The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

An interesting, distinctly Japanese low budget flick. The story revolves around the origins of infamous Ichi the Killer. The movie starts with Dai, a de facto high school fighting champion trying to maintain his status as the toughest kid on the block. All the while a weakling, Satoichi, discovers that he gets sexual gratification from violence. The movie doesn't really take off until the appearance Onizame, a sadistic new kid on the block who is more than a match for Dai. This is the point when the whole thing turns into an orgy of violence, perversion, and general creepiness of absurd proportions.The most noticeable flaw of this movie is unnecessary odd editing and various cheap video effects, a common ailment of many amateur film makers. The director probably felt very self conscious of the movie's shoe string budget and tried to use all possible means at his disposal to "thicken up" the production values. Unfortunately, the only thing that that did was cause an unnecessary distraction from an otherwise decent story line. Nonetheless, 1-Ichi is definitely worth a watch for the fans of the genre, or anyone who is interested in seeing an alternative to the stuff put out by Hollywood. The best thing about this film is Kôji Chihara (playing Onizame), who steals the show as a psychotic bully.

Quite possibly the worst film I've ever seen, especially considering it's not even a FILM, but rather a shot on digital video, no budget, poorly acted, poorly directed, and poorly scripted amateur fest from beginning to end. I can't fathom why others on this site have given this decent reviews. This high school level project was obviously a failed plan to cash in on the success of Takashi Miike's film, which, in case you're too thick to figure it out, has EVERYTHING to do with Takashi Miike, and little to do with story. This piece of crap should be left to rot in the bargain bins. I wouldn't accept a free copy of it. Utter crap. Don't waste your time on this dud. What's next, some idiot with a video camera doing a prequel to Audition?

I love this movie. I know it's not perfect and can't really be compared to the great movies that occupy the IMDB top250 list, but it's great fun. It's also disgusting. There are enough face smashing, broken bones and dislocated shoulders for everyone. I really love Teah and the guy who plays the main bad guy.I don't recommend this to those who hated Ichi the Killer, but I know that that movie has a lot of fans and those fans should see this movie. Just don't expect too much and you won't be disappointed.It's not quite as good as Ichi the Killer, but I really like it. I've already watched it 3 times so I guess it has some replay value as well.4/5

I am a big fan of Miike's film so I had to see this aswell as the average anime and I was not disappointed. 1-Ichi is a great intro into the world of Ichi and you can see what happens for him to become the deadly assassin figure in 'Ichi the Killer'. Fans of Miike's Ichi will not be disappointed seems it contains alot of violence but none of it is as graphic as in 'Ichi the Killer'. The only downside is that the great Kakihara is not in it. Nevertheless I recommend this because it is very entertaining and if you like this try the anime which is not great but basically a animated version of 1-Ichi.