How Long Is “Ichi the Killer”?

ICHI THE KILLER is a masterful piece of filmmaking, simultaneously funny and horrific, but it's only for viewers with strong stomachs. One character, Kakihara (Japanese indie film heartthrob Tadanobu Asano), a masochistic yakuza lieutenant, has slits in his cheeks through which he blows cigarette smoke and gleefully hacks off his own tongue to apologize for his impudence. Then there's eponymous assassin, Maverick auteur Takashi Miike spins this unsettling, blood-soaked yakuza yarn adapted from Hideo Yamamoto's cult manga Koroshiya 1. When mob don Anjo mysteriously disappears, his protégé Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano) vows to find the people responsible. Sporting a blond head of hair and a yawning, pierced slash for a mouth, Kakihara is no ordinary gangster and his methods are equally unorthodox; he impales one poor suspect's naked body on a series of meat hooks and then dumps hot oil on him. Meanwhile, a shadowy character known as Jijii (played by director Shinya Tsukamoto) deftly manipulates, for his own nefarious ends, Ichi (Nao Omori), an unbalanced but ruthless killing machine clad in a superhero suit. Pining for the sadistic abuse of his boss, Kakihara learns of Ichi from a Hong Kong hostess (Alien Sun) and sets out to find this fabled butcher, hoping he can inflict the pain that Kakihara craves. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival as a part of the Midnight Madness program.