Ichi The Killer

Kakihara, super-masochist, Yakuza-killer and extreme piercing fan (congenially embodied by Tadanobu ASANO in colorful pimp-look) is supposed to clear up the disappearance of his boss and comes across the mysterious Ichi, who in a kinky superhero outfit organizes one massacre after another among the competing Yakuza clans. Could he be the one to bring him the long awaited painful end? MIIKE stages his story over long stretches as a downright cheerful splatter comic with absurdly exaggerated excesses of violence, but he is quite serious about the hopelessness and desperation of his characters. In Ichi, MIIKE succeeds in an almost ingenious way in linking sadness as a fixed component increasingly more strongly with the absurdly exaggerated and once again, sitting between all chairs, breaking with all viewing habits and genre conventions. Besides, some New Japanese Cinema heroes like Shinya TSUKAMOTO (TETSUO) or SABU (MONDAY) shine in supporting roles.