Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

A Disappointing Continuation

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

If you've seen Hideo Gosha's Hitokiri (1969), you're probably familiar with Izo Okada, who was an actual historical person and who is the protagonist of both that film and Takashi Miike's infamous 2004 movie Izo. The two films aren't connected in any way (except they both share a similar shot of crucified Izo, with spears crossed in front of him), in fact Miike's film tackles multiple genres and is completely different in style from Gosha's film.The movie stars Kazuya Nakayama as Izo, who, after his crucifixion, became this sort-of demonic creature between life and death who frequently jumps between time and space in order to murder various people as some kind of a vengeance pointed towards humanity. The more people he kills, the less human he becomes, and starts wearing a demon mask after the movie's first half to highlight this (but don't expect this to be a film based on character motivation). He travels through time on a whim, killing some gangsters, a priest, his mother, a bride and a groom at some wedding (while the camera is upside-down for some reason), vampire-salesmen, businessmen, random by-passers, etc., accompanied by acid folk guitarist Kazuki Tomokawa who pops by here and there to sing a ballad. Takeshi Kitano and Bob Sapp also appear, and get killed by Izo.Essentially, this is a movie about reincarnation. It begins with a sperm reaching egg, therefore leaving its competitors to die. It ends with Izo dying and getting reincarnated. In one dream (?) sequence, Izo is stuck in an infinity symbol and slashes it in two pieces, expressing his desire to end this eternal cycle of struggle and suffering. In the end, he reaches some kind of a deity with a snake (which may be connected to the Ouroboros, an ancient symbol of a snake biting its tail symbolizing eternity). He tries to kill the god, but doesn't find strength to do it and collapses into death, his next life ready to start.The other theme of the film is how Izo tries to fight back against the system by opposing all kinds of authority figures, and finally massacring a room full of various academics, generals and officials, including the Emperor. The randomly inserted WW2 newsreel footage implies that history is just a long line of competition and bloodshed, tying in with the sperm reaching the egg at the start and hinting that if you nullify your reincarnation, you'll break the violent system of society. There are also several other Buddhist themes to the film which I won't even try to explain because God knows what went on inside Miike's brain while he was making this. The meaning of some scenes is specific to Japanese culture, like the one where Izo slaughters a crapton of random women in a school corridor, then bows to the schoolteacher passing by, then just leaves as if nothing happened. This of course references the enormous respect towards teachers in Japanese culture.The movie is very, very repetitive (which is maybe fitting considering the reincarnation storyline) - it's just Izo encountering a new location and killing everyone present, over and over again. It's not particularly well-executed either. The scenes of bloodshed are boring and tedious to the max, which was probably intentional (same way Sonatine treated the shoot-out scenes), but the entire film is just so forgettable, boring, weak and lacking a consistent rhythm that a few bizarre stand-alone scenes are all you'll remember after it. Also, there's some bad CGI as well. So far, I've disliked anything I've seen from Miike and Izo is no exception.

First and foremost, the only reason I didn't give Izo a perfect or near perfect score is because of the production value. To be blunt, the production value in the first hour is hideous, but it gets a little better as the film goes on. The story itself is pretty amazing, intelligent, but not necessarily original or as weird as people are saying when you understand it. More on that in a moment.I'm sick of movies (such as Donnie Darko and Oldboy) that think they're so utterly intelligent when in reality they just rehash old clichés that have been done in movies exactly just like them time and time again. To say it's been a while since I've seen a movie that was actually as intelligent as it thinks it is an understatement. Izo, to my surprise, actually had something somewhat new and practical to say and was never pretentious about it. One of the best lines of the movie is, "He thinks he can find answers by just asking questions! Let's laugh at him!" which can be interpreted as Miike telling the audience he's not the egotistical moron like the other "intelligent" wannabe directors.Izo, for people who are having a hard time understanding, is a straightforward journey of a dead man's soul questioning everything that brought us as a society to the place we are. Family, sex, love, God, patriotism, government—Miike questions it all, and really leaves the answer up to the viewer. In a way, it almost reminded me of that biblical Proverb that claims everything under the sun is meaningless. In another way, it reminded me of a Greek morality play. Still, despite the things it reminded me of, it was never once just the same old questions you've always heard—they're presented in new, cool, modern ways.But before you start thinking Izo is just filmed literature, Miike ties all this together with an insane bloody body count. There is very little graphic gore, but there is a lot of blood splatter and kills that kept me interested through the entire movie. Even then, Miike backs up the killing with the statement: "History is built on bloody events, so why wouldn't I kill to find answers?" It has a really cool pulp literary feel that pleases both the 12-year-old boy who likes blood and action and pleases the old man who likes deep thoughts. What more could you ask from a film like this? Overall, Izo is a must see if you consider yourself an intellectual person or if you consider yourself a fan of hardcore violence. It's not run-of-the-mill in any way shape or form, and borders on originality through the entire movie. If only there was better production value . . .8/10

Having watched "Fudoh: The New Generation" just days before I saw this, and getting blown away by it, I came into this film with moderate expectations. Not just because I thought "Fudoh" was awesome, but because I'm a fan of the director's work, and "Fudoh" showed that some of his more underrated work was excellent."Izo" tells the story of a samurai crucified for being an inhuman and bloodthirsty man, who wanders in modern times, getting revenge for everything he suffered through. I must say, I found myself throughly disappointed. It started off pretty good, but eventually became too weird, even for me. It was too linear to be abstract, and too abstract to be linear. Also, because the main character is a spirit, and therefore already dead, there is no tension because no matter how much damage the protagonist takes, he just gets back up. On top of this, the films constantly cuts to some guy playing the guitar, for up to five minutes. I suppose the songs he plays may have some deep meaning in them, but they were lost on me. However, there were two things I liked about this film: 1. The main character looks like a Japanese Rambo, and pretty much acts like one too. 2. There was some decent gore in a few places, and some awesome fight scenes. Unfortunately, these two things are not enough to save the film. 2/5 stars.

The film starts out with diagrams of the human penis. Then it moves on to war pictures and film clips, explosions, bombs dropping, and random acts of violence. About 30 seconds into this, is a film clip of some teacup ride at some crappy amusement park, then EXPLOSION! Back to the war clips. After a while, it goes to a samurai (IZO) getting speared to death while being crucified. IZO then comes back to life (though years later in the movie) and starts killing everyone. This is a totally fantastic movie! It's got a really deep plot (if you want that sort of thing), but it's easy to ignore, so if you just want random violence then sit back, ignore the dialog and focus on the 100+ murders that occur in this movie. IZO has everything, including a part where IZO is sucked into a lake, and somehow appears at a wedding, so what does he do? He STABS the groom, then slaughters the bride! He then jumps through a wall, but travels through some kind of portal into a classroom. He awkwardly walks out, and is confronted by dozens of ****heads in the halls. Needless to say, they are promptly murdered. Also, IZO kills some monks, vampires, businessmen, vampire businessmen (I'm not making this up) gangsters, goons, and random people in the middle of a highway (he somehow traveled through time, or to a parallel world or some damn thing.) Long story short, IZO rules. It owns your soul.