1-Ichi (2003)

 

Director: Masato Tanno

Screenplay: Sakichi Sato

Based on a manga by Hideo Yamamoto

Cast: Nao Ohmori as Ichi / Shiroishi; Teah as Dai; Chihara Junia as Onizame; Chisato Amate as Satomi; Yuki Oikawa as Nao; Eiki Kitamura as Hiromi; Kazuhiro Mashiko as Hide

Ephemeral Waves

 

Where has the God in his fists disappeared too?

When Takeshi Miike became a popular figure in the West in the late nineties and early 2000s, one of the most notorious of the productions which cemented his reputation was Ichi the Killer (2001). I would like to return to that film, adapted from a manga by Hideo Yamamoto, but in spite of how controversial and dark that film was, it was a complex film in spite of all its horrifying violence and sexual perversity. On the surface it was one of his most extreme films, including a little bit of censorship for the British release, but it was also a film that subverted and provoked the viewer with a lot of difficult content, even deliberately disappointing the viewer's expectations in the finale for the ultimate provocation, by suddenly after all the content of before having an anti-climax and disappointment for its own characters.

Two follow ups, prequels exist. Ichi the Killer was about a sadomasochistic yakuza enforcer Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano) who, with his gang being targeted by an unknown assailant, learnt that the figure was Ichi (played by Nao Ohmori), a young man brainwashed to have his sexual desires intermingle with his penchant for violence, in a way that even his controller (played by cult filmmaker Shinya Tsukamoto) showed a moment where he was scared of his own creation, part of that film's lasting sense of immense dramatic complexity for me. The prequels were stories of Ichi and how he came to be. One was an animated prequel Ichi the Killer: Episode 0 (2002), which is not good and definitely fits the perception of a nasty, difficult-to-defend piece of violence including sexualised forms with female characters. The other, a straight-to-video production I have wanted to see for years, is 1-Ichi, helmed by the second assistant director on the original film and assistant director on a couple of Miike's films from the period like Gozu (2003). A prequel which, baring one poor tonal choice, is a much more interesting film as a very low budget but unconventional piece of pulp which does not really fit any genre but its own.

This is definitely another example of why I am fascinated and continually returning back to low budget Japanese pulp cinema, especially the period from the nineties into the 2000s, when digital cameras would have been brought it, and this is as much in knowledge that I came to these films as I got into cult cinema in the late 2000s and may have a bias. It is very much an era of Japanese genre cinema, before irony and Western funding did mar it into the late 2000s, which is insanely vast even with what did get a DVD release, usually in the United States, back then. Why I find these films fascinating is that, set here in the average world of a small town between the arcades and back alleys, they are films where the fantastical and dark are never separated off in their own unreal worlds, but happening in ordinary everyday Japanese streets, as does happen here.

In this prequel, one of the students at the school is Dai (Teah), a boxer who becomes aware of Ichi when he was once just Shiroishi, played again by Nao Ohmori, an awkward student who is beaten up even by children in a judo class but is still going to become the future figure, an extremely dangerous figure whose libido is fixated around violence, something that from Miike's film was depicted as horrifying and part of that film's insanely dense emotional rollercoaster.

This is the lo-fi, miniature version of this idea, in which most of the film is Dai being antagonised by Shiroishi's existence, not actually doing anything himself beyond occasionally watching, whilst eventually plot events will lead to him slowly being transformed into the future figure. Most of the film instead has a broadly comedic edge, notable because whilst Dai himself is a dour serious figure with a boxing background, his two friends provide comedy. One rocks up to a fight with what is called a "granny perm"; the other, in the funniest touch, is obsessed with only watching the part threes of film franchises thinking they are inherently the best, whether The Godfather III (1990) or even Let's Ride the Pervert Train 3. Surrounded by these two, this film is a comedy with dark moments of violence, partially as much a slow burn psychological drama of young males being aggressive and trying to be tough by fighting each other, most of the film Dai trying to goad Shiroishi into trying to fight him out of a sense of needing to prove himself despite his toughness and capability in a brawl.

I have talked about my love for low budget Japanese genre cinema before. If I have not, (forgive the slip in memory), there is something about the ordinary environments of Japan even in animation, as recreations of environments is comment, which are inherently photogenic even at their most banal. Especially like micro budget films in the States, these slightly bigger budget productions allow you to see real world Japanese urban environments being invaded by weird genre films. 1-Ichi is a stark looking film - one which is not effeted by what is clearly a lower budget to Miike's, which had to work around its production value as much, and it arguably helps this film and its tale of pent up, frustrated young men being violent they are in bland environments, where the most idiosyncratic details are two female classmates dolled up in exaggerated fashion and everything else is so bland baring them or the arcade that punching each other in spats makes sense.

Notably as well, when it comes to the sexual aspects of this frustration, the perversity is much slower burn as a result than Miike's film, which got the spilt semen in the opening credits. Here, most of the film could be seen as a dark high school drama of young men, then suddenly someone is tied up at a baseball diamond, and being hit by baseballs thrown at them until something snaps and, after a scene away, all there is the aftermath of carnage and split semen dripping onto the ground. That sentence, even using that term twice in one paragraph, could raise a reader's eyebrow, but especially if you did not know about the original Ichi the Killer film or its source material, the sudden turn due to the low budget nature of this movie works in its favour in having this subject aspect suddenly appear like this violently. And this uncomfortable metaphor of sex and violence entirely from male characters, with only talk of women and watching lewd films, makes this sudden burst into this material actually more provocative in an interesting if creepy way.

There is one moment in the escalation that does become uncomfortable in an inappropriate way, unlike Miike's film which, whilst far more extreme, had the tonal shifts carefully structured. Here the tonal issue is the problem, jarring in how there is a scene of non-consensual sex, whilst not explicit, in a sports hall closet which involves strangulation that is meant to be disturbing if played in an absurd way. It involves the character of Onizame, a transfer student who is insane and evil from the get-go, breaking a male student's arm with ease and brutalising him, so he is deliberately seen as a horrible figure. Tonally however it jars for a film that was entirely a curious tale of all-male obsession, where fighting has an eroticised edge and a very dark humour, only to suddenly include this scene of rape against a side female character and then try to go back to comedy, in a hospital with the male victim recovering and talk of third parts of film franchises again.

Beyond this one bad creative decision, 1-Ichi works as a strange story. Ohmori being cast again is important for the film from when it was made, but this can work without any of the original context, that it is all about something in Dai becoming obsessed with Shiroishi in spite of the fact, following the original film's inspired goal to deflate expectations, he is just a bystander who would never be able to beat him or even survive a fight if Shiroishi ever found his killing instinct. Though Shiroishi stays extremely timid and way of fights to the point of being mocked, when the turn comes not one would win against him when he turns into the future Ichi, strong enough to bend a metal baseball bat with one of his kicks. Baring that one ill-advised choice early on, as a dark comedy it was compelling, particularly as much due to its look and tone providing a strange energy.