10 Awesome Horror Movies With No Sympathetic Characters

From the twisted mind of Takeshi Miike, the prolific cult icon behind Audition, Gozu, and Visitor Q, ultra-violent outing Ichi The Killer is Miike at his most ridiculous and sadistic.

Adapted from the manga of the same name, this entry takes viewers to the Yakuza-ruled streets of Japan where sadomasochistic mobster Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano) is tasked with hunting down the one responsible for brutally killing his boss. That person is Ichi (Nao Ômori), an unstable sociopath who takes immense pleasure in watching women being abused. Despite his child-like behaviour, Ichi is just as cruel as those he kills.

Joining the line-up of morally bankrupt characters is Jiji (Shin'ya Tsukamoto), the person responsible for emotionally manipulating Ichi to be a killer for his own gains, and Karen (Paulyn Sun), a femme fatale who's as sadistically cruel as everyone else. Even those subjected to Kakihara's extremely vicious means of torture that make Hostel look tame have done something deserving of their punishment.

Though viewers may believe a young boy Ichi protects from bullies is the only character deserving of our sympathy, the ending reveals that he, too, grew up to join the violent criminal underworld.