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.
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.