Maverick auteur Takashi Miike spins this unsettling, blood-soaked yakuza yarn adapted from Hideo Yamamoto's cult manga Koroshiya 1. When mob don Anjo mysteriously disappears, his protégé Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano) vows to find the people responsible. Sporting a blond head of hair and a yawning, pierced slash for a mouth, Kakihara is no ordinary gangster and his methods are equally unorthodox; he impales one poor suspect's naked body on a series of meat hooks and then dumps hot oil on him. Meanwhile, a shadowy character known as Jijii (played by director Shinya Tsukamoto) deftly manipulates, for his own nefarious ends, Ichi (Nao Omori), an unbalanced but ruthless killing machine clad in a superhero suit. Pining for the sadistic abuse of his boss, Kakihara learns of Ichi from a Hong Kong hostess (Alien Sun) and sets out to find this fabled butcher, hoping he can inflict the pain that Kakihara craves. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival as a part of the Midnight Madness program.

The commentary subtitle features Takashi Miike and manga artist/writer Hideo Yamamoto.

STARS.........: Tadanobu Asano, Nao Ômori, Shin'ya Tsukamoto DIRECTOR......: Takashi Miike WRITERS.......: Hideo Yamamoto, Sakichi Satô GENRE.........: Action | Comedy | Crime RATING........: 7.1/10 42,283 votes METASCORE.....: 50 IMDB link.....: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0296042 RUNTIME.......: 2h 9mn SIZE..........: 3.48GB VIDEO CODEC...: x264 ([email protected]) RESOLUTION....: 1920x1080 ASPECT RATIO..: 1.78:1 BITRATE.......: 3500 Kbps (3 pass) FRAMERATE.....: 23.976 fps AUDIO.........: Japanese AC3+ 5.1 384kbps SOURCE........: BDRemux (Uncut) SUBTITLES.....: ENG + Commentary CHAPTERS......: Yes ENCODED BY....: Sartre ENCODE DATE...: 2016-06-06

The source Blu Ray is horrible... dull and murky with blotchy grain