"Put some feeling into it, already! If you're going to give someone pain, you've got to get into it!"Kakihara
☆☆☆☆☆ Masterpiece
殺し屋 1 - Ichi The Killer (2001) is a masterpiece of Manga cinema.
Directed by Takashi Miike.
Starring Tadanobu Asano, Nao Ômori and Shin'ya Tsukamoto among many others.
I've got to hand it to Takashi for creating Manga cinema. Miike took a cult Manga comic book by Hideo Yamamoto and brought it to life. Reportedly Takashi had approached Hideo to write a film script completely Manga form, but Yamamoto developed severe writers block and had to back out of the project.
The violence and sadomasochistic sex eclipses anything I've ever seen in a film or read in a book. The surprising part is that the violence is presented in such an over the top, surrealist style that it is actually quite humorous and Salvador Dali like visually. If you edit even one small violent or sex scene you destroy the perfectly laid out plot. The violence and sex are an integral part of the film as is the dialogue.
The scene below is one of many where Takashi employs an absurdly humorous situation to make the violence that ensues abstract and actually causes the viewer to disavow the cruelty. I love the Rock Star persona that Tadanobu creates for his sadomasochistic Yakuza character. The fact that Takashi has imbued Asano's character with the ability to blow his cigarette smoke from the sides of his face add to the absurdity of his persona. The other outstanding performance comes from Nao who has to come across as a believable super hero, psychopathic killer with a child like personality and a bizarre sexual desire for his female victim. Ômori's difficult character reminds me of Choi Min-sik work in Oldeuboi - Oldboy (2003) who had to eat four live Octopuses in one scene.
Note - If you would like to view 殺し屋 1 - Ichi The Killer to rent or buy please click on the link below the comments. It is sponsored by Google, so it is the safest and most secure way to get a copy for your film library.
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