Ichi the Killer 2 Disc Media Blasters DVD Review

By Brad Thompson

Media Blasters had listed their upcoming 2-disc special edition of ICHI THE KILLER in catalog's as early as 2003 yet it nearly took them four years to put it out. So…is it really worth it? For die-hard fans and those who didn’t pick up the standard edition back in 2003, this improvement is worth every penny. The only major drawback would be the gimmicky “Blood Pack” casing; both discs were a major pain in the ass to get out of the packaging and the main feature had some gooey stain on the disc from being pressed too hard against the fake blood. I highly suggest putting the discs in a separate case to prevent possible scratches or unwanted slime smeared on your player’s lens.

Disc 1:

Feature Film – Apparently, this transfer came from a new film print, but I sold my original release a few years ago so I can’t compare the image quality side by side. Looks like a movie made in 2001 would look like: pretty damn nice.

28 Production Photos – Ported over from the older release, these are just promotional photographs found all over the web and aren’t really that special.

Audio commentary with director Takashi Miike and Manga artist/writer Hideo Yamamoto - Fairly entertaining audio commentary ported over from the previous release.

Original Japanese Theatrical Trailer

Tokyo Shock Trailers - (ULTIMATE VERSUS, ZEIRAM, THE NEIGHBOR NO. 13, ZEBRAMAN)

Featurette with director Eli Roth – A short featurette running about 7 minutes with Eli Roth (wearing a Cannibal Holocaust shirt) discussing the “operatic violence” and his love of the film. Also contains nude photos of actress Yuki Kazamatsuri (the prostitute who is graphically beaten with a baseball bat).

Disc 2

MEMORIES OF ICHI: THE MAKING OF- 48 minutes of behind the scenes footage from nearly every violent scene found in the film. If you want to see more nipple slicing, this is for you. **Also contains footage of Miike pulling a Japanese schoolboy by the hair. **

Interviews - with producer Dai Miyazaki ( 18:34 min), actors Tadanobu Asano (“Kakihara” 6:12 min), Nao Omori (“Ichi” 6:11 min), Sabu (“Suzuki” 5:20 min), Shinya Tsukamoto (“Jijii” 5:18 min) and an additional interview with Sabu and Shinya Tsukamoto ( 21:59 min).

Takashi Miike Trailers - FUDOH: THE NEXT GENERATION, THE GREAT YOKAI WAR, DEADLY OUTLAW REKKA, IZO, THE WAY TO FIGHT, VISITOR Q, FAMILY, ONE MISSED CALL, BODYGUARD KIBA, SILVER and the ICHI THE KILLER 2-Disc DVD set.

THE CULT OF ICHI: 10 minutes of fanboys gushing about the film including Stephen R. Bissette (Illustrator of CONSTANTINE and SWAMP THING), Barbara Nedeljakova (Actress in HOSTEL), Lucky McKee (Director of MAY and THE WOODS), Scott Spiegel (Executive Producer of EVIL DEAD II), Jack Ketchum (Author of THE LOST and GIRL NEXT DOOR), Tony Timpone (Editor of FANGORIA), Mike Mendez (Director of THE CONVENT and THE GRAVEDANCERS), Debbie Rochon (Co-Host of Fangoria Radio), Chris D. (Author of OUTLAW JAPANESE MASTERS OF FILM ). I don’t understand why Media Blasters wasted time and money on these when they could have brought over other extras such as the interview with Alien Sun from the Dutch DVD release.

A pretty damned good release even though I don’t care too much for the actual film. It would have been great had Media Blasters included all of the interviews and featurettes on the Dutch release, but you can tell a lot of effort went into this for the fans.