Ichi the Killer is many things, revolting, inspired, incomprehensible, stylish, ingenious and frequently downright nasty. Pretty much all of the characters are vile by nature, or at best outlandishly screwed up, and every time that we are baited with an aparent good dead, a reverse value judgement is not far behind.
The premise of Kikihara searching for his boss really just a device to get the action moving, and after that, well I really haven't a clue what's going on, or quite what many of the characters motivations are, or indeed if the the events are really happening or merely part of Kikihara's deranged fantasies. There's no definitive interpretation, so really you have to watch it and draw your own conclusions.
Contains very extreme violence and torture, even by the standards of Jap extreme cinema. The UK DVD release that I saw appears to have a good 3-4 minutes missing, possibly a tender mercy.
A fascinating and original film if you can stomach it. You may also feel like having a bath afterwords...
The premise of Kikihara searching for his boss really just a device to get the action moving, and after that, well I really haven't a clue what's going on, or quite what many of the characters motivations are, or indeed if the the events are really happening or merely part of Kikihara's deranged fantasies. There's no definitive interpretation, so really you have to watch it and draw your own conclusions.
Contains very extreme violence and torture, even by the standards of Jap extreme cinema. The UK DVD release that I saw appears to have a good 3-4 minutes missing, possibly a tender mercy.
A fascinating and original film if you can stomach it. You may also feel like having a bath afterwords...