In 2001, renowned Japanese filmmaker and provocateur Takashi Miike (Audition) delivered the action-horror hybrid Ichi the Killer. A veritable smorgasbord of Manga-inspired action set-pieces, mordant humor, wince-inducing torture techniques, human entrails as set-dressing, performative misogyny, and hyper-critical exploration of toxic masculinity. This defiantly unreal and ultra-violent classic demands a cult rediscovery for fans of extreme cinema. Miike achieved cult notoriety with Audition in the late 90s and hasn’t slowed down since. Drawing from the bloody well of Hideo Yammamoto’s infamous source material, Miike’s live-action adaptation stays faithful to its gory comic book origins while carving its own blood-and-guts-soaked path.

RELATED: Realism and Surrealism: A Look at the Horror of Takashi Miike

What Is ‘Ichi the Killer’ About?

The lurid tale revolves around Hakihari (Tadanobu Asana), a bottle-blonde, flamboyantly-attired thug with facial scars and a penchant for delivering and receiving pain. The secondary character is the titular protagonist Ichi (Nao Omori), an efficient killer who hides behind a seemingly harmless facade. Their paths converge following the disappearance of Yakuza boss Anjo, the misogynist leader of a powerful Shinjuku crime syndicate. Anjo’s abduction triggers an ultra-violent chain reaction, sending shock waves through the criminal underworld. Ichi projects a weak-willed personality, the kind of person who on some level encourages the surrounding bullies to treat him like a doormat. Hakihari’s ruthlessness demands respect from the obsequious, subhuman killers who hang on to his every word as if their lives depend on it. Well, their lives do depend on it. Ichi the Killer is a relentlessly grim gorefest and boasts truly gnarly sequences of torture, dismemberment, and death. The live-action iteration saw the director dip his toes in the bloody waters of gang warfare and the extremes of sadomasochism.

‘Ichi the Killer’ Ushered in a New Era of Torture and Violent Cinema

In an effort to find out the location of Anjo, Hakihari devises a distinctive torture tactic involving boiling shrimp, skewers, and a man suspended from hooks. Another scene has a man confined in a repurposed TV set, a crucial fight involving Ichi and a Yakuza boss results in the loser resembling a split dog, while a Yakuza mass-murder has a human face sliding down a wall. The final act of Ichi dials everything up to 11 with the violence and dark humor becoming increasingly more deranged. But it isn’t just violence for the sake of violence. Ichi the Killer pushed the boundaries of how violence was represented in film and the majority of the violence in Miike’s movie is fueled by a cartoonish, manic energy difficult to take seriously. Yet, despite this, the film was banned in several countries and remains the most violent of Miike’s cinematic output. One primary reason for the ban (and a problematic issue) with Ichi is the portrayal of women in Miike’s universe and the violence meted out to them. This disturbing realism feels out of place in a movie chock-full of exaggerated wall-to-wall viscera and absurdist violence, leaving a nasty taste in the mouth. The disconcerting emphasis on gendered violence is one of the biggest criticisms Ichi faced upon release. However, this didn’t stop the movie from having a major impact on Western horror filmmakers.

With Ichi the Killer, Miike had cornered the market with his graphic depictions of extreme violence in cinema, preceding the Torture Porn boom in the mid-00s by several years. The movie paved the way for Western filmmakers with the emergence of The Splat Pack; horror filmmakers like Eli Roth (who has cited Miike as an influence for his War-on-Terror parable Hostel). Other notable movies included Greg Mclean’s Wolf Creek, Neil Marshall’s The Descent, Rob Zombie’s The Devil’s Rejects and Alexandre Aja’s remake of The Hills Have Eyes.

‘Ichi the Killer’ Examines The Culture of Violence by Utilizing Violence

Ichi could be read as an astute examination of the culture of violence and the typical male personality types drawn to criminal subcultures; how society plays a significant role in not only celebrating this kind of male toxicity but unwittingly facilitating it. Economic disparity and class struggle potentially steer young men in a specifically violent direction. Detractors with concerns about the content of Miike’s film overlook the fact that with Ich the Killer, the director is interrogating men’s relationship with and to violence. By employing operatic, Grand Guignol gratuity, he is making a valid point about the futility of toxic masculinity, its limitations, and the inevitable fall-out from engaging with violent culture. Another way of looking at it is the villains here are victims of circumstance, with unstable identities. For example: Hakihari doesn’t embody the traits of your archetypal gang leader nor does Ichi seem like a cold-blooded assassin.

Hakihari is outrageously visible and Ichi has a childlike demeanor. We almost sympathize with Ichi until the midway point in the movie: the character is haunted by the memory of the gang-rape of a girl who attempted to save him from bullies – we learn how it was a turning point for Ichi, he isn’t plagued by dark thoughts because he was unable to save her, he is tormented he didn’t get to participate. Hakihari slices off the tip of his tongue to appease a Yakuza boss. It is a brave move for any screenwriter to populate their story with such unsympathetic people. Both men have no redeeming features whatsoever and yet both are completely different beasts. The one thing they do have in common is both men are under the thumb of either a control freak or a hierarchical order. These men inhabit their roles not only by choice but by circumstance. Miike cleverly subverts the archetypal role of the male in the crime-horror genre by constantly challenging our expectations.

Despite the brutal scenes of torture, sexual violence, and murder, Ichi the Killer serves as a damning indictment of violence and hypermasculine subcultures within a criminal organization. Male-driven narratives with a violent focus have always addressed economic strife and how it factors in, or directly results in underworld prosperity. “But one thing they had in common was they all wanted freedom from the system.” Miike told Joshua Dudley in an interview with Forbes, “They’re still looking for what they’re always looking for, some economic stability, trying to just make ends meet.”