Ichi The Killer (2001)

Ichi The Killer is a strange film. It efficiently sets up a situation and then studiously avoids the obvious payoffs to instead unravel into chaos. Characters confidently project their own mythos only for Miike to pull the rug from under them, making them pathetic.

This was Miike's first "big budget" movie after he found international success with Audition and DEAD OR ALIVE, and was clearly aimed at the festival circuit. I saw it at SFIFF, one of its earliest screenings, and the midnight screening certainly found an appreciative audience there.

Miike delights in pushing boundaries and breaking taboos, and the extremely graphic violence was pretty much unprecedented (this was years before the likes of The Machine Girl). Although the special effects look dated now they were quite ground-breaking at the time.

In some ways it looks a little... quaint now, dare I say? Audiences are much less likely to be shocked by the depravity because the bar has been raised - we see things like this in TV shows these days (hello, THE BOYS). This film was probably responsible for raising it more than any other though.