Ichi the Killer (1/2 star)
review by Jon Waterman

A yakuza boss has disappeared along with 100 million yen. The gang thinks he was kidnapped. The other gangs think he stole the loot and ran. What none of them know is that a consummate killing machine named Ichi has killed him. What starts out as an attempt to spark a gang war turns into a hunt for the elusive assassin. Can the yakuza stop Ichi?

The movie is just too stylistic for its own good. It needs to pick and choose. The opening creates freeze frames on characters and puts on a huge video effects show. The rest of the thing is like an effect bonanza. It tries too hard to be hip and cool by being flashy and in your face. Ultimately, none of these post-production masturbations provide anything of substance beyond a headache. I guess they’re trying to compensate for the lack of interesting visuals and story.

The movie had potential. Take the razor-heeled suit and the blinding rage away from the killer and Ichi the human is a puppy dog eyed and mannered person. He’s very non-confrontational, but when he’s fed the right information (or lies) he snaps and becomes the extreme version of that quiet kid in your high school. That sounds relatively interesting, right? Throw in some good fight scenes a couple quick side-stories and you’re good to go.

Really, it’s very boring. The story gets cluttered quickly, but it doesn’t really matter who’s who anyway. The people are just there to kill time and get killed. The movie lasts over two hours. The fight scenes are few and very far apart. In fact, you’re more likely to see the aftermath than any action that causes the red-walled rooms. I felt cheated. The guy has the semi-cool futuristic racecar driver suit with the switchblade heels. Find an actor that can do the acrobatics required to effectively use that stuff and let us in on the action. That’s what everyone wants to see. Who cares who hates whom? There’s also a character that had his jaw line cut. If he takes the fasteners out, he could open up really wide and do some damage. It took a long time to see it in action and the visual effect of it looked horrible and (once again) disappointing.

Here’s a piece of Japanese cinema that should have stayed in comic book/manga form. Actually, I take that back. It should have been made into a movie, but a much better one. Either modify or forget the storyline. Add more visible action. Stop the visual effect overload. Make it much less annoying and much shorter. Then get back to me.

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