Page 144 - Nightmare Japan Contemporary Japanese Horror Cinema

A Murder of Doves 131

intended, like a roller coaster, to provide immediate, visceral, yet fleeting
thrills.
Mes also remarks that the repetition of violence in Ichi the Killer
aligns with Miike’s aesthetic and critical agenda in that it ‘underlines
[violence’s] very futility’ (243). I agree with Mes, but would like to
supplement his observation with a further consideration of Miike’s oeuvre
in terms of Ichi the Killer’s relation to a potentially radical politics of
visual excess.
Though best known for his more violent works, Miike is without
question one of contemporary cinema’s more eclectic directors. The
range of genres with which Miike has engaged include: the teen idol
action film (Andromedia [1998] and N-Girls Vs Vampire [Tennen shôjo
Man next: Yokohama hyaku-ya hen, 1999]); the musical comedy (The
Happiness of the Katakuris [Katakuri-ke no kôfuku, 2002]); the self-
reflective deconstruction of popular Japanese horror films and motifs
(One Missed Call [2003]); chambara eiga, or the samurai film (Sabu
[2002]); and the slapstick superhero comedy (Zebraman [2004]). These
titles and genre categories merely scratch the surface of Miike’s
staggering output. Similarly, Miike rarely limits his films to the
parameters of a single coherent genre. His musical comedy, The
Happiness of the Katakuries, for example, also adheres to horror film
conventions, such as grotesque murders and the depiction of the dead
returning to life. Thus, Miike’s continual combination and recombination
of filmic genres throughout his brief yet hyper-productive career locates
him as an auteur whose very output frustrates attempts at labeling him as
a certain type of director (for example, as a ‘horror director’). His range
demonstrates his remarkable ability to produce a tremendously diverse
body of work that simultaneously contains and exceeds a plurality of
genres and genre conventions.
Lastly, Ichi the Killer’s depictions of violence in all its ‘painful’
and ‘playful’ manifestations contributes to a reconsideration of the very
notion of ‘borders’ and ‘boundaries’ in both the ‘reel world’ of filmic
representation and the ‘real world’ that the former simulates. Specifically,
the film’s relentless display of violence, directed both externally (towards
others) and internally (towards one’s self), calls to mind the ‘transgressive