ICHI THE KILLER

[Pier Maria Bocchi]

Very interesting opinion, Giacomo.
I like it.

Interesting also seeing Ichi the Killer after The Happiness of the Katakuris
(Miike's The Quiet Family so-called remake), apparently a 'solar' film, but
I think dark and quite pessimistic as well.

Cheers,
PM




> I'm wondering if Ichi's character is really the main character or not.
> What's Jiji? Is he God? So maybe Ichi should be the Adam and the movie
> is the tale of Man, a living being who acts and suffers without knowing
why?
> Uhm... it seems quite strange for a Japanese director. But I think the
> whole movie should be seen in Jiji's perspective, not in Ichi's one.
> Kakihara is looking for the Real Sadist, that is the man who makes
> people suffer without reason. This is not Ichi, but Jiji. Why Jiji
> hypnotise everybody making them collapse against each other? (I mean
> Ichi, Kakihara, the chinese girl, the yakuza who sees Jiji as a brawny
> man...).
>
>
> It's just my personal opinion and I'm not so sure about it.
>
> bye
>
> Giacomo Calorio
>
>
> PMB> I disagree with Fabio.
>
> PMB> Gore, cartoon, excesses, blood: sure, there's all that.
> PMB> But I think the spectator has not to be embarassed or confused from
that,
> PMB> but from the extreme abstraction of the movie itself. This is quite
odd.
>
> PMB> It's a film about loss, the desire of love that's pain and masochism
> PMB> nowadays, and the impossibility to reach it, the heredity of violence
and
> PMB> its ineluctability (as seen in Rainy Dog and City of Lost Souls), the
> PMB> failure of everyone's role.
> PMB> And it's a great film about the futility of violence: when the most
powerful
> PMB> man in the world is a poor guy that cries and acts in a hypnotic
state, and
> PMB> the ones that WANT and pretend and live like the thoughest men around
(the
> PMB> yakuza) are small chickens compared to him, it means that's a world
where
> PMB> the roles are completely wrong, and pure surface.
>
> PMB> The last 20 minutes are incredibly sad.
>
> PMB> This is not a cartoon, or a splatterfest. It's a sort of an
accomplishment
> PMB> of Fudoh, and a film that's genetically pessimistic and universally
tragic.
>
> PMB> Also, of course, it's technically outstanding: Miike is the proof of
how use
> PMB> different technical 'tools' with meaning in the sense of the lot,
without
> PMB> sounding cool or up-to-date or anything to please the young arthouse
crowd
> PMB> (read, for example, Iway Shunji), and being simultaneously
beautifully cool,
> PMB> in a very 'right' way.
>
> PMB> Cheers,
> PMB> Pier Maria Bocchi
>