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Ichi the Killer (Unrated Edition) Director: Takashi Miike Number of Items: 1 Format: Color Audience Rating: Unrated Running Time: 129 minutes Studio: Media Blasters, Inc Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2003-11-18 Buy from Amazon

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 86 Average rating: 4.0 "Not so deep as intended." First of all I have never been bothered by excessive gore and violence. I also occasionally enjoy a David Lynch or David Cronenberg film (which as a previous reviewer noted, it does resemble). This film while certainly being ultra-violent, and trying to be as esoteric and non-conforming to genre as possible somehow fell short for me. Which is strange because that certainly sounds like my kind of movie. The main problem was that this film wants you to have some sort of connection to its characters. Cries out for it in fact. However, this is a problem since the whole film was rather cartoonish in its aspect. The characters were all caricatures; exagerrated beyond any real human in their worst traits. Now this can work from an artistic standpoint, but there has to be something or someone firmly connected to reality to give perspective. The closest thing to that was the minor character of a disgraced police officer who never really has enough meaningfull on-screen time, until the characters are all fully established, to have any real bearing on the viewers reception of the film. Without that it was a dream-like haze of gore, and depravity with no grounding influence. Kind of fun, but not really as deep as it was intended to be. I will say there was quite a good deal of humor in the movie though. I'll never forget the scene where Kakihara has just finished cutting off the end of his own tongue as an "apology" in front of a room full of yakuza and then calmly takes a cell phone call: "he-o?". Pure genius. Ah well. It could have been better. "I wouldn't give this movie away to my worst enemy" The overexcess of gore and violence does NOT make up for the terribly weak plot of this movie. I was hardly able to finish Ichi the Killer and it's not often or ever I turn off, or walk out of a movie. I am going to take a shotgun to this dvd so that no man will ever be able to say "I wasted an hour and a half watching this garbage." DO NOT BUY THIS MOVIE!!! "Psychologically a good study... otherwise, pretty bad." For the name of the movie "Ichi the Killer"... that's not Ichi on the front cover. That's Kakihara (a completely insane member of the Anjo gang who REALLY enjoys inflicting and recieving pain). Psychologically, this movie covers a lot of the most base of human desire. The stuff nobody really wants to see in themselves if they're halfway balanced. This film also glorifies violence against women, torture, dismeboweling, amputation and more... It sprays more blood than "Kill Bill"; and then takes it a step further with Kakihara using skewers, hooks and scissors to torture his victims as he searches for "The Boss". I'm glad I watched it, but not so thrilled I'm going to watch it again anytime soon. The plot had a lot of potential if they would have stepped back from the massive amounts of violence long enough to actually explain why several characters are the way they are. Ichi (which is Japanese for "one", and explains the "1" on the back of his suit) is almost like what would happen if a superhero went completely insane... it does explain around how Ichi became what he is, but all in all, it doesn't do it so well you feel anything for him as a character except that he has issues... a LOT of issues. Kakihara is a sado-masochist who happens to be the most interesting character in the movie... but it still wasn't enough to really save this movie in my opinion. I'd probably suggest renting this one... "only rent or buy the unrated edition" i made the mistake of renting this from my local commercial video store and as i waited in line i noticed that my copy was R-rated but i thought nothing of it. once i got home and popped the DVD in my player i was purely disappointed. the violent scenes are so completely edited out that at times i found myself scratching my head thinking "well what happened there?" such as the tempura/hot oil scene or the slicing the guy in half scene. i mean what happened to the prostitute? she trys to kill him and the next thing i know there's blood all over the wall and ichi is screaming. talk about major letdown. the editing completely ruins the continuity of the film and i found myself shutting off the movie less than an hour in and returning it to the video store complaining all the way. the next day i found the unrated version at the local independent video store and it was everything i expected in all of its blood splattered glory. great action packed film for those who are not squeamish. "c'mon guys" Anyone who tries to take this film seriously is a fool and they're missing the point. Have you seen Dead Or Alive? Remember the last fifteen minutes of the final showdown and how over the top ridiculous it is? Ichi the Killer is pure entertainment in the same vein filled with scene after scene of gratuitous violence and torture for the sake of shock value. Kind of like those Lucio Fulci zombie flicks from the 70s. Throats slashed, tongues cut off, hot oil, razor sharp needles, the list goes on. The first hour or so focuses more on the violent aspects of the characters and the second hour focuses more on the characters themselves. It could have been a bit better if it did explain more about how the characters became the way they are but it certianly didn't detract from the story: a run-of-the-mill mob revenge flick. The only thing about this film I didn't like was the extreme violence, forced sex and mutilation of women. Perhaps this was a way of expressing how vile these characters really are but it seemed to be the only extreme thing about the movie I felt to be a bit unnecessary. Outside of that a very entertaining film. See this if you're a gore fan.