Ichi the Killer
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| Ichi the Killer | |
|---|---|
 Original Japanese poster |
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| Directed by | Takashi Miike |
| Produced by | Akiko Funatsu Dai Miyazaki |
| Written by | Screenplay: Sakichi Satō Manga: Hideo Yamamoto |
| Starring | Tadanobu Asano Shinya Tsukamoto Nao Omori Alien Sun |
| Music by | Karera Musication Seiichi Yamamoto |
| Cinematography | Hideo Yamamoto |
| Editing by | Yasushi Shimamura |
| Distributed by | Media Blasters (USA) |
| Release date(s) |  September 14, 2001(Toronto Film Festival)  December 22, 2001 May 30, 2003 September, 2004 |
| Running time | 120 min. |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
Ichi the Killer (殺し屋１ Koroshiya Ichi) is a 2001 Japanese film directed by Takashi Miike, based on Hideo Yamamoto's manga series of the same name.
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[edit] Plot
The film stars Tadanobu Asano as Kakihara, a sadomasochist yakuza enforcer with a Glasgow smile who enjoys giving and receiving pain in about equal measures. Kakihara's boss Anjo is murdered in a particularly gruesome fashion and a mysterious group arrives to clean up all evidence of the murder, stealing 300 million yen Anjo had in his room while there.
Many of Kakihara's compatriots, including Anjo's English, Cantonese, and Japanese-speaking girlfriend Karen (Paulyn Sun appearing as Alien Sun), suspect that Anjo simply took the money and ran, but Kakihara is convinced the man is alive. His investigation leads him to brutally torture a member of a rival clan, Suzuki (Susumu Terajima), by suspending him from a ceiling with metal hooks through the man's back, shoving metal yakitori skewers through his body, and pouring boiling oil (from a meal of tempura) on him. In an example of the film's extremely black humor, when asked what he is doing, Kakihara responds nonchalantly, "Just a little torture."
The man turns out to be innocent. To make restitution, Kakihara slices off the end of his tongue and offers it to Suzuki's boss (Jun Kunimura). However, the man who tipped Kakihara off to Suzuki and may have more real information, a disheveled old man nicknamed Jijii ("grandpa" or "old man") (Shinya Tsukamoto), is nowhere to be found.
Jijii, it turns out, is secretly orchestrating events in order to pit Yakuza clans against one another. In the original manga, it is openly stated that he is a former cop, though this is not disclosed in the film. Under Jijii's wing is a young man, Ichi (Nao Omori), who is normally unassuming and cowardly but becomes homicidal when enraged.
Ichi outfits himself in a rubber stuntman suit with shoes that have razors concealed in the heels, and has crying fits when committing his murders.
Being a confused and apparently psychotic individual who murdered his own parents, he was adopted and so manipulated by Jijii as to confuse sexual arousal with homicidal lust; this was accomplished by creating a false memory of witnessing a rape in high school, which he felt ashamed for wanting to participate in rather than stop. It is later implied that Karen was also a victim of this psychological manipulation, her role in the false memory being that of the actual rape victim.
A subplot in the first half of the movie involves Ichi spying on a pimp who regularly brutalizes a prostitute. He first kills the pimp (by slicing him in half with his razor blade), then the girl.
Kakihara is eventually thrown out of the syndicate for his transgressions, but not before catching word of Ichi. He becomes fascinated with this "total sadist," since perhaps through him he can finally find the ultimate pain he has been seeking—one which neither Karen nor his boss could give him. In a related plot development, Jijii attempts to get better control over Ichi by having Karen seduce him, but the plan backfires and Karen is slaughtered.
Kakihara, along with two corrupt police-detective twin brothers, find Myu-Myu, a prostitute connected with Jijii's gang. In one of the film's more disturbing scenes, they torture her for information. They find one of Jijii's henchmen and torture him to find out where Ichi is. However, at this point, Ichi shows up at Kakihara's compound.
Ichi kills Kaneko in front of his son Takeshi, who then goes and kicks Ichi while he is lying on the roof-top crying. Kakihara soon realizes Ichi can't hurt him, so he inserts two skewers into both his ears, to the extent where he is deaf in a suicide attempt. He then looks up as the camera pans to Ichi, standing up in tears holding Takeshi's head in his hand, with the child's corpse lying next to where he stands.
Ichi charges at Kakihara and, following a brief fight, embeds one of his razor-bladed boots in the center of Kakihara's head. Kakihara stumbles back, claiming it is the greatest feeling ever as he falls off the rooftop to his death. Kakihara is found on the compound floor by Jijii, dead but apparently unwounded by Ichi's final attack, revealing that Kakihara was hallucinating the attack, and thus committed suicide. Jijii begins to cry.
For reasons not made clear to the viewer, Jijii himself is found hanging from a tree in the last moments of the movie; whether he himself committed suicide, or was killed, is unknown. In the last few seconds, a young man resembling an older Takeshi (Kaneko's son) turns around after a crow flies past him, suggesting that he took revenge on Jijii. Ichi's fate is left undisclosed.
[edit] Cast and roles
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Tadanobu Asano | Kakihara |
| Nao Omori | Ichi |
| Shinya Tsukamoto | Jijii |
| Alien Sun | Karen |
| Susumu Terajima | Suzuki, of the Funaki gang |
| Shun Sugata | Takayama, of the Anjo gang |
| Toru Tezuka | Fujiwara |
| Yoshiki Arizono | Nakazawa |
| Kiyohiko Shibukawa | Ryu Long |
| Satoshi Niizuma | Inoue |
| Suzuki Matsuo | Jirô / Saburô |
| Jun Kunimura | Funaki |
| Hiroyuki Tanaka | Kaneko, Anjo's bodyguard |
| Moro Morooka | Coffee shop manager |
| Houka Kinoshita | Sailor's lover |
| Hiroshi Kobayashi | Takeshi, Kaneko's son |
| Mai Goto | Sailor |
| Rio Aoki | Miyuki |
| Noko Morishita | Pub Patron |
| Setchin Kawaya | Pub Proprietor |
| Yuki Kazamatsuri | Yakuza Girl |
| Sakichi Satô | Man Kicking Ichi |
| Kaori Sugawara | |
| Hideo Sako | |
| Mako Takeda | |
| Masataka Haji |
[edit] Production
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This section requires expansion. |
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[edit] Pre-production
Director Takashi Miike intended for the author of the original manga, Hideo Yamamoto, to write a script entirely in manga form, but the idea fell through when Yamamoto felt he could not complete it due to writer's block.
[edit] Filming
Director Takashi Miike reveals on the US TokyoShock DVD release that the semen used in the close-up during the intro sequence, when the film's title raises out of a puddle of semen, is real. It was notably supplied by Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto (Tetsuo: The Iron Man) who plays Jijii, the mastermind that controls Ichi. Miike gave a bucket to Tsukamoto to fill but was unable to provide enough material for the shot. He passed the bucket to three other crew members to add the remaining amount.
Miike planned to have the pimp beat up the prostitute with three punches. In the end, he increased the number to fifteen because he could not stand the actress, Mai Goto. For the sequence in which his character is suspended from hooks and tortured, actor Susumu Terajima required twelve hours of makeup and other preparation, and then spent twelve more hours shooting the scene.
[edit] Promotion
As a publicity gimmick, vomit bags were handed out at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) to those attending the midnight screening of this film. Similar bags were handed out during the Stockholm International Film Festival, reportedly watching the movie caused one person to throw up and another one to faint.
[edit] Prequel
This film was followed by a prequel, titled 1-Ichi, which was directed by Masato Tanno in 2003 for a direct-to-video-release. The film follows a young Ichi contending with violent bullies in school, and eventually realizing his strengths. The prequel was written by Sakichi Sato, who also wrote this film, as well as an animated prequel, titled Ichi the Killer: Episode Zero. (Episode Zero follows the continuity of the manga series of which the films are based on. This is apparent, as it has several scenes that contradict the continuity of Ichi the Killer and 1-Ichi.)[1]
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Ichi the Killer at the Internet Movie Database
- Ichi the Killer at Allmovie
- Ichi the Killer at Metacritic
- Ichi the Killer at Rotten Tomatoes
