The Doll Master

sauroposeidon · Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:21 pm Ichi the Killer

Ichi the Killer (2001)

AKA: Koroshiya Ichi

Director: Takashi Miike

Cast: Tadanobu Asano ... Kakihara
Nao Omori ... Ichi
Shinya Tsukamoto ... Jijii
Paulyn Sun ... Karen (as Alien Sun)
Susumu Terajima ... Suzuki (as Sabu)
Shun Sugata ... Takayama
Toru Tezuka ... Fujiwara
Yoshiki Arizono ... Nakazawa
Kiyohiko Shibukawa ... Ryu Long (as Kee)
Satoshi Niizuma ... Inoue
Suzuki Matsuo ... Jirô/Saburô
Jun Kunimura ... Funaki
Hiroyuki Tanaka ... Kaneko
Moro Morooka ... Coffee Shop Manager
Houka Kinoshita ... Sailor's Lover

Synopsis: When a Yakuza boss named Anjo disappears with 300 million yen, his chief henchman, a sadomasochistic man named Kakihara, and the rest of his mob goons go looking for him. After capturing and torturing a rival Yakuza member looking for answers, they soon realize they have the wrong man and begin looking for the man named Jijii who tipped them off in the first place. Soon enough Kakihara and his men encounter Ichi, a psychotic, sexually-repressed young man with amazing martial arts abilities and blades that come out of his shoes. One by one Ichi takes out members of the Yakuza and all the while Kakihara intensifies his pursuit of Ichi and Ichi's controller Jijii. What will happen as the final showdown happens between the tortured and ultra-violent Ichi and the pain-craving Kakihara?

Horrorfan · Mon Jul 02, 2007 11:00 pm

this movies is awesome and shocking
10/10 Highly recommend

DP McCOY · Sun Jul 08, 2007 2:44 pm

Horrorfan wrote: this movies is awesome and shocking
10/10 Highly recommend

Yes,shocking is right :shock: ,definately one most extremely brutal movies around,Kakihara must be one of the looniest movie characters ever!

ShadowDepths · Mon Jul 09, 2007 4:38 am

Oh? It's that good? I'm putting this on my list of movies to watch then. :D

teabag · Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:15 pm

I'm surprised that some of you seem to like this movie. I saw it in a double feature with Audition. They showed Ausition first and I was really impressed. Watching Ichi, however, I had troubles keeping my eyes open. It's actually one of the most boring and lengthiest movies I know. I think this film is trying to make a comment on everything. The world, life, humans, despotism and revolution, good and evil - it's just way too much for one movie. And because it tries to tell the story of everything, it ends up with no real story at all. To be perfectly honest, I think it was a waste of time.

ShadowDepths · Fri Nov 02, 2007 12:35 am

True, Ichi was boring, but I sat through it anyways. Oh the tongue cutting! *Is grossed out* Oops I just gave away a scene.

NotoriousMDK · Mon Nov 05, 2007 12:19 pm

teabag wrote: I'm surprised that some of you seem to like this movie. I saw it in a double feature with Audition. They showed Ausition first and I was really impressed. Watching Ichi, however, I had troubles keeping my eyes open. It's actually one of the most boring and lengthiest movies I know. I think this film is trying to make a comment on everything. The world, life, humans, despotism and revolution, good and evil - it's just way too much for one movie. And because it tries to tell the story of everything, it ends up with no real story at all. To be perfectly honest, I think it was a waste of time.

I didn't find Ichi to be boring at all. In fact, they had my attention right from the beginning just in anticipation of what kind of crazy shit they were gonna throw at me after the loony as all get-out intro.

The funny thing is, I experienced Ichi much in same way you did; I watched it and Audition back to back, with Audition being first, and I thought they were perfect counterpoints for each other. Audition had the super serious slow-build suspense while Ichi was the immediately over the top black humor gore-fest; Audition's characters were firmly planted in reality (well maybe not Mr. Multiple-Amputee Bagman, but you get my point) while ITKs cast of goofballs were the closest approximations of human cartoon characters I've ever seen. I'd even go so far as to say that I might not have liked Ichi as much as I did if I hadn't of watched Audition first. I felt physically drained from Audition's suspense and I just wanted to relax and take in some off the wall craziness that didn't require me to think too much to enjoy, and Ichi the Killer delivered huge in that respect.

I dunno, maybe I enjoyed it so much because I didn't take it too seriously. The all-encompassing societal commentary thing does get pretty heavy handed at times, but I chose to pretty much ignore all that stuff and just enjoy it for what it was on the surface.

teabag · Mon Nov 19, 2007 11:30 am

I tried to ignore it but then somehow to me it seemed like there was nothing left at all. :wink: