Ichi the Killer

Ichi the Killer
USA Uncut Special Edition DVD Cover
Directed by	Takashi Miike
Produced by	Akiko Funatsu Dai Miyazaki
Written by	Sakichi Satō Hideo Yamamoto (comic)
Starring	Tadanobu Asano Shinya Tsukamoto Nao Omori Alien Sun
Music by	Karera Musication Seiichi Yamamoto
Cinematography	Hideo Yamamoto
Editing by	Yasushi Shimamura
Distributed by	Media Blasters (USA)
Release date(s)	December 22, 2001 May 30, 2003 September, 2004
Running time	123 min
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese, Cantonese, English
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Koroshiya Ichi
Original Japanese Poster

Ichi the Killer (殺し屋１, Koroshiya Ichi^?) (2001) is a film directed by Takashi Miike and adapted from a manga by Hideo Yamamoto.

Plot

The film stars Tadanobu Asano as Kakihara, a sadomasochist yakuza enforcer who enjoys giving and receiving pain in about equal measures. Kakihara's boss Anjo is murdered in a particularly gruesome fashion, and a mysterious group arrives to clean up all evidence of the murder, and they steal 300 million yen Anjo had in his room. Many of Kakihara's compatriots, including Anjo's English, Cantonese, and Japanese speaking girlfriend Karen (Alien Sun), suspect that Anjo simply took the money and ran, but Kakihara is convinced the man is alive. His investigation leads him to brutally torture a member of a rival clan, Suzuki (Susumu Terajima), by suspending him from a ceiling with metal hooks through the man's back, shoving stilettos through his body, and pouring boiling grease (from a meal of tempura) on him. In an example of the film's extremely black humor, when asked what he is doing, Kakihara responds nonchalantly, "Just a little torture." The man turns out to be innocent. To make restitution, Kakihara slices off part of his tongue and offers it to Suzuki's boss (Jun Kunimura). However, the man who tipped Kakihara off to Suzuki and may have more real information, a disheveled old man nicknamed Jijii (Shinya Tsukamoto), is nowhere to be found. Jijii is, as it turns out, secretly orchestrating events. Under his wing is a young man, Ichi (Nao Omori), a confused and apparently psychotic individual who is normally unassuming and cowardly, but becomes homicidal when enraged (and who has crying fits when committing his murders). Ichi outfits himself in a rubber stuntman suit with shoes that have razors concealed in the heels, and after spying on a pimp brutalizing a prostitute kills first the pimp, then the girl. Jijii has so manipulated Ichi as to confuse sexual arousal with homicidal lust in him, and accomplished this by creating a false memory in him of witnessing a rape in high school -- which he felt ashamed for wanting to participate in rather than stop. Kakihara is eventually thrown out of the syndicate for his transgressions, but not before catching word of Ichi. He becomes fascinated with this "total sadist," since perhaps through him he can finally find the ultimate pain he has been seeking -- one which neither his girlfriend nor his boss could give him. In a related plot development, Jijii attempts to get better control over Ichi by having Karen seduce him, but the plan backfires horribly and Karen is slaughtered. Kakihara, along with two corrupt police-detective twin brothers, find Myu-Myu, a prostitute connected with Jijii's gang. In one of the film's more disturbing scenes, they torture her for information (primarily by cutting her nipples off). They find one of Jijii's henchmen and torture him to find out where Ichi is. However, at this point, Ichi shows up at Kakihara's compound. He kills Kaneko in front of his son Takeshi, who then goes and kicks Ichi while he is lying on the floor crying. Kakihara soon realizes Ichi won't hurt him, so he inserts two pins into both his ears, to the extent where he is deaf in a suicide attempt. He then looks up as the camera pans to Ichi, standing up in tears holding the top half of Takeshi's head in his hand, with the child's corpse lying next to where he stands. He charges at Kakihara and, following a small fight, embeds one of his razor-bladed boots in the center of Kakihara's head. Kakihara stumbles back, claiming it is the greatest feeling ever and falls off the rooftop to his death. Kakihara is found on the compound floor by Jijii, dead but apparently unwounded by Ichi's final attack, revealing that Kakihara was hallucinating the attack (most likely due to sticking the pins into his ears too far and poking his brain), and thus committed suicide.

Cast and roles

Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• As a publicity gimmick, barf bags were handed out at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) to those attending the midnight screening of this film.
• When Kakihara's cell phone rings, the ringtone is the movie's theme song.
• The fenced-in rooftop where Kakihara and Ichi battle is the same one seen in Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha (1999), where three policemen talk about murder and the Yakuza.
• For the sequence in which his character is suspended from hooks and tortured, actor Susumu Terajima required twelve hours of makeup and other preparation, and then spent twelve more hours shooting the scene.
• The name Ichi means 1 in Japanese, which is why he wears the yellow number 1 on his costume.
• The name Jijii is slang for "Grandpa" or "Old Man."
• Director Takashi Miike reveals on the US TokyoShock DVD release that the semen used in the close-up during the intro sequence, when the film's title raises out of a puddle of semen, is real. It was supplied by Japanese director Shinya Tsukamoto (Iron Man Tetsuo) who plays the muscle bound mastermind that controls Ichi. Miike gave a bucket to Tsukamoto to fill but was unable to provide enough material for the shot. He passed the bucket to three other crew members to add the remaining amount.
• Director Takashi Miike originally intended to have the author of the original manga, Hideo Yamamoto, write a script entirely in manga form, but the idea fell through when Yamamoto felt he could not complete it due to writer's block.
• Director Takashi Miike was supposed to have the pimp beat up a prostitute with three punches. However, in the end, he increased the number to fifteen because he could not stand the actress, Mai Goto.
• There are two prequels to Ichi the Killer, one a live action prequel called Ichi-1 about Ichi when he was in high-school, and another one called Ichi the Killer Episode 0 which is an anime based on the style of the original manga.
• In the 45-minute animated prequel produced after the film's cult success, Takashi Miike provides the voice of Kakihara.
• In the movie Last Life in the Universe, appears a poster of Ichi the Killer, where Asano also acted. There is also cameos by Sakichi Satō and Takashi Miike, the writer and director of Ichi respectively as Yakuza after Asano's character.
• Ichi can be seen playing Tekken Tag Tournament in a scene in a house with Jijii.

Manga

Ichi the Killer
殺し屋１ (Ichi the Killer)
Demographic	Seinen
Manga: Ichi the Killer
Author	Hideo Yamamoto
Publisher	Shogakukan
Serialized in	Weekly Young Sunday
Original run	May 1998 – 2001
Volumes	10

The original manga was created by Hideo Yamamoto.

External links

• Ichi the Killer at the Internet Movie Database
• 殺し屋１ (Koroshiya Ichi) (Japanese). Japanese Movie Database. Retrieved on 2007-07-21.

Reviews

• In-depth review of Ichi the Killer with animations at I-Mockery
• Nippon Cinema
• Snowblood Apple
• Asian Cinema Drifter
• Nihon-fr.com (in French)
• List of cuts in DVD versions (in German)