, Nao Omori as ichi demonstrate a great talent but the most amazing actor of all is, of course, Tadanobu Asano ! Where does the talent of this guy stops ? I've seen him in almost 10 movies and he's always great. His interpretation of Kakihara is one for the records.
In depth, the story is also rather interesting: amongst the ones that inflict or are victims of violence, Ichi represents the "neutral", the "traumatized" and "repressed" kid, witch enable others to control him. Don't be fool by the westerners indignation about the violence, it's not what the film is about. It's about social control. A recurrent theme in Japanese cinema.
I saw this movie maybe 15 times and I'm still amazed by it. An absolute MUST-SEE !
Trailer:
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