10 Foreign Language Horror Films Hollywood Doesn't Have The Balls To Remake

Language: Japanese

Adapted from Hideo Yamamoto's cult manga Koroshiya 1, Ichi The Killer became notorious among horror fans the world over upon release due to the high impact violence and graphic depictions of cruelty that got it banned in countless countries, something visionary Japanese filmmaker Takashi Miike is used to by now.

The director takes us into the dark and dirty world of the Yakuza through the eyes of Kakihara, an unorthodox gangster whose idea of an interrogation is impaling suspects with meat hooks and dousing them in boiling oil. Kakihara also craves the pain that he inflicts, and when he learns of a sadistic killing machine named Ichi, he sets out to find him in the hope of being tortured himself.

A brutal final showdown that involves Kakihara inserting skewers into his own ears to pierce his eardrums isn't even that shocking after you've sat through everything that comes before it, a testament to Miike's ability to completely desensitise his viewers with his high-octane, ultra-violent style of storytelling.

The legendary director flirts with genre conventions throughout, playing fast and loose with a concept that would later become known as torture porn in the west when films like Hostel and The Human Centipede adopted the approach for western audiences. While both disturbing in their own right, neither of these films comes close to matching Miike's visceral inventiveness.