As a reader of this site, with a particular niche as it does, I am going to assume that you have at least heard of the Takashi Miike movie Ichi the Killer. It is easily one of the most notorious films to come out of Japan in this new century. If you're a fan of international genre film then there's little chance that you have not heard of this film. It got to the point that the full length cut of Ichi had been played as a movie snob's trump card, 'Oh yeah? Have you seen all 129 minutes of Ichi the Killer? No? I have!' followed by the oohs of onlookers.
Domestically it had been difficult to find a full length, uncut version of this. Tokyo Shock has had the full version out in previous incarnations but not to this extent have they given as much. For the most part, it had been available but only after undergoing many cuts [pardon the pun] to its content and length. But now you can have it full and uncut with all the bodily fluids, extreme violence and explicit sexual material you can handle. And then, when you think it's over, it throws more at you.
Tokyo Shock has released the Ichi the Killer: Blood Pack edition.
So much has been said and written about this film over the last 7 years that we simply don't feel we need to offer you an opinion on the film itself. But we do need to let you know that Tokyo Shock has pulled all the stops and the nipple clamps and brought the full and sickening cut of Miike's genre defying 'tour de gore' to R1 format in a truly inspired package- a DVD envelope made up like a blood bag.
As inspired as it is though, it is still a pain in the ass to take the discs out of the bag. That bag simply does not want to release the discs from their vinyl death grip. There have been complaints about the challenge of taking the discs out of the bag. And no, you don't have to cut the bag to get the discs out, as I have read some say they have done. Silly. Tokyo Shock gets points for package uniqueness, creating something rarely seen from a Western DVD house. But they get a ten minute major penalty and a game misconduct for the package being a pain in the ass and potentially damaging the disc. Do yourself a favor and put the DVDs in a separate sleeve and keep them behind the blood bag.
DISC 1 -- Along with the feature film Eli Roth, horror film's current poster boy, made a video introduction for this package. He talks about the influence of the film on him, how he made the cast of Hostel watch it before filming his torture film, and of course he talks about the infamous title sequence: the title of the film rising out of... erm... Ichi's spilled seed. He speaks very highly of Miike and fans of Hostel know of course that Miike had a cameo in Hostel. Disc 1 also contains the usual string of Tokyo Shock trailers and the original trailer for Ichi the Killer.
Disc 2 has a couple featurettes. The first one, The Cult of Ichi, features a number of folks – writers, producers, directors, actors, magazine editors, authors- from the horror genre. They sat in front of the camera and gave their reactions to the film and scenes like the title shot, tempura oil hot off the grill and the nipple slicing. They combined the words yakuza, horror, dark comedy, a strange love story, a horror with fantasy elements, comical elements and absurdist drama to make a definition for the film. 'It straddles a lot of definitions and that's what I like about it'. Another called it a 'very nihilistic film experience'.
The second featurette could be the original 'making of…' featurette featured on Japanese R3 discs? A side note; anything in the original Japanese language has been subtitled in bold yellow subtitles. It is a 49 minute featurette that looks at a lot of the money shots in the film; the alley fight ending with the hand in the Asano's jaw, Asano's tongue cutting scene, the nipple cutting, the hook hanging of Susumu Terajima. What is probably the most shocking thing to hear/read is Miike saying about Hideo Yamamoto's manga, of which this movie is based on, that the 'violence created by [him] doesn't lend itself to film that well'. Uh, okay. Now I have to see the manga to see what was so different about the violence in the manga against what Miike did on screen.
The interviews with the cast [Asano, Nao Omari, Sabu, Shinya Tsukamoto and a joint interview with Shinya Tsukamoto and Hiroyuki Tanaka] don't offer too much insight into either the message or story of the film. In fact it seems that the cast, at time of the filming, didn't really know what Ichi the Killer was about. However, they all speak very highly [politely?] about Miike and his directing methods.
And for those who still don't know the depth and diversity of Miike's work there is a special trailer comprised of snippets from most of his films.
For the sake of argument I decided against posting screen shots from this film. There is a delicate balance between what is informative and what is distasteful. I wanted everyone to be able to look at this overview and not worry about who is looking over your shoulder. The best way to make it work safe is to avoid the temptation to include explicit images in this post. Because really now, all this talk about how freaking gory this picture is and you want to see static shots of guys sitting around a table? No. So better than to be tempted to do it I have chosen outright not to include any. You're viewing experience is better off not knowing what is coming anyways.
• Directors: Takashi Miike
• Format: Color, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: Japanese, English audio in 2.0 and 5.1
• Region: Region 1
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
• Number of discs: 2
• Studio: Tokyo Shock
• Street Date: May 29, 2007
• Run Time: 129 minutes
Find it at Amazon.com