An executed samurai takes an existential journey throughout time, space and eternity in search of bloody vengeance.
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Title: Izo (2004)
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1 win & 3 nominations.
See more awards »
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Cast
| Credited cast: | |||
| Kazuya Nakayama | ... | Okada Izo | |
| Kaori Momoi | |||
| Ryûhei Matsuda | ... | (as Ryuuhei Matsuda) | |
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Ryôsuke Miki | ||
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Yûya Uchida | ||
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Masumi Okada | ||
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Hiroki Matsukata | ||
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Hiroshi Katsuno | ||
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Masato | ||
| Bob Sapp | |||
| Takeshi Kitano | ... | (as 'Bîto' Takeshi) | |
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Daijirô Harada | ||
| Rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
| Taisaku Akino | |||
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Chisato Amate | ||
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Takeshi Caesar | ||
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Plot Summary
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Add Synopsis
Storyline
We begin in 1865, when the Shogunate is on its last legs, but still capable of punishing its enemies. One is Izo (Kazuya Nakayama), an assassin in the service of Hanpeida (Ryosuke Miki), a Tosa lord and Imperial supporter. After killing dozens of the Shogun's men, Izo is captured and crucified. Instead of being extinguished, his rage propels him through the space-time continuum to present-day Tokyo, where he finds himself one with the city's homeless. Here Izo transforms himself into a new, improved killing machine, his entire soul still enraged by his treatment in his past life. His response to the powers-that-be, whose predecessors put him to death, is the sword. Written by nightwatch
Izo is a vector-movie: it has a point of origin (Izo is put to death in the opening sequence), direction and speed (arbitrary revenge as determined by the edge of Izo's sword), but no destination. It must be stressed that unlike "traditional" narratives, it consciously avoids the end-point/solution/destination. The movie lets the aesthetics of its form shape the meaning of the story. The aesthetics in question being: hyper-loaded symbolism as conjured in Noh theater; PS2 architecture of the action - labyrinthine violence for its own sake leading up to the next level, which is more of the same with a different CGI background; MTV approach to video editing - Izo's bounces between layers of reality with the approximate speed of a cable channel surfer are spliced with archival footage and several "unplugged" Kazuki Tomokawa performances where the ancient Greek chorus would provide emotional emphasis.
The experience is not exactly rewarding but definitely unparalleled.
Apart from some questionable world-conspiracy and misogyny moments, an overall entertaining, extreme, and cryptically new take on film storytelling. Miike in his radical element.