1-Ichi review

For being a prequel to such a popular movie like Ichi the Killer it’s kind of surprising how far 1-Ichi flew under the radar. It could be the lack of Takashi Miike‘s involvement in the project, the inconspicuous DVD cover art (I thought it was an anime for the first few months after its release), or the fact that the title consists of words that are so commonly found next to one another that any kind of web search comes up with hundreds of pages of completely unrelated results. Regardless of the reason, the end result is that nobody’s really missing out on much. 1-Ichi was an extremely low-budget movie filmed on a tight schedule and in the end it really offers no new insight into Ichi’s origin. Nevertheless, what it lacks in overall quality it makes up for in campy violence and a specific brand of completely inappropriate black humor only Sakichi Sato is capable of injecting into a script.

1-Ichi begins with the local high school tough guy, Dai Akakuma (Teah), in the midst of beating the bejesus out of a few rival high school kids while one of his henchmen (Kazuhiro Mashiko - Zhou from Shinjuku Triad society) looks on in reverence. There’s a pause in the action as his freshly-permed second henchman (Eiki Kitamura) shows up to watch the show and Dai suddenly notices another student watching him from afar. It’s another kid from their school, Shiroishi Hajime (Nao Omori - yep, Ichi!). With Dai distracted one of the kids seizes the opportunity to smash him over the head with a potted plant and Dai once again looks up to see Ichi smiling. Enraged by the apparent disrespect, Dai finishes off the goons and becomes obsessed with Ichi, somehow sensing him as a threat to his own status as number 1 tough guy.

Before Dai ever gets his shot at fighting Ichi a new tough guy shows up at school, Onizame (Koji Chihara). Onizame is a master of twisting joints in brutally painful ways. He quickly gets to work by sending one of Dai’s henchmen, Hiromi, to the hospital - but not before stealing his girlfriend. With a new number 1 tough guy at the school Dai quickly shifts his attention from Ichi to the mysterious transfer student. Onizame could care less about Dai though. He seems to know how powerful Ichi is too and won’t rest until he gets a chance to fight him. Chihara serves as the perfect villain as he mercilessly twists joints and breaks bones while insulting his victims.

Don’t expect much in the way of origin information in this film. All of the psychological damage to Ichi’s mind is already done at this point and it’s only a matter of waiting for it to manifest itself as a blood-spattered killing spree or two. With much of the storyline very straight-forward, the question in 1-Ichi becomes “Which one of these bullies is finally going to awaken ‘Ichi the Killer’?” Throughout the movie he remains fairly docile as everyone from high school bullies to the 8 year olds in his karate class push him around and berate him incessantly. It’s sort of reminiscent of the old Incredible Hulk TV show from the 70s where you knew everywhere David Banner went there was going to be a gang of people picking on him for no particular reason until he finally blew his stack and turned into a monster.

Director Masato Tanno certainly didn’t have much to work with in this one given the time and money constraints but he still did an admirable job. The acting is pretty bad throughout but it’s not that noticeable given the campy nature of the film. Teah is his normal style-over-substance self but Koji Chihara’s arrival as the villain saves the film and makes it seem far less disjointed (pardon the pun) than it did in the first half. He’s evil enough that you genuinely feel like he has mysteriously malevolent intentions, as compared to Dai’s frivolous goal of retaining his status of number 1 tough guy.

I definitely wouldn’t recommend this movie to anyone who isn’t already a fan of Ichi the Killer. It’s just not very good if you don’t already know about Ichi and what he’s to become later on. However, if you are a fan of Ichi the Killer it’s definitely worth checking out for the novelty of seeing Ichi in high school and the onset of his first homicidal tendencies. Incidentally, if you’re waiting for more live-action movies I wouldn’t hold your breath. Takashi Miike and Hideo Yamamoto (the manga writer, not the cinematographer), have both completely abandoned the Ichi character so it’s extremely likely that this will be the last movie featuring him. With that in mind 1-Ichi is worth checking out simply for posterity’s sake.

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Availability: Unearthed Films released 1-Ichi on region 1 DVD on July 12, 2005. Click here for details.

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