Quartile rating: 7.5/10 · 1 rating
As sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara searches for his missing boss he comes across Ichi, a repressed and psychotic killer who may be able to inflict levels of pain that Kakihara has only dreamed of.
Miike's Ichi the Killer is a singular, audacious provocation — its hyper-stylized violence, vivid color palette, and warped psychological underpinning make the cinematography genuinely exceptional and its conception utterly one-of-a-kind. The cat-and-mouse dynamic between the masochistic Kakihara and the weeping killing machine Ichi is a genuinely strange and original premise executed with unhinged commitment. Asano's Kakihara is a memorable, charismatic screen presence that elevates the acting above average, though the broader cast is uneven. The ending, however, deflates — it resolves ambiguously and weakly for a film of such ferocious energy, leaving a sense of incompleteness rather than earned catharsis or subversion.