Ichi the Killer

A borderline autistic whose understanding of the world is dominated by his traumatic recollections of bullying and inability to stop a young woman being raped, Ichi (Shinya Tsukamoto) transforms into a lethal killing machine whenever he gets aroused or upset.

After Ichi is set to work on the Anjo gang by his mentor/conroller Jiji (Shinya Tsukamoto), it is only a matter of time before he – as "the ultimate sadist" – comes face to face with Kakihara (Tanobano Asano), a psychotic gangster with a Joker-sque rictus grin and a face held together by piercings who exists solely to dish out and receive pain…

There are two simple responses to take to prolific enfant terrible Takashi Miike's screen adaptation of Hideo Yamamoto's ultra-violent cult manga Ichi the Killer: Condemn it outright for its parade of tortures, rapes and mutilations, or celebrate it as bold challenge to notions of political correctness and good taste for these selfsame attributes.

Both responses are, however, equally inadequate to the complexities of the work and its exploration of the contradictions inherent in the "Love really hurts" notion/tagline. (Matters are, of course, further complicated by the distinctive Japanese cultural context in which, for example, pornographic S&M scenarios most western audiences would find extreme are commonplace and acceptable whereas showing pubic hair is taboo.)

To concentrate solely on Ichi's content – be it Kakihara suspending an ally on hooks, sticking skewers through his face and pouring boiling tempura over his back or Ichi splitting a man in two with one blow of his bladed feet before turning his attentions to a girl the man was about to rape – neglects Miike's highly stylised, equally assaultive and frequently parodic/cartoonish approach to form where little can be taken at face value.

Glib condemnation and praise also fail to recognise the ironies inherent in Ichi. The emotionally retarded, sexually frustrated Ichi is, after all, hardly a positive identification figure. Rather, he foregrounds the psychological immaturities that psychoanalytically minded critics would tend to argue like at the heart of both the typical comic book superhero and the audience for such fare, thereby transforming the film into something of an auto-critique that invites the viewer to reflect on his own motives for watching.

And then there is the curious fact that the film is less gory than it might have been. Yamamoto's manga includes imagery such as penis bisection by razor that even Miike has shied away from depicting on screen. Elsewhere the director sometimes avoids directly showing Ichi's murderous rampages, giving only the aftermath of one early bloodbath and the incidentals – a spray of blood through the open doorway, a severed face oozing down a wall – of another.

In sum, Ichi the Killer is a film of considerable depth, intelligence and accomplishment that marks a new high point of maturity and consistency in its author's work. The quality of Miike's achievement is made all the more remarkable when one considers the sheer quantity of his output, with no fewer than six other films in 2001 alone.

While one should perhaps be grateful that Ichi the Killer has been passed by the BBFC at all and can understand the difficulties that sexualised violence poses them, their cuts still feel misguided. Miike's artistic vision is being distorted – even if that vision is one which happens to includes nipple slicing and a detective in the Yakuza's employ getting Ichi's scent by sniffing at the crotch of a woman he raped.

Otherwise, Premier Asia have clearly done all they can to best the competition from grey market imports and make this the definitive UK Ichi DVD release.

The film itself is presented in anamorphic widescreen, which is clean, sharp, free from artefacting and up to the challenges that the panoply of techniques on display present, with a choice of Japanese and English dub 5.1 audio mixes, both with sufficient punch to them.

The feature length commentary from Asian cinema expert Bey Logan, actress Paulyn "Alien" Sun and producer Elliot Tong is not as satisfactory. Logan is less knowledgeable about Japanese culture and cinema than he is about their Hong Kong counterparts, while Sun and Tong provide few worthwhile insights into Miike's ideas and methods. (With Sun not knowing Japanese and Miike only knowing Japanese all their communications had to be through gestures and interpreters.) An outside expert, able to contextualise Ichi in relation to Miike other films and the likes of the Rapeman manga and Guinea Pig films, or who could note the allusion to Akira Kurosawa's Stray Dog in the supporting character of a disgraced cop who loses his gun, would have been welcome.

Thankfully the interviews on the second disc with Miike, Sun, Tanobano Asano and Shinya Tsukamoto fill in many of these gaps.

Of the four interviews Miike's is unsurprisingly longest, running slightly over half an hour compared to the ten minutes or so alloted the others. It is also the best, illuminating Miike's beliefs about the film-making process – that if the film-makers do not enjoy what they are doing the audience cannot be expected to do so – rationale for casting other directors – they bring a combination of experience and freshness to a production – preference for deliberately unrealistic CGI and much more.

The Alien Sun glamour gallery, while making for pleasant viewing perhaps sits uneasily along with the film, if indeed 'pornography is the theory and rape the practice…'

The package is rounded off with the traditional biographies and filmographies, behind-the-scenes and promotional gallery, UK and Japanese trailers for the film and a showcase of other Premier Asia releases.

If this was not enough, the DVD-ROM material includes an electronic press kit with an alternate Miike interview, out-takes and further behind-the-scenes material.

All told a suitable excessive, if slightly hit and miss, DVD package.