60 Nights of Horror # 21: Ichi the Killer
I’m not exactly sure what I expected going into Ichi the Killer. I’d seen it named in so many lists of mandatory horror fare that when my partner suggested it for 60 Nights, I immediately accepted with an “Oh yeah, I keep meaning to watch that!”
So we finally sat down, and I think if I had watched this when it had come out in 2001, I might have been more deeply affected. Instead, I came at it with the seasoned perversion of a long term BDSM educator and amateur psychologist, identifying our characters’ kinks and neuroses and musing on what sort of punishment or pleasure-based therapy I’d recommend.
every death scene is a pollock painting
I love the offscreen butchering of entire rooms of people, presented as comedy. On a purely sadistic level, mass murder of folks guilty of being in the wrong room at the wrong time is hilarious to me when the killer is a blubbering baby who allegedly hates doing this. I immediately roll my eyes every time Ichi is onscreen. I know he’s like… a “badass,” but every time Jijii calls him I’m like, oyyy he’s efficient at killing but he’s fucking insufferable. He’s so dishonest with himself, like “bwehhh I’m not a sadistic psychopath, but you’re right, that guy DOES look like my childhood bully, better put on my special shoes,” what a bitch. What a puppet.
we’ve established this: I am a fool for blondes
Sweet baby angel Kakihara, who is practically perfect in every way, saves this movie for me. He’s pretty, he’s flashy, he’s funny, basically this is me watching Kakihara work. When he was cooking up the shrimp, I know my partner was watching me actively swoon over what he had planned. I truly loved his approaches to interrogations, he’s like a kid in a candy store. I personally think all displays of sadomasochism should be approached with joy and thrill, and all participants should be enthusiastically consenting. That being said, this is a movie, and folks are gonna die, but as a gleeful sadist I loved seeing my style of play onscreen. If you’re not joking and laughing while torturing someone, how will they know you’re having a good time?
All the best tops started as bottoms, they say…
Learning that my little prince Kakihara just really misses his boss and is not just doing all this out of an enforcer’s loyalty to the head of whatever gang he worked for, that moved my gay little heart. Nobody hurts Kakihara like Anjo, I sighed, a little misty. When puppykiller Karen (BOOOOOOO KAREN) gets horny while torturing that other guy’s cheeks, we have a tiny hope for Kakihara finding that kind of peace again, but she is worn out too easily. Maybe cause she used up all her energy killing dogs. Fuck this bitch. It gave me joy when Kakihara was like “Ugggh babe this isn’t working out. You tried though,” he said, throwing her cake in the trash.
R.A.C.K.: Risk-Aware consensual kink
So it’s shaping up for us to really want a showdown between Ichi, who can’t control his homicidal impulses when entering uh…. basically any room, and Kakihara, who really needs the ass kicking of his life. In the end, when that kinda happens but nobody gets what they want because they’re fucking terrible communicators and it all ends in tragedy, I can’t help but feel that everyone except for the little boy gets what they deserve. (Yeah there’s a little boy. I didn’t mention him because his plotline is boring, but he lives, good for him, and he seemingly does well for himself in adulthood, gold star.)
At the end of the day, everyone could have wound up with satisfying sexual (and non-sexual but still kinky) experiences if they had only communicated their needs to the right people. And Jijii, knowing everyone’s kinks and saying nothing, making zero introductions, is in my opinion the villain of the tale. The countless deaths that occur in Shinjuku over these few days are a direct result of his negligence and his encouragement in the wrong directions, and he deserves exactly what happens to him. He’s as bad as puppykiller Karen. Fuck this guy. Fuck Karen. Fuck Ichi, especially, the biiiiiitch.