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Ichi the Killer

Koroshiya 1

Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan

2001

129 Min
Color
1.85:1
Cantonese, English, Japanese
  • Currently 3.6/5 Stars.
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DIR Takashi Miike

PROD Akiko Funatsu, Dai Miyazaki

SCR Hideo Yamamoto, Sakichi Satô

DP Hideo Yamamoto

CAST Tadanobu Asano, Nao Omori, Shinya Tsukamoto, Paulyn Sun, Susumu Terajima, Shun Sugata, Toru Tezuka, Yoshiki Arizono

ED Yasushi Shimamura

Toronto, Stockholm (Twilight Zone)

Synopsis

Welcome to a world where violence is a virtue and depravity is a way of life. This is the underside of Shinjuku, and the home of Kakihara, a sadistic yakuza killer. He relentlessly tears apart the underworld searching for the man who killed his boss. The mastermind behind the plot is Jijii, an ex-cop bent on turning the gangsters of Japan against one another. His trump card is a physically powerful lunatic who is constantly on the verge of snapping. This madman is Ichi the Killer, and between him and Kakihara, the streets will run red with blood.

Director

Original

Takashi Miike

A contemporary of such noted film experimentalists as Tetsuo: The Iron Man [1989, maverick Japanese workhorse director Takashi Miike became one of the most talked about filmmakers in the international festival circuit. Despite the derailed manic energy of the aforementioned films, it was the stark relationship drama turned sadistic nightmare Audition that found the director receiving increasing international exposure. Audition succeeded in pulling the rug from under viewers as it turned the age-old image of the submissive Japanese female on its head with a shocking and nearly unbearable finale that had many horrified viewers shell-shocked. Born in Osaka, Japan, in 1960, Miike spent his childhood growing up in Osaka, where he eventually opted to study filmmaking at the Yokohama Academy of Visual Arts. Inspired more by Bruce Lee than Seijun Suzuki, Miike’s distinctive style came more as a result of not studying the traditional rules of filmmaking than a conscious attempt to break them… read more

Wall

Displaying 4 of 38 wall posts.
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ethan

26Jan12

A grotesque comic-book Yakuza movie that succeeds so greatly because despite Miike's bombast, he always take his themes seriously.

Zach Closs

17Jan12

Somehow this film keeps me curious and coming back, everytime I see it I'm more disgusted and more put off but I still watch it at least once a year. If you can get past the ridiculously overwrought violence and some pretty awful CGI, there's a movie that's fascinating in a morbid way, funny, horrific, well-acted and for some reason, thought-provoking. I for one loved the ending.

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Shelley

8Dec11

"Listen, when you're giving pain to someone, don't think about the pain that person is feeling. Just concentrate on how good it feels to be causing someone pain."

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Publius

20Jul11

This was not 100% in the 'what the actual fuck' sweepstakes but it came pretty close

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Articles

Our roundup of essays and articles on this film.
W184

勝手にしやがれ #2: 10 Films Writing a Decade

By Stephen Sarrazin on January 18, 2010

If the nineties were the years which marked the return of Japanese cinema on the international film circuit, introducing and establishing

read article

Lists

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Reviews

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Giving pain is a serious business … Koroshiya 1 [Ichi the Killer]

By jaredmo​barak on January 23, 2010

Based on a Manga by Hideo Yamamoto, Takashi Miike’s Koroshiya 1 [Ichi the Killer] is just as brutally gory as people say. This was my first screening of a Miike work and I’m not quite so sure of how…  read review

Untitled

By morita on November 26, 2009

El cine de Takashi Miike no se parece a nada que haya visto antes, y probablemente sea algo que todavía no tiene nombre. Es así a tal punto que me cuesta mucho escribir algo sobre él (siempre quise…  read review

Untitled

By Justin Partrid​ge on April 21, 2009

You know that movie that you put on that all your friends like and enjoy, solely becuase it’s so crazy and makes fuck-all sense, but you watch it anyway and you and your friends put in on to kinda…  read review

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Ichi The Killer

24 posts by 11 people about 2 years ago

manga adaptations

1 post by 1 person almost 3 years ago