ICHI THE KILLER (Japanese) (2001)

I watched the uncut version of Takashi Miike’s this most controversial film and it’s really an unimaginable torture to my senses like witnessing gross cannibalistic violence of primitive age much before man invented coining called ‘social animal’. Its assault for anyone’s psyche to watch those disgusting images full of puddles and fountains of bloodshed, a room full of chopped off human organs and limbs with bloodshed everywhere on floor, walls and ceiling. Is Miike mentally sick or is he the evil incarnated? Hell yeah, he has dwarfed the body mutilation and violent images of great Hollywood auteur like Cronenberg, Lynch or even Tarantino on all accounts. What about those who’ve watched in on cinema screen; I think most would end up coming out of hall in interval since Miike had almost pushed the limit of graphic violence to an insurmountable height. One has to deconstruct one’s innocent aesthetic sense to watch his films. From where does he get such frenzy concepts?

Yeah, cinema is faking the reality but one can’t use the medium in such a heinous way to depict almost inhuman sadistic, masochistic or pervert pleasure seeking characters that disturbs the psyche of any sound audience and this is what my honest opinion without any bias. I like Miike’s ‘Audition’ much than this since its negligible in violence compared to this and more complex. Perhaps Miike has deconstructed his own film by Kakihara’s those wonderful line- “Put some feeling into it! Giving pain is a serious business.”

Usually the genre of torture is not my cup of tea! But having said all these, I must confess that Miike has corrupted my senses…Guess what! I also start loving torture; such was the impact of Miike’s hypnosis. He’s the real son of bitch!!! The way he juxtaposed the tension between sadism and masochism in theme a way to the top what flutters from the dark unconscious of human’s uncontrolled and illogical animal psyche. If Master Sigmund Freud was alive, Miike would be a paragon case study of his career.

Caution- Please stay away of it…it may disturb your sanity or innocence of psyche too…