I try not to think of things in terms of being a "guilty pleasure" or whatnot. If you like something, like it. But there are some things that you can't help feel embarrassed for liking, or just a deep shame for liking. I'm not talking about something that's cheesy or "so bad it's good" or whatever, but a movie or show with legitimately disturbing subject matter that people would probably think you're a monster for liking, so you don't want to advertise it. People already like to make horror fans feel ashamed for liking the genre, there's such a discrimination against the genre and its fans, so we don't need movies to come along and make you wonder "Is something wrong with me for liking this?"
One movie I feel guilty and ashamed for liking is Takashi Miike's Ichi the Killer -- the movie should be rated V, for violence, vileness and vulgarity. I'm aware that this movie is thirteen years old and not exactly a horror movie, though I've seen it classified as horror. Miike HAS made a few horror movies, but American genre fans know him mainly for Audition and Ichi the Killer, neither of which *I* really consider horror. Audition has only one legitimate scare scene, in my opinion. (#renosugiinabag) Otherwise, it's just a mystery/thriller. Ichi the Killer is more of an outlandish yakuza movie to me, not even a thriller or horror as it's often been called.
Ichi the Killer is notorious for its violence, and a lot about it *does* make for a pretty disgusting movie. But since it's based on a comic and since most of the gore is computer generated, I think it has a kind of an over-the-top and cartoon quality to it. It's not quite the Saw movies, where it's two hours of terrible things happening to people. A lot of vile things happen in Ichi the Killer, but when you keep in mind its comic book origins, it begins to look more like a deranged, warped superhero movie, as a lot of people say.
A lot has been made of how misogynistic the movie is in its brutal treatment of women, and that is one part of the movie that makes me uncomfortable and makes me hesitant to ever say I like the movie. However, a lot of what happens to the women characters in this movie is really the norm for yakuza movies, and that's something nobody will really be aware of unless they've watched a lot of those movies. I'm not saying it's right, but yakuza movies only really ever have two or three types of roles for women -- victims, mistresses and prostitutes. The cast will be largely male, mainly immoral characters who vastly outnumber what's usually limited to two or three women in the cast. The limited number of women in these movies and the limitations put upon their roles will really highlight just how brutal these kinds of movies handle women. Filmmakers will probably claim they're trying to realistically depict the criminal underworld, but these are still movies -- I think there's many ways to have better characters for women in these works of fiction. But Japanese moviemakers are obviously not going to think like that, especially when mobsters movies are meant to be rough and gritty guys' movies.
While a lot of people are drawn to this movie for the outrageous gore and kill scenes, what I like most about the movie is the character of Masao Kakihara. (Or, as the film refers to him as, "the number one bad guy.") When Kakihara, a high ranking gangster, learns that someone is unleashing the sadistic serial killer Ichi on all of the local mobsters, the masochistic Kakihara becomes obsessed with Ichi's brutality and anticipates the idea of facing off against him. He's looking forward to being killed by the film's killer! That's one nutty character. The closer Ichi gets to crossing Kakihara off of his kill list, the more excited Kakihara becomes. Kakihara builds up the idea of having a really intense encounter culminating in a glorious, legendary death that will take him to new levels of pain, and the movie does a good job of building up to their crossing paths in the last act and milking that encounter for all it's worth. For maybe the first time, Kakihara feels fear as Ichi approaches him. But what's funny is that when Kakihara finally does square off against Ichi, who he's imagined is this stone-cold monster, he's ultimately let down to find out that Ichi, despite his vaguely superhero-esque costume and dangerous razor-heeled boots, is really just an average serial killer, an awkward, easily distracted, weepy young man. Kakihara has to resort to imagining the great duel and glorious death he had been anticipating.
Kakihara wouldn't work as well without actor Tadanobu Asano. What initially caught my attention about his performance is how subdued he is. In pretty much every Japanese gangster movie I've seen, the actors will often go over-the-top and start yelling like nuts, but Asano never raises his voice. He barely ever speaks above a low tone, and often has a bemused smile upon his face, which gives Kakihara's enjoyment for inflicting pain (and having pain inflicted upon him) another edge of creepiness. He's really understated, and it's a style that I think has become more common since for these types of characters since, but I think when this movie came out in 2001, Asano was doing something fresher. The Kakihara from the original manga was a bit different, prone to emotional outbursts and being overly expressive, but I prefer Asano's quiet, inscrutable take on the character.
I'm not the first to make a connection between this movie and the world of Hellraiser, but I've always thought about the idea of Kakihara facing off against Pinhead. I think Kakihara would probably become a high-ranking Cenobite, one even worse and more powerful than Dr. Channard. He'd certainly give Pinhead a run for his money; I can't imagine Kakihara Cenobite being one who would revert to his humanity after being shown a publicity photo. (I wonder if Clive Barker has seen this movie or read the comic and what he thinks about it.)
Ichi is obviously Miike's favorite of his works and its twisted world is one he clearly felt at home in; it has such a different atmosphere from his other movies and is unlike most yakuza movies, including other ones made by Miike himself. Credit goes to the source material, which is unique to say the least. (Seriously, what's wrong with creator Hideo Yamamoto?) But a lot of credit goes to the interesting cast Miike rounded up. (The weak link is Nao Omori as Ichi. For as monstrous as Ichi's actions are, as twisted as he is, I think you're meant to feel a bit more sympathy for him than Omori, a big old creep, manages to eke out. Is he the monster, or is Shinya Tsukamoto's Jijii the bad guy for manipulating Ichi into doing all of the killing? There aren't exactly any characters to root for in this movie, but Jijii initially seems like he's as close as this movie gets to having someone with morals or redeemable qualities. He controls the murderous Ichi, setting Ichi's bloodthirsty desire on only criminals, Dexter Morgan style. But there's that question mark about Jijii -- just how much did he falsely plant into Ichi's memory in order to control him? What's Jijii's motivation, does it come from a place of warped justice? The movie hints at Jijii being a bit of an unreliable character, and the casting of the shifty Tsukamoto gives the character a further shade of untrustworthiness.) You can at least say this about Miike: he certainly doesn't glamorize mob life.
There are quite a few interesting ideas running throughout this movie, and I think it's a bit of a shame that it gets buried and overtaken by Miike's penchant for perversity and the movie's notorious gore. Although the purpose of the film and its comic book source's brutality and outrageousness was to bring attention to itself, if they could have managed to show a bit more restraint, if the movie could have cleaned up its act a bit, I think it would be taken a bit more seriously instead of being seen as a nasty, gimmicky exploitation movie that leaves most viewers feeling grossed out by the time credits roll.
So, with all that said, part of me still feels like it's not right to like this movie. Society does like to shame people like horror and genre fans, doesn't it? And there's such a hypocrisy -- people who are quick to dismiss horror or a movie like Ichi and wag their finger at horror fans probably sing the praises of a character like cold-blooded killer Walter White or obsess over the excessively violent and cruel Game of Thrones. The monsters aren't meant to be the stars of horror movies, but all of the accepted and critically-acclaimed, "highbrow" drama shows are centered on characters who are horrible human beings. I know of people who model parts of their lives after Don Draper or Hank Moody, two of TV's foulest people, "because they're cool!" It's hard to imagine horror fans wanting to model their lives after Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger or Ichi the Killer. Horror viewers yell at the screen for the victims to outrun and escape the monster; viewers clamored for Tony Soprano to whack certain characters, they rooted for Walter White to escape his crimes (including the poisoning of a kid), "because they're bad-ass!" Also: look at how exploitational a lot of those supposed highfalutin HBO shows are. Why do horror fans get singled out and picked on, the genre dismissed? Hypocrisy is a horror.
