nihonto77 The meaningless quality of human life, everything being an illusion, cherished images deprived of sanctity and destroyed..."life is a dream"...in this case, a very bad one. The most interesting scenes for me were the"board" meetings and the interactions between Izo and his "tally". The leavetaking of Izo as an Imperial soldier was very well-done too.But this movie embodies the nihilist and preternaturally Buddhist view so deep in the Japanese psyche. "6" out of "10" for effort, nothing original, except for the murder of young children, which goes along with the plot line of destruction of all that is good and innocent.

titan-28 "Izo" Miike's samurai thriller which looked to be one of the greatest movies ever from the previews, leaves you saying after the movie ends "Huh?" Even after a second viewing to see if I could gather anything else from the film, I couldn't. What appeared to be over the top insane action was actually kind of boring. The fight scenes were terrible, and there really wasn't much point to the story. The main character Izo just goes from place to place, gets confronted by a cameo appearance by a famous Japanese actor, kills them then moves onto the next place. I couldn't figure out why this was happening or why he was doing this. Even reading other reviews I still am confused. What looked like and sounded like a great idea was a pretty big flop. There are also a lot of dry scenes, and because there are so many characters and you don't know or find out anything about them you get pretty bored and don't feel for any of the characters. Also the man playing the guitar is really terrible, and you could almost laugh at his singing, especially the five minute shot of him just standing there playing the guitar. What happened to the mastermind that created "Audition" and "Ichi the Killer"? Maybe Miike should take more time on one movie then hurrying and trying to make 10 in a years time.

angrymidget19 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.

Mafisto-1 First off, Izo is a well shot film that seems a bit heavy on the peyote at times. The movie begins as the title character is crucified and executed. This is actually the end to the movie Hitokiri, which stared the late, great author Yukio Mishima.A healthy dose of intensity is in every scene as Izo fights his way through space and time to fulfill a grudge he has against aristocratic leadership and its treatment of the world. Even religion falls into the category of aristocracy for him as he blames the lie of the existence of higher beings for some of the worlds shallowness, weakness, and delusional concepts.There are random flashes of stock footage of World War II, and other times which are viewed as vast injustices. This is easily misinterpreted in such a way that Izo seems to be the embodiment of hate, and rage and therefore these events would invariably have a connection to him. These visions are the reiterated results from the unjust world and leadership he hates so much. All of these human fallacies provide further justification for his ultra violent actions.Another nearly random occurrence is the music of Kazuki Tomakawa. I don't mean that one of his songs keys in during the action, but rather he bursts onto the movie set singing and strumming his guitar with nearly unparalleled intensity. It looks as though he's going to break his guitar, burst into tears, have a stroke, or all of the above at any second. If you don't like the sound that's one thing, but no one will ever accuse the guy of not putting feeling into his music. His presence is ignored in the movie until the end when he gives Izo an order to "punish them" as he points to the ultimate hierarchy which Izo has been hunting. Without looking too deep into this, the musician is a part of Izo much as the random woman he encounters is. While she is Izo's missing duty and regret, he is Izo's passion. The philosophy stated in the final dialog further confirms this. It has to do with painters and artists being madmen, and doctors their audience. The fever and raw feeling within Izo is demanding retribution.Perhaps the most interesting ideas forwarded during the entire film occurred within the schoolhouse scene. The first thing that catches the viewer's attention is that Izo doesn't kill the children. This seems strange at first because he kills nearly everyone he comes in contact with. These obviously weren't normal children as they spoke a collective philosophy which mostly had to do with downplaying the limiting ideas and boundaries which human beings have placed on the world. It was an interesting scene which deserves a few repeat viewings.I only have two complaints about this movie. One is that it is slightly lengthy in several scenes which could have been cut for immediacy and pacing. Even that can be argued against as those scenes have some artistic value. One scene, however, had no artistic value, or any other value for that matter. I refer, of course, to the Bob Sapp scene. Without being too judgmental, that guy is a worthless sack of s#!+ who has the acting skill of a jar of mayonnaise. Not only that, but his scene included an terribly cheesy bit of computer animation. If you haven't seen it, just fast forward that section.This is a pretty weird but solid film otherwise.