Before the Koreans came out with the original Oldboy (and long before Spike Lee remade the film for American audiences), the Japanese came out with this film adaptation of the manga of the same name. In this film, a weak-willed man known merely is Ichi has his psyche twisted into becoming a homicidal maniac - who becomes sexually aroused when dealing out death - and being used as a pawn pitting rival Yakuza clans against one another. The film has been deemed so controversial for its graphic nature that it has been banned outright in several countries. During the course of the film, Kakihara (Tadanobu Asano) believes a rumour that his boss Anjo has been abducted by a member of the rival Funaki clan named Suzuki (Susumu Terajima); in actuality, Anjo has been murdered by the character feeding the rumour to Kakihara (who is also manipulating Ichi into becoming a killer). Kakihara decides to take matters into his own hands and tortures Suzuki with piercings and suspension. After discovering that Suzuki is in fact innocent, he offers penance to Suzuki's boss (Jun Kunimura) by cutting off his own tongue, and while Oldboy panned away from the actual tongue-slicing, Ichi the Killer didn't hold back and actually showed Kakihara committing his mutilation... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xG74Vr5_fQ
Tommy Bobby Watanabe is an aspiring American novelist, stage actor, playwright, former LGBT rights activist, and has three years of independent professional wrestling experience and has been a big fan since 1998. An avid horror movie buff and comic book aficionado, TBW is honored to be featured on WhatCulture with some of the Internet's most talented writers and looks to spread his own knowledge and wit to WhatCulture's loyal readers.
