Review: When I watch an interview about a Hollywood director, I cringe. Why? Take for example Matt Damon's comment on director Baz Luhrmann. Damon commented that Luhrmann takes all the rules about directing a film and tosses it out a window. Okay, so he made a film that has a disgustingly insane editing technique that most American audiences aren't exposed to and mistake it for "breaking" the rules. It's just some weird and furious MTV-style editing guys! Don't get me wrong, I respect Baz Luhrmann very much. He's great at showing us colorful images and beautiful scenes (but I think he'd be better off being a photographer or some sort). I enjoyed the images he captured on Moulin Rouge. But to say that he has taken all the rules of directing and chucked it out the window is a dangerous over-statement. Wait wait, it's not JUST an over-statement, it's an abomination. If Luhrmann tosses the rules out the window, then what does Miike Takashi do? Eat the rules and then gets on a plane and pulls his pants down and shits out the rules all over Hollywood? Miike Takashi's brilliant (and often extremely perverse) visions truly break the rules of film-making. In Dead or Alive, he was able to take a generic and bland script and inject it with something new and fresh and amazing. In Audition, he changed the tone and mood of the movie COMPLETELY halfway through (it was like two different movies in one). In City of Lost Souls, he redefined what a love story could be. In Fudoh, he pushed the boundaries of shock into an uncomfortable level that felt good to enjoy. The list goes on and on for this modern-day film making genius.

Okay, as always with most films, there's gonna be those that hate the film and call it crap, and those who celebrate the film and call it a masterpiece. Ichi is no doubt one of those films. Already infamous for it's extreme display of violence and gore, Ichi proceeds to shock and disturb audiences and bring them to a whole new level of queasiness. This movie is littered with body parts, stuffed with sexual violence, dumped with humanly insides, saturated with insane murders, and finished off with a sprinkle of really graphic dialogue (oh yes, even the dialogue in this film can make you uncomfortable). If you thought treating a woman like "shit" in Dead or Alive was bad, prepare yourself for some just as bad if not worse. In the first five minutes, you're treated to one of the most brutal displays of woman beating ever (perhaps not worse than anything from the Guinea Pig series…..but still, it's brutal). From then on, different acts of violence and images of grizzly scenes follow until the end of the film. Yes, there is a myriad of violence in this film, but is it all necessary? Like most other films that contain violence that can par up with this movie's degree, it's usually done in a distasteful manner and for simple exploitation. What saves Ichi from being just another violent exploitation film are the moments inbetween the acts of violence (and sometimes during) and the context and deeper meaning they hold.

"Hold up JoE" you say, "a deeper meaning? I highly doubt it! This is nothing but a piece of violent exploitation film and you're digging way too deep into it." I'm sure many will say that after watching the film. Many will say that people who find deeper meaning in Ichi are simply making it up. How can there be meaning to this blasphemy?! I don't know if Miike intended to do so (he claims he wasn't trying to comment on the social roles of men and women in Audition, which the film actually did), but in Ichi, he's done perhaps the best work at unraveling a tortured soul I have ever seen. Ichi is in deep denial of what he really is. He is a true and pure sadist and his body is sexually aroused by what he does, but he can't understand why because he loathes killing. Throughout the movie, you watch his transformation from a scared and confused caterpillar, to a matured and accepting butterfly. It's one of the most splendid psychological roller coasters ever to be captured on film. But the beautiful dementia of the human psyche is not limited just Ichi my friends, no sir.

This film introduces you to an amazing cast of characters that you won't soon forget. From the bizarre Kakihara to the happily twisted detectives Jiro and Saburo, Ichi has some competition for most memorable character. Very easily however, Kakihara surpasses Ichi for the spot. Ichi got to get his name in the title, Kakihara got to strut his stuff and steal Ichi's show in the movie. He shows up much more than the title character and that isn't such a bad thing. Portraying a S&M yakuza, Tadanobu Asano brings this disturbing lunatic to life with style and attitude. Maybe had Asano not been cast as Kakihara, he wouldn't be burned into your mind. But since he did, he's burned it so deep in our heads that smoke is puffing out our ears. This guy is the epiphany of bad-ass. He makes THE most stupendous entrance a character could make. I won't ruin the surprise, but try and stay quiet when he appears. Really, don't make a single noise when he first shows up on screen, it'll be a little bet between you and me. Kakihara's got a few screws lose in his head as well. Throughout the film he may seem like the hard-ass that no one should mess with, but looking at him closer, he's just a lonely little boy looking for true happiness (but in his own messed up way). Also in this elite cast we have the ever so lovely prostitute Karen, the manipulative Jijii (who really packs a punch), the kind-hearted Kaneko left with no option but to be a yakuza bodyguard, the tired and old Takayama, the colorful and hilariously bizarre corrupt detective Jiro and Saburo, the horny Long, the vengeful and pissed Suzuki, and the list goes on and on. Anyone who has screen time and lines in this movie really takes it as an opportunity to shine.

Back to Miike now. He is truly a craftsman. I mean, you are talking about a man who makes up to seven movies in one year, and the movies are rarely ever short of amazing! He works harder than an ox in a rice field and ends up with a finished product that's better than shrimp fried rice (and I tell ya, it really can't get much better than shrimp fried rice). Some people might think Miike is over-rated, and I respect their opinion. But a man of his caliber, producing films of true immense talent, deserves all the praise he can get. He sets out to make films that shows things you have never seen. He never settles for just being an average film. Sure, Ichi can be considered a violent opus, but the way he ends the film completely discredits the violence as pointless in the film. He doesn't just take you on a trip of insanity and let you go after the credits role, he makes you WANT to go back to that world to figure what the hell just happened, what it all meant. In Ichi, you may not want to revisit what you have just seen, but you are almost left with no choice. The ending is baffling and extremely open-ended. You are forced to think about everything you just saw, because the whole movie was a puzzle slowly being fit together, and the last piece to finish it isn't in the film so much, but in your mind. You have to respect a man who can take a film that in all right should've been an exploitation movie, but makes it a haunting and chilling study of the human mind. Touche Miike, touche.