NETFLIXIN'

I’ve been aching to check out some of Takashi Miike’s work for some time now, and while Audition seems to be the critical fav, Ichii the Killer sounded way more repugnant – and on the surface, it truly is; two-hours plus filled with Japanese gangsters torturing, raping and killing their way to the final credit roll. Gratituous, yet completely over-the-top, it’s also a stylish exercise with a soul, along with a saavy humor-through-gore approach a gazillion times more audacious than anything Sam Raimi tickled us pink with back in the ‘80s. If you can stomach it, you’ll still find yourself peeking through fingers, but if there’s any greater accolade I can bestow on such a viscerally brutal piece of work, it’s that in the end, you simply can’t take your eyes off it.