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Koroshiya 1
Ichi the Killer
Japan 2001
directed by Takashi Miike
starring Nao Omori, Tadanobu Asano, Shinya Tsukamoto, Alien Sun (= Paulyn Sun), Sabu (II) (= Hiroyuki Tanaka), Susumu Terajima, Shun Sugata, Toru Tezuka, Kee, Satoshi Niizuma, Matsuo Suzuki
based on a manga by Hideo Yamamoto
Ichi the Killer
review by Mike Haberfelner
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When mighty Yakuza boss Anjo is gone missing, only his most loyal
henchman, the facially disfigured Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano), does not
believe he has made an escape with the gang's money. When he tortures
the wrong man - Suzuki (Susumu Terajima), another Yakuza bigshot -
though, he has to repent for his mistake though by cutting out his
tongue, & is still thrown out of the organisation. So it's him &
his old boss's gang against all the rest of the Yakuza's, & he still
has to find out about the murder of his boss - & yes, Suzuki
actually had something to do with it. The actual killer though was Ichi
(Nao Omori), a disturbed young man who was bullied as a child, &
when a woman was brutally raped before ghis very eyes something snapped
& he turned into a lone avenger with the mission to rid the world of
all the bullies - in an extremely bloody way, though. & Yakuza Jijii
(Shinya Tsukamoto) is the actual brains behind him, knowing how to
channel Ichi's anger into the right direction in order to personally
profit from it. In the end it is Ichi against Kakihara , who turns out
to be a closet masochist wanting to be severely punished by Ichi, &
his gang. But when Ichi kills one of Kakihara's henchman who was
actually the father of a boy who idolized Ichi in front of that very
boy, Ichi cracks up, realizing that in order to take revenge on all the
bullies, he has actually become a bully himself. Kakihara, in
disappointment because Ichi is no longer going to punish him, fantasizes
their final fight & happily throws himself off a tall building to
his death.
A Yakuza/superhero-movie, filled with over the top
comic-book-violence & -gore effects (making the manga source of this
movie quite obvious), but, as it is often the case with director Takashi
Miike's movies, it's style over substance. The film moves swiftly from
one trendy brutality & flashy SM-imagery to the next, with many a
macabre detail & nice special effect (e.g. Kakihara's slit-open
cheeks, only held together by earrings) thrown in, but there is little
in way of storytelling or characterizations, which is a pity considering
the many characters that actually play reasonably large parts in the
story & the convoluted story itself.
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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Robots and rats,
demons and potholes, cuddly toys and shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill Your Bones to is all of that.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to -
a collection of short stories and mini-plays ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle,
all thought up by the twisted mind of screenwriter and film reviewer Michael Haberfelner.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to
the new anthology by Michael Haberfelner
Out now from Amazon!!! |
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