Review of Ichi The Killer (Two Disc Collectors Edition)

Introduction

Based on the best-selling Manga by Hideo Yamamoto, ‘Ichi the Killer’ traces the destinies of two polar opposites: psychopathic gangster Kakihara (played with memorable insouciance by Tadanobu Asano) and innocent urchin Ichi (Nao Omori, harboring an explosive psycho-sexual sadism) who are manipulated into a bloody collision course by the mysterious Jijii (Shinya Tsukamoto.) Thanks to screenwriter Sakitchi Sato’s agile, if faintly obscure plotting, there are several tender subplots orbiting around the narrative: there is Karen (Asian Sun), a closet sadist whose ambivalence about her disposition speaks to a larger concern in Japanese culture. There’s Kaneko (Hiroyuki Tanaka) a former cop and now powerless lackey to the sadistically violent Kakihara, who unknowingly assumes a brotherly role to his boss’s arch enemy Ichi, whilst trying to mend the frayed bonds with his young son, a storyline that reaches for an oasis of poignancy at clear odds with the unparalleled brutality of the film’s circus of manic, censor-flagellating violence and the pain/pleasure dialectic of its philosophy.

Video

Sensitivity towards foreign pictures with a labyrinthine distribution history is routinely expected when assessing a DVD’s visual transfer, however, ‘Ichi the Killer’ stands up pretty well against any American Studio release. It’s not quite as sharp as one might have hoped for such a recent film, but for a cost of only $1.5 million, the transfer makes the film look like it cost 10 times that. Still, Miike’s striking imagery only reminds the viewer that this should really be seen on the big screen.

Audio

Excellent. Superior sound design (after ‘Audition’, this is becoming Miike’s trademark), and ingenious use of the rear channels in the 5.1 Japanese track, it’s an absorbing, hypnotic fusion of music and sound effects, with sound designer Yoshiya Obara matching each of Miike’s visual quirks and then some. The only problem is the 5.1 dub, which has flakier sound and unspeakably bad dubbing. Japanese is a notoriously difficult language to translate at the best of times, and whilst the subtitles struggle to capture the script’s dark humor, the dub track turns the film into a derivative ‘Lock, Stock’ spin-off with Mockney accents and soul-shredding dialogue. For the sin of adding this track, it loses a point.

Features

A rather under-whelming 2-disc set. Ineffectual interviews with the film’s rather guarded instigators make way for equally coy behind-the-scenes featurettes, picture galleries, biographies and a truckload of corporate tie-in trailers. The commentary promises to boost the average: Hong Kong Legends fans will be familiar with Bey Logan, here titled as an Asian Film Expert (even though he appears to be reading most of his expertise off of a clipboard), who joins one of film’s stars Asian Sun and ‘Ichi’s Associate Producer Elliot Tong. Their banter is mostly warm, innocuous, tending to stumble when discussion of the film’s misogynist violence rears its ugly head. It’s puzzling why a film as controversial and prude-bating as this that the argument amongst the commentary’s participants doesn’t develop beyond anything more sophisticated than stock ‘no-one could take this seriously’ pandering.

Conclusion

Along with ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano and Hideo Nakata, Takashi Miike is considered to be at the forefront of Japanese new-wave filmmakers in their experimentation with narrative film form and postmodern aesthetics. Based on the evidence of ‘Ichi the Killer’, this reputation is well-founded, Miike shows a nimble and stylish use of film form and a typically aberrant method of digesting ‘Ichi’s complex, Manga-sourced narrative. Technically, ‘Ichi’ is an astonishing achievement: dazzling, diverse cinematography, delirious, comic-book sound design, manic editing and a playful use of narrative conventions.

Sadly however, that’s about where the film’s genuine virtues end and it’s a sign of the film’s cynicism that its hyperbolic violence has pushed it into the field of art by some critics. Interesting sub-plots are never developed beyond superficial leg-stretching, and the films obtuse conclusion will satisfy few, and utterly fails to substantiate the film’s themes of sadism/masochism, fathers/sons, instead tracking lazily into a cryptic meta-muddle that doesn’t offer much meaning even if you do uncover it. It is a pity, as there are interesting themes running quietly beneath the ribbons of bodily fluids and unrepentantly sadistic torture scenes. Whilst the father/son theme tracks through the three central relationships: Kakihara and his absent Boss Anjo, Ichi and Jijii, and Kaneko and his son Takeshi, Miike never manages to create a dense construct out of this intriguing material, the film merely teases at a greater intellectual concern amongst the wiry narrative of fragmentary units, enlivened only by increasingly melodramatic gore. Miike even resorts to images from his previous films to add extra cache to the garnish: men cowering under blankets; bodies being punctured by needles, etc.

What remains then is something of a stark, screeching shell of a movie. A film that is remarkable in its ability to be visually seductive and repulsive at the same time, but utterly hollow but for its clog of shallow thematic detail. Surfaces dominate, and Miike exploits every gruesome surface torment to relentless extremes, and after about an hour of ceaseless mayhem, there’s a certain futility and desperation to the gesture. Ultimately, ‘Ichi’ fulfills all the criticisms one could place upon it: baffling, smug, superficial, sadistic, gratuitously violent. Gore-hounds will find plenty to feast off of (although fans of savagery against helpless woman will presumably be burned by the BBFC’s edits), but the rest of us might be left wondering that ‘Ichi’ is what happens when filmmakers give up making challenging movies and resort to button-pushing shock-tactics for easy column inches. There’s the echo of a fine film here, too bad Miike couldn’t be bothered making it.