Review of ICHI (2008) by Nora S — 28 Oct 2009

Saw this at the San Diego Asian Film Festival and am very glad I did so. It was a major step back into Kurosawa-esque samurai drama and I think ICHI pulled it off very well. If you watch this movie for fight scenes you will be dissapointed by the fact that it isn't a brainless action flick, but as for the movie itself, I must expound...

The Battles were entertaining, although some of the scenes were too up-close. The fighting was brutally coreographed (probably misspelled) and the blood was excellent. There were no poorly done cut+paste blood effects, as they were all realistic. For the action, I was pleasantly surprised, as zatoichi movies were typically ridiculously over the top (especially recently). The fighting of thugs, as it rightly should be, was far easier than the fights with the actually trained fencers she had battled.

This is a romance movie, and the relationship built between Ichi and Toma was beautiful. And the depth of characters was well tackled. Also, you need to pay attention to the sublty of dialogue and non-verbal communication. There are moments in which silence speaks chapters more than words. Not to mention, her strength is put on top of her internal vulnerability in which she is afraid to get close to others because they hurt her. Also, you need to understand sarcasm, because it is used a few times in the film, and you may not realize it. Every character, even the fools she dispatched of quickly all had some character. It wasnt as if they were just dead body #1-3, then dead body #4-9, etc, you really wanted to see most of them die.

There were a few scenes in which they cut to and from, like when he gets the courage to draw his sword, in which they should not have cut away. But really, other than this it is flawless. Many of the side characters, like Kotaro, the boy whom calls Ichi sis, and the son of the Clan who hires Toma, are very deep characters in spite of their limited time on screen in comparrison to the lead roles. I really liked the son, who pushed Toma to fight every step of the way, and gave him the opportunity to regain his manhood in the battle between the Clan andthe bandits.

This is the finest movie I have seen in a long while, and my favorite movie since Taken. Although I was also very fond of Zombieland. See this movie, as hackneyed as my review is, as soon as possible, and please go see it at the San Diego Asian Film Festival. It runs at 4pm (or 430) on Thursday (29th), so go see it already!!!!!! its only $8 at the door.