After a brief visit to the hospital, Kakihara hooks up with Karen to
check out a lead on one of the cleaners. I wonder if the hospital is
used to treating people dressed like the Joker with tongue trauma.
Anyway, he reassures Karen that the human body regenerates itself and
that, "If I keep talking, it'll get better." More importantly, Karen
has found the location of Kano's heroin dealer, and so the two of them
pay her a visit. The dealer isn't in much of a mood to talk, but
Kakihara manages to get into her apartment anyway.
Unfortunately for her, she doesn't know of Kakihara's antics, and so
she continues to give him lip. To make her understand just how badly
he wants to find Anjo, he grabs her hand and bends her fingers back
all the way. That does the trick, and once she finishes screaming, she
divulges the location of Kano's hideout.
Meanwhile, at said hideout, Kano is having a major fit over his lack
of heroin. Little does he know that the Anjo gang is onto him, and
that with Kakihara on the way, his problems are about to get much
worse.
They find Kano stuck inside a TV, and Takayama remarks that he taped
the TV and stand together so that he couldn't get out. How the hell
did this guy hollow out a TV and then crawl inside of it? Is this what
people at Betty Ford do to get off the smack? Despite such obvious
questions, Kakihara is content to ask him about the location of the
boss. One of the other gang members finds the missing, blood-stained
money in another room, and Kakihara confirms that it's Anjo's blood
with a taste test.
Reassured that he is indeed speaking with Anjo's kidnapper, he returns
to questioning Kano, at which point Kano reveals that he is the same
Kano that used to belong to the Anjo gang. The revelation stuns
Kakihara Takayama, and Kano goes on to say that Ichi was the one who
killed Anjo. He goes even further, explaining that he knew Kakihara
had the hots for Anjo because of the pain Anjo used to inflict on him.
Whether this was emotional pain or
getting-stabbed-with-needles-while-hanging-on-hooks-from-the-ceiling
pain I don't know, but it must have been pretty good to net a nut like
Kakihara. Man, this junky is a real well of knowledge. He asks for a
shot of heroin in return for his cooperation, but Kakihara has a
different needle in mind for Kano...
What a shame. He's definitely going to need some plastic surgery now.
To add insult to (fatal) injury, they leave his body stuck in the TV
and discard the whole thing in the trash by the curb, which doesn't
seem to alarm anyone.
At the hospital, Suzuki is mulling over how badly he wants to kill
Kakihara when a pair of masked men storm his room and demand to know
the location of Anjo's girl, who disappeared along with Anjo. It's
never really explained in the movie what happened to the girl, but I
suppose it doesn't really matter in the long run. What does matter is
that the two men intend to finish Suzuki off if he doesn't answer
them. Of course, he has no idea, and so they resolve to take his head.
His life is saved, however, when the men receive a phone call saying
that person matching Kakihara's description was seen attacking Anjo's
office. What Suzuki's fear-addled mind doesn't realize is that this
whole event was staged, and that the two men were really Jijii and
Long, perhaps hoping to foment further distrust between the two gangs.
Getting back to happier times, the pimp is back to his old tricks,
this time roughing up his ho with a metal bat. He is still confused as
to why she isn't pulling down much money, and he still hasn't figured
out that it might have something to do with her face looking like a
grape. Once more, he takes out his frustration by raping her, and once
again, someone is watching from the balcony.
This time, however, the pimp spots the Peeping Tom (or Peeping Ichi in
this case), and he drags him into the apartment to ask him why he was
peepin', and why he's wearing what looks like a black catcher's outfit
with a giant yellow "1" on the back ("Ichi" is the number "one" in
Japanese). All Ichi can do is apologize, and so the pimp slaps him
around a little bit. Not the way he was slapping his girl around, just
open-handed, Three Stooges-style slaps. Ichi starts crying, and that
just makes the pimp angrier. When the pimp calls him on his crying,
Ichi just loses it.
With a simple "sching," a blade pops out of the heel of his right
shoe. The pimp is understandably confused, and at this point is
probably wondering what good a boot razor is going to be, especially
when the sharp part is on the heel.
Ichi starts crying big time, and unleashes a lightning-fast axe kick.
The boot razor goes right through the pimp. For a moment afterwards,
the pimp just stands there, unsure of what happened, but like I said,
it only lasts a moment.
The pimp splits in half with the help of some crummy CGI. It's an
interesting sight nonetheless, and at the same time, you do find
yourself laughing at the whole turn of events. Also, Ichi spends a
moment adjusting himself because killing the pimp has apparently
gotten him... excited. The girl is positively stunned. Ichi explains
that he was following through on what he said to her while she was
giving him a BJ, but she's still a bit frightened.
He reassures her that everything will be alright, and that, "from now
on, I'll beat you up." She looks at him in disbelief, realizing that
her knight in shining armor is not quite up to snuff. Still, in
typical Japanese fashion, she thanks him. And then she grabs the bat.
She almost gets a hit in, but Ichi manages to block it and, in the
process, he boot razors her right in the neck.
That's really too bad. Oh well, you know what they say: it's better to
have killed your girlfriend and her pimp, than never to have loved at
all. Ichi realizes what he's done after the fact, and lets out another
childish cry of anguish. This time, however, his crying doesn't end
with someone being sliced.
Getting back to Kakihara, things have finally gone too far for the
syndicate's liking. He has been officially ejected for his activities.
It doesn't seem to bother him too much; he hands in his syndicate
membership pin(?) and leaves the restaurant without incident. Everyone
in attendance is stunned by how easy it was to eject the psychotic
gangster, but he quickly returns to the restaurant to inform them that
he is taking over the Anjo gang. Correction: the Kakihara gang. Well,
no, they stick with the old name, but you know what I mean.
Kakihara briefs the remaining gang members on the situation: they're
out of the syndicate, and all the other gangs are out to get them. He
says that anyone who wants out can leave, but the other gang members
are smart enough to know better. Well, almost all of them.
The greasy-looking guy from the beginning of the film wants out.
Apparently, he didn't understand that he was already in hot water for
telling Kaneko to leave Anjo alone and subsequently getting him
killed. Despite this, though, Kakihara doesn't kill him.
Instead, he nails the man's foot to a scrap of wood with one of his
needles. To further drive his point home, he makes the greasy guy walk
around with the needle in his foot and the wood still attached.
And that's why no one bows out of the Anjo gang.
Unbeknownst to Kakihara, however, Suzuki has gotten him ejected from
the syndicate as part of his revenge. The other part consists of him
getting Jijii to get Ichi to kill off Kakihara and the rest of the
Anjo gang. The price: a cool 3 million yen (again, around $26,000 or
209,997 yuan). It's a deal, and now all that's left to do is get Ichi
moving.
Jijii deduces from the shoe that Ichi's been busy. Ichi confides in
him that he had another dream about Ms. Tachibana. You see, during the
scenes where Ichi was watching the pimp beat and rape the prostitute
(very heartfelt scenes indeed), he would have short flashbacks of a
girl being raped by a group of high school students. The girl in
question is Tachibana, and she was raped after she stood up to the
guys that were bullying Ichi. He tells Jijii that he still remembers
how she cried out to him, and Jijii asks him if he wanted to save her
that baldly. No, Ichi remarks, he just wanted to rape her, too. Aw,
that is so sweet. Jijii tries to reassure him that surely he just
wanted to save her, but Ichi remains adamant that she wanted him to
rape her. Jijii finally has enough and smacks Ichi. Not hard enough to
knock some sense into him, but still fairly hard.
Next, yet another foolish person decides to tempt fate with Kakihara.
This time, it's the owner of the club where Karen works. He says that
there might be trouble if he lets the exiled gang in, but not as much
trouble as keeping them out, as he's about to find out.
Kakihara goes for a grandmother-style cheek pinching, and then he
takes it a step further. He knocks the owner down, and starts pulling
on his check with both hands. He doesn't say anything, he just pulls.
The owner calls for Karen to come help, but this is definitely not
what he had in mind:
She takes a seat and starts pulling on his other cheek. The other Anjo
gang members look on in disbelief as the couple yanks with all their
might on the owner's seemingly elastic cheeks.
Karen seems to be enjoying it. I mean like really enjoying it, to the
point where moaning is involved. Of course, this just makes Kakihara's
smile all the wider. Ah, romance.
Getting back to the other insane guy, Ichi is headed down an alley
when he spots some kids bullying Kaneko's kid, Takeshi. From the kids,
you learn that Kaneko used to be a police officer, but that he was
fired for losing his gun. I can see how that might lead to
disciplinary action, but then why would the yakuza be interested in a
guy who can't keep track of his own gun? More on that later. The kids
also point out that those guns are paid for by the taxpayers, and that
they want their money back. At first, I thought this was absurd, but
then I remembered that I know nothing about Japanese tax code. Maybe
kids do pay taxes in Japan. Anyway, they spot Ichi staring passively
at them, so one of them heads over to mess with him a little. Said kid
makes the mistake of knocking Ichi's bike over.
Ichi plants a solid kick right in the kid's chest, and he goes down
hard. Let me tell you, there was much laughter in the theater when
they showed that moment. The other two back off from Takeshi, and Ichi
hops on his bike and races off amidst the soft moaning of the injured
kid.
Across town, a different kind of beating is taking place. Karen and
Kakihara are really hitting it off, no pun intended, and so they
decide to take it to the next level: Karen starts beating the shite
out of Kakihara. He eggs her on, giving her instruction on how to
maximize the pain and to focus not the pain he feels, but on the joy
of causing him pain. Still, she puts her all into her punches, but
it's not enough for Kakihara. He tells her that she disappointed him,
and walks off.
WILL THE CUTE COUPLE HAVE MAKE-UP BRUTALITY?
WILL ICHI START A BULLY BUSTING BUSINESS?
IS THE BABY GONNA CRY? CLICK TO CONTINUE TO PAGE 3 TO SEE!