Sorry it took me so damn long....

So I have finally decided to try blogging again. I realized that I have absolutely nothing worthwhile to write about, so I'm going to write about my new favorite movie, Ichi the Killer.

I had put Ichi on my Netflix list a while ago, and it's time finally came. It showed up at my house the other day. Now, I normally HATE torture movies, but I'd heard such wonderful things about this film that I decided I would at least try to watch it (I could always pack it up and send it back if it was unwatchable). So I put it on while no one else was home and settled in. I was terrified at the prospect of watching Ichi. I had heard so many things about the brutality, the torture, the gore. So I sat down with a snack and a blanket (to pull over my head if it got bad) to watch the fabled Ichi the Killer. Well, unbeknownst to me, I had gotten a dubbed version. So here I am watching a yakuza film where all the characters have British accents and use British slang! I think that might be part of why I liked the movie so much... Well, anyway, I was shocked that even the torture scenes were funny! I have very little experience with Takashi Miike's films (I've only seen The Happiness of the Katakuris and the first half of Audition), but I wasn't expecting this to be a full blown comedy like The Happiness of the Katakuris. I shouldn't diminish the violence, though. Ichi is one of the most brutal movies I've ever seen, but a lot of the violence and gore are so over the top that it becomes hard to take really seriously. My only real beef with Ichi is all the violence toward women. It wasn't any worse than the violence toward men, but something about the way it was presented was meaner than I would have expected, given the tone of the rest of the film. In the end though, I could look past that and enjoy the rest of the movie just fine. One bad thing about Takashi Miike's films (at least the ones I've seen) is that they make me REALLY hungry. He shows his characters eating a lot, and it always looks delicious, so I might watch this with food close at hand. So, Ichi the Killer is good, bloody fun for those with iron clad stomachs. Wow, I really don't know how to end a review! Well, toodles!!