Ichi the killer is one of the cult-favorite movies from the easily 2000s, and I can’t help but share my views on this gut-ripping, and strange movie coming out of the mangaka Hideo Yamamoto hidden vault. The movie is based on the manga by Hideo with the same name, and it has been over 20 years since this movie came out. But nothing has changed over these twenty years, or has it?

This is a breakdown of Ichi the killer, and I will try to explain the ending as well which is felt unanswered or nobody actually dared to question the motives behind each of the movie’s characters.

Ichi the killer movie breakdown, and explanation

Ichi the killer in a flashback, Ichi masturbates on an apartment balcony while watching a pimp assault a prostitute within off-camera sadistic yakuza boss Anjo is brutally murdered by an expert cleaning crew run by gg. Shinya Tsukamoto immediately removes any trace of Anjo’s remains and credits Ichi for the kill later.

Kakihara Titanoboa Asano onho’s sata masochistic enforcer and other crime lords visit the spotless apartment concluding that Anho fled town with the prostitute and 3 million yen of the gang’s money.

Kakihara visits an underworld nightclub with other gang members he tells Anjo’s girlfriend an English-speaking Chinese prostitute named Karen alien’s son that Anjo must still be alive though perhaps kidnapped by a rival gang. H

He also greets Gigi and the cleaning crew at another table. unaware they were in town and asking them to contact him if they learn Anything of Anho’s status. Gigi feeds Kakihara rumors suggesting that Suzuki Susumu tarajima a member of the rival fanaki clan has kidnapped Anho.

Kakihara captures Suzuki and tortures him with suspension and piercing but when Suzuki turns out to be innocent Kakahara slices off the end of his own tongue and offers it to Suzuki’s boss jun Kimora as penance.

Kakihara and gang members raid a hotel room and capture kano a drug-addled member of the cleaning crew kano has had facial plastic surgery since Takahara last saw him but he admits his identity and his past acquaintance with Takahara when he believes he will be killed he reveals that although he helped clean up the murder scene.

It was Ichi who killed Anho and Kakihara has now been targeted returning to the opening flashback Ichi is stepping in from the balcony to kill the pimp brutalizing sailor, a prostitute whom Ichi patronizes but afterward, he tells her that he will be the one beating her up now when sailor assaults him Ichi reflexively kills her as well.

At Suzuki’s prompting Kakihara is kicked out of the syndicate but the entire Ango gang defects with him Suzuki then promises Gigi a million yen to squash Kakihara. Later it is revealed that Gigi is secretly orchestrating events in order to pit the yakuza clan against one another.

With the help of Ichi though a normally unassuming and cowardly young Mainichi becomes homicidal and sexually aroused when enraged, Gigi is able to manipulate Ichi’s weak personality by implanting several false memories of high school rape.

In particular and uses the unstable Ichi as an assassin. While bicycling in the evening, Ichi assaults one of three boys bullying a fourth named Takeshi, son of Kaneko, one of Kakihara’s henchmen.

Gigi incites Ichi to enter an apartment containing several criminals of the odango gang and slaughter them all afterward. Ichi sees Takeshi who thanks him for the earlier protection Kaneko finds a brothel-keeper assaulting Ichi in an alley and remembering his own long ago rescue
by a member of the Anho gang helps Ichi out.

Kakihara enlists the help of corrupt twin police detectivesjiro and Saburo. Suzuki Matsuo to find Mayu Mayu, a prostitute connected with Ryu long a member of Gigi’s gang when Jiro fails to get information from her through torture.

Saburo sniffs her body to get a scent and tracks him down through long outruns the brothers Kakihara captures him and with the twins tortures him for leads Gigi to turn Ichi into a complete killer.

Gigi’s friend seduces Ichi by pretending to be the woman in his false memory. When Ichi becomes confused by Karen’s claims that she desired for him to rape her. He kills her, and Gigi calls Kakihara to let him know Ichi is coming to kill him but is spotted by one of Kakihara’s mengigi is caught and held at gunpoint but Gigi disarms him and grotesquely breaks his body.

Kaneko, and Kakihara, and Ichi chase each other to a rooftop due to Gigi’s psychological manipulation Ichi believes that Kaneko is his brother and confronts him.

Kaneko shoots the side of Ichi’s leg causing him to slit Kaneko’s throat in front of Takeshi’s son
Then, his son attacks Ichi as he lies on the roof begging for forgiveness. Kakihara realizes Ichi cannot hurt him and inserts skewers into his ears to drown out Ichi’s cries suddenly he sees that Ichi has chopped off Takeshi’s head.

After that Ichi charges Kakihara embedding one of his razors bladed boots in the center of his head Kakihara falls from the roof to his death. However, when Giji finds him Kakihara has no wound in his head. He hallucinated both Takeshi’s murder and Ichi’s attack as he jumped to his death while Ichi cried.

Towards the end of the movie, we see Gigi’s corpse hanging from a tree near a school. In a distance, a young man resembling an older Takeshi leaves the park with a group of school children.