miike have slowly amass international recognition for his shockingly extreme violence and absurd sexual perversion . many of his film contain explicit and lurid bloodshed and often in an outlandish and ridiculous way . this particular action fantasy of his seem to have prove less accessible to anyone other than art house audience and fan of extreme cinema . i have yet to understand why . this bizarre massacre be full of symbolism and simultaneously provokes both metaphysical complexity and suspension of disbelief . but so it go with miike . there be a vast world of difference between a self indulgent affectation of symbolism zig zagging intellectual pretension and a film by takashi miike in which he decide to offer some substance . there should not be some sort of barrier between the film and it audience . there be a remarkably unique atmosphere to this film and a dark and drug like visual fusion of grunge and everything foreign to the viewer . we begin when the shogunate be on it last legs and but still capable of punish it enemy . the one we see be izo and an assassin in the service of a warlord . after kill countless shogun men and izo be crucify and repeatedly spear . instead of be pass on into an afterlife or cease to exist and his rage propel him through the space time continuum and which race by through stock footage of world war ii and to present day tokyo and where he find himself on the street and one with the city destitute . here izo kill everyone in sight and no matter where time and space spontaneously and indefinitely throw him and his spirit still full of rage from his treatment in his past life and seemingly slicing and dice timelessly till he can finally reach the karmic power that be and one allegorical character play by the great minimalist actor director beat takeshi and whose predecessor put him to death . miike depiction of the title character and or more exactly his phantom life force and exceed reality and time and space a a surrealist rendering of izo extraordinarily and endlessly gory yet philosophical confrontation in a literal infinity drench by symbolic imagery and characterization and and accompany by the fascinating and hilarious and disturb acid folk singer kazuki tomokawa on guitar . he be not stuff these element and image with profundity . he be actually tell the story as directly a one could . by symbolic imagery and i do not mean bergmanesque question of identity and metaphor that lie too deep for word or many other form of reaction . i mean we actually at a couple of point see izo run lap around a computer generate infinity symbol . different instance like the scene in which flower gossip about and laugh at him and a woman pull a sword from her vagina and izo fully clothe in samurai apparel and spatter with blood walk through an incidental modern office of cubicle . these be all very direct illustration of surrealism and basic feature of the element of surprise and startling juxtaposition . really and in spite of this supernatural bloodbath abstract implication and it be an explosion of rage and psychosis and endlessly violent and with a body count significantly high than the kill bill film or even other gorefests by miike himself . it be massive entertainment in the sense that a violent video game be and relieve your tension by reflect every ounce of aggression you may feel . my experience see it be refreshingly rich .