Review of Ichi the Killer (2001) by Reginald C — 23 Sep 2008

Ichi is an extremely disturbed Japanese man with absolutely appalling dental hygiene who spends his days playing Tekken on the playstation, his evenings having extremely fucked-up conversations with bruised Japanese prostitutes, and his nights running round the city wearing a rubber gimp suit and razor sharp ice skates which he uses to literally kick people in half.

He also has some great chat up lines, my favourite of which is "Don't worry... I'll beat you up from now on". During the course of this film so many messed-up things happen that you may begin to believe you are hallucinating the whole thing.

I mean, could anyone make a film in which a man tries to commit suicide by PUSHING TWO KEBAB SKEWERS INTO HIS OWN EARS, in protest at the sheer stupidity of seeing Ichi lying on the floor in his gimp suit being beaten up by a ten year old boy? Or better still, a film in which the man who was about to commit suicide changes his mind because he realises Ichi is now standing over him HOLDING HALF THE BOY'S HEAD IN HIS HAND? Or a film which actually makes you laugh because a man can't speak to his girlfriend on the phone because he's just cut his own tongue out? Those crazy, crazy god damn Japs.

The strange thing is that this film is actually beautifully filmed and appears to have genuine artistic merit, except, it also has two corrupt police officers who wear furry hats with dog's ears on and who bet each other that it isn't physically possible to pull a human beings arm off with their bare hands, only to surprise themself by succeeding in the attempt shortly afterwards.