Please cue up the tune... Hurt So Good!

I found it amusing that the publicity machine for the film handed out barf bags at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Stockholm International Film Festival!

Even more amusing was the fact that it was subsequently banned in Norway after news of someone actually upchucking in said barf bag and another in the audience had fainted! Malaysia and Germany subsequently banned the film as well!

Obviously this isn't a film for mainstream audiences! You would think the minute someone started handing out barf bags that would have clued the "faint of heart" in on the type of film that was to be shown and perhaps they should pass on the film…

Honestly, without exaggeration, the most depraved film of all time. I've been putting this off for six years and after testing the waters by venturing into Visitor Q (Sorry God), I've finally found the guts to watch it, turns out it's just as twisted, absurd and gory as I've expected it to be; I beg you, don't see me as some sort of delusional maniac for saying this, but I love it, really, every inch of it.

Ichi the Killer is a film that features everything under the sun that is frowned, spitted or vomited upon by a normal, healthy, functioning society-- that includes abuse, murder, torture, sadism, masochism, necrophilia, misogyny, rape, penis mutilation (though toned down a lot compared…

The World Is More Than Enough 3: You Haven't Seen That Yet?!

3/30 - Japan

It says here that Ichi The Killer is 129 minutes long. Not hours.

So how come it felt much longer? I am a fan of Takeshi Miike but from the films I've seen from him, generally it seems I'm in trouble when he decides to do something longer. The only exception to that would be Gozu, a film I regard as something of a minor modern masterpiece of violent delirium, sexual deviance and black comedy.

Where Gozu succeeds yet Ichi The Killer and, to a certain extent, Lesson Of The Evil fail is that despite the fact that it is not always advancing its main…

Overflowing with stylised but extremely graphic violence & featuring enough flinch-inducing moments of bloodshed over the course of its runtime, Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer remains one of the most controversial films ever made & is still banned in many nations but despite the gruesome cruelty depicted here, it was nothing but a hilarious ride for me.

Based on the manga series of the same name, Ichi the Killer follows the feud between two rival gangs which erupts when the crime boss of one of the gangs disappears & is believed to be kidnapped by the other mob, thus prompting the yakuza enforcer of the former to carry out his sadistic investigation which leads him to Ichi, a psychologically damaged killer who's manipulated…

*Gulp.* What can be said about Ichi the Killer? Well, I discovered there was torture porn long before Saw and Hostel popularized the genre in the West. Eli Roth in particular must have been a big Ichi fan, not to mention Quentin Tarantino obviously picked up a few pointers on how to jetspray blood for his Kill Bill climax. Unlike Saw and Hostel however, this is not a one-dimensional bloodbath - there is an actual story and some intriguing, if repellent, characters. Topping that list is the flashy dressing, facially scarred Kakihara, a ruthless thug who knows no limits to dishing out (and receiving) pain in his effort to find the kidnappers of his boss, a local crime lord. Then…