Pushing the extremes of violence and gore, Ichi the Killer is the story of a painfully shy, slightly crazy young man who dresses like a superhero and kills "bullies" with blades that extend from his shoes. Most of the story follows one superbly sadistic gangster, Kakihara, who loves pain so much that he’s slit the corners of his mouth open and sometimes blows smoke through the holes, and other times removes the rings that hold the gash’s closed, so he can open his mouth like a creepy-ass dragon. Thrown into the mix, we have a manipulative old bastard that’s using Ichi to start a gang war, and a crazy-ass gangsta-gal that’s hoping to torture and screw her way to the top of the yakuza.

This is one ultra-violent, depraved flick. Just an odd twist on an Asian gangster flick, but with some serious weirdness and super-gory. Sometimes a little hard to watch even for The Horrorist himself. Extreme torture, gore like few horror movies I’ve seen, and the weird part is it’s a damn cool movie.

Kakihara is one bad, cool motherfucker. If you think Jules was a badass in Pulp Fiction (and he was), you need to check this guy out. He’s proof that a guy can dress in a pink running suit with a red trench and still be the scariest bastard in the room. He’s so bad that when a group of fellow yakuza give him some bad news, when he reaches in his pocket they all mess themselves. He rocks. He’s really the star of the show, and the guy on the boxcover, Ichi is kinda lame, and so bizarrely pathetic that he’s impossible to really care about. Kakihara is very cool, although as the film goes on it gets harder and harder to like him, he’s one sick fucker.

By the way, "Ichi" means 1, which is why Ichi's costume has a 1 on it.

The gore is over the top, when we see Ichi’s masterwork, it looks like you locked a whole crew of teenagers up with Jason Voorhees on a bad day. Walls dripping with blood, knee-deep guts all over the floor. Also some great kills, seeing a guy who’s just been split down the middle give a “what the hell?” look before he starts bleeding, pretty cool. Not much realism, though. I think the idea was to be a little over the top in every aspect, especially the gore and violence. Although the film is at it’s most disturbing when it is being realistic, when a whore is beaten severely, then raped, then beaten more severely and raped again, it’s harsh.

The part that really bugs me in Asian flicks is the stereotypical “so confused, doesn’t have a clue about anything, innocently cruel” character like Ichi. He reminded me of the boy in one of the All Night Longs. They’re supposed to be so incredibly maladjusted that they have no concept of right and wrong. They’re supposed to be sociopathic, but even sociopaths know that their victims don’t usually enjoy being tortured or murdered. This stereotype has no idea that people don’t love it. Did they grow up in a box somewhere just staring at the wall? Have they never met any living thing, ever? At one point Ichi kills an evil pimp, then as the brutalized prostitute stares at him, he says, “I killed him for you, now I’ll beat you up.” with a big smile. Not an evil smile, he thought she enjoyed the beatings, he was being nice. Now even a simpleton should figure that if she enjoys the beatings, killing the guy that’s beating her isn’t really doing her a favor.

Anyway, Ichi the Killer is an exercise in gore, torture and violence. It’s entertaining, although gets really slow about halfway through and doesn’t ever pick the pace back up. I didn’t really like the movie much, I’m not sorry I watched it, but I wouldn’t watch it again, ultimately it wasn’t the gore that lost me, it was that slowness. Once I stopped caring about the characters, I was just waiting to see how it ended. Unfortunately there was about 45 minutes in between those two things. The voice actors are British, and unlike American voice actors, actually have an idea of how to act. So unlike most the Asian flicks I’ve watched, this one is watchable in English without losing anything.

6 out of 10 flamboyant psychos begging to be tortured