Real Men Love Ichi the Killer

Just so you can hum through this breakdown with at least a scant context, the basic plot of the movie in two sentences:  Ichi is a mentally handicapped young man with memories of abuse by bullies and a rape he couldn't prevent -- memories that have lensed his ensuing life with unquenchable sexual sadism.  Now a killing machine, Ichi is manipulated to murder by two men with yakuza ties through their calling various people "bullies," thus setting off a chain of events that finds Ichi sought by Kakihara -- an outlandishly masochistic yakuza underboss -- for the murder of the latter's boss.  There are various subplots, and while they're interesting enough in the course of the movie, they're extraneous for now. 

It's Completely Uncompromising

You will know by the time the opening title rolls around -- it manifests in a puddle of semen -- that this is not going to be the type of film to which you're accustomed.  There will be times when you'll wonder to yourself how the movie would have been made, were it made as an American film.  The most likely outcome is that it wouldn't have been made at all; of course, an edited version was released stateside with a full twelve minutes excised.  Generally if an American made movie is deemed unsuitable for an R-rating, the required edits amount to seconds of total reel time. 

Let me assure you, though, that those twelve minutes are packed full of inconceivable nastiness.  It's the stuff of nightmares couched between weird sardonic humor so sly that at times it seems only vaguely intentional.  Even at over two hours long, it zips along because the viewer is always either recovering from the last insane thing that happened or anticipating the next.  It's a constant assault on the viscera.  It doesn't pull a single punch, and for that I love it... even if those twelve minutes kind of make me sick.

Ambiguous Feelings

You have to love any movie that leaves you at odds with yourself over how you think you're supposed to feel about the protagonist.  Aw, he's crying about the rape he's witnessing.  That's good.  Oh, but he's also masturbating.  That's bad.  Now he's intervening, though!  That's good!  But he chopped the victim in half, and that's really bad.  Those are of course two separate instances from the film, but the illustration remains valid:  Ichi is conflicted and confused, and he leaves us conflicted and confused.  Not bad for an amoral serial killer with the mind of a child. 

There Will Be Blood

When it comes to gratuitous bleeding, very few movies can compete.  Not that there aren't any, mind you -- a couple early Peter Jackson movies spring immediately to mind, for example -- but this is a movie that not only has many opportunities for blood, it makes the most of each of them.  I'm talking about geysers.  Kill Bill has nothing on Ichi if the comparison is purely in terms of explosive blood-letting.

Smokin'!

Kakihara, the principal antagonist, loves pain.  He mainly loves receiving it, but he has no problems with sharing.  He has numerous scars, chiefly among them the slits in his cheeks from his mouth nearly to his ears.  He likes to blow smoke out of those.

In the first half of the movie alone, Kakihara...

...hangs a man from the ceiling by hooks anchored into his back flesh, and then does something else to him that makes his hardened henchman react in this way:

...cuts the tip of his own tongue off with a knife.

...at once breaks backward all the fingers on a woman's hand.

...recognizes the taste of his boss's blood.

...fills a man's face with spikes.

...pulls a man's cheek off of his face with brute force -- not by "fish hooking."

...generally scares the living shit out of every other yakuza. 

As Dennis Hopper might say, "He's a bad man, man."

Ichi Kicks a Child in the Chest

Ridiculous.

Karen

Karen is hot, but beyond that, she has the deft little added quirk whereby, without explanation, she occasionally lapses into english for a few words or even sentences at a time.  Karen is a bit of a chameleon; she is whatever she needs to be, and her english serves to let us in on the variety of her skills.  Although her character is never fully explored or realized in a satisfying way, and although the delivery of her english-language lines are somewhat flat, she is interesting and layered in ways that she doesn't really need to be to fulfill her small role in the movie, such that though her character is never self-sufficient, it does substantially enrich the movie as a whole.

Corrupt and Wisecracking Twin Detective Brothers Who For Some Reason Wear Tattered Labcoats

When Kakihara really has to find Ichi, he turns to these guys, who basically serve as extensions of Kakihara's torturesome self.  They smirk far too much about all the horrible things they do, they repeat themselves until they're funny.  They're the comic relief assholes, and everything they do is horrifying, and everything they do is a riot. 

An Epiphany!

That's the look of a man who has finally figured his life out.  Of course, add the look of revelation on his face to the fact that he's also receiving a blowjob, and mix in the knowledge that even Kakihara finds Ichi to be "demented," and you end up with a clearer view of what's going on behind those psycho-peepers.  Someday, I want that look on my face, and I want it to be genuine.  I just don't want to proceed to a murdering spree immediately afterward.

Surprise! I'm a Monster

One of the true highlights of the film comes when Jijii, one of the two men manipulating Ichi, removes his loose windbreaker to reveal the fact that he's on the juice.  Seriously.  The guy is a freak.  After having been led to believe -- not directly, but by omission -- that Jijii is something of an out-of-the-way pencil pusher, it's shocking to find that he's Mr. Universe and can crush your bones.  Also, he then literally crushes someone's bones.

The Ichi/Kakihara Balance

Ichi is a pure sadist, while Kakihara only derives real pleasure from his own pain.  They're a match made in heaven, and Kakihara understands it perfectly.  He searches throughout the movie for someone who can inflict pain on him the way he dreams it, and knows that Ichi is his best chance for satisfaction.  It's an anticipation that builds as their inevitable confrontation draws nearer, and Kakihara reacts palpably by smiling and constantly mentioning to everyone who'll listen how he's actually getting scared, generally while giggling.  He just can not wait to get cut up by Ichi.  The synergy of the two characters works extremely well to draw the plot toward its end.  When they finally meet, on a rooftop, Kakihara is downright giddy.

That is some funny stuff.

I won't tell you how it ends, because I can't tell you how it ends.  It's open to interpretation, much like director Takeshi Miike's other work (I'm thinking specifically of Audition), and reminiscent in some ways of David Lynch.  Thinking -- now that's something Real Men Love.*

*Real Men also Love over the top violence and dark humor.