It's an absurd, wild and gonzo gorefest of a ride. Guaranteed to offend at least someone in the audience. A lot of the effects don't hold at all, but that's easily looked past when you're on as crazy a ride as this.
Despite the issues in the diegesis, both in terms of pacing and the immense number of characters, the film manages to keep the audience engaged thanks to its intriguing cinematography. This is mainly due to the well-executed choice of shots, color palette, and editing style. However, the abrupt transition to graphic violence creates a disconnection, turning what could have been an immersive experience into something more polarized and challenging to digest. To make matters worse, in the over two hours of runtime, Kakihara's presence, as a visually striking and complex figure, stands out as a missed opportunity to explore his narrative potential more deeply, relegating him to a secondary role. Similarly, the portrayal of Ichi, while impactful, doesn't seem to rise to the level of a solid protagonist either. As a result, both characters, despite their striking qualities, appear to get lost in a complex and overwhelming narrative web characterized by a multitude of events, timelines, and numerous secondary characters. Unfortunately, this contributes to the sense of lacking a clear protagonist.
Furthermore, while the gore is grotesque and unpleasant, it is at times implausible, unlike the CGI, which, with its obvious shortcomings, lacks any justification and fails to integrate seamlessly into the final result. Its deficiency not only diminishes the design work, but also undermines the overall believability of the film.
In the end, regrettably, it is a story easy to forget due to the narrative chaos. Therefore, in my opinion, it will be remembered solely for the rawness of the gore scenes.
The movie has a hard-to-follow plot with slow pacing, which makes it challenging to fully grasp it. It excels in its cinematography, offering captivating shots and an immersive aesthetic. That stops when the gore shows. It is so bad it is funny. Overall the effects and CGI are so bad it's comedic.
It's important to note that the movie's depiction of violence, particularly against women, is undeniably difficult to watch. The unflinching brutality is disturbing.
Kakihara is greatly designed both visually and as a character. It's such a waste of a design put into this movie. I wish they utilized his character more.
Found it hard work, not the gore and violence, that’s fine, just found it a slog to get through.
Inventive for sure. Plot is a bit convoluted though. And it’s about 40 mins too long.
It’s just ok.
If you’re interested in Takashi Miike, I suggest Audition and 13 Assassins before this.
This is definitely not for everyone, but if you have a thing for gangsters and old-school splatter B movies, go for it. After I saw the title coming out of a puddle of sperm in the opening sequence, I was already in love.
The film starts as a simple yakuza revenge story, but it gradually turns into the quintessential masochist’s quest for punishment. Ichi is idealized by Kakihara as the ultimate sadist that will finally give him what he wants, but things are not exactly as he imagined. The plot is a little confusing and way too over the place, but honestly, it just felt like a pretext to connect all torture and rape scenes. Violence is as graphic as it is cartoonish, and as you are enjoying it, you will start to feel as sadistic as Ichi.
The scene where Jijii strips off made me feel sorry for having made fun of Chris Evans’ CGI in the first Captain America film. Most memorable scene ever.
Shout by ⁺₊⁺ dⒶwtmaytr¡k☭!BlockedParent2014-11-08T17:16:56Z
A movie I could love, were it not for the extreme changes of pace.