This film's storyline as explained in IMDb must be one of the most deceiving on the site. This is not an action film. This is not a sci-fi film. This film is the most boring piece of pseudo-philosophical politics I've seen in a long time. Hell, while watching, I've been several times tempted to press stop. It'd have been the first time in my life that I stopped watching a film out of boredom. Instead, I simply used double speed sometimes. I never did that before either. Now I reckon I only watched Miike's Audition and was interested in 13 Assassins. The whole Ichi The Killer praise didn't appeal to me. And, after watching this piece of rubbish, I may as well never watch another of this director's movies again. Miike tries to make this story peculiar and innovative by creating an abstract environment and plot. If you want a linear or a story that makes minimal sense, go somewhere else. This is pure experimentation. In this case, with horrible results. If you want to expose certain ideas about society, you don't need to make those ideas so obscure that only Japanese or deranged people can access them. This is NOT an enjoyable film. Interesringly, I had the same feeling with a couple of other Japanese films (thus my remark regarding being Japanese to understand it), but none of them bored me to death as this one did. Honestly, watch it at your own risk, or if you want to boast about how deep your knowledge of the absurd goes. Miike, never again.

After seeing at least 20 movies in his filmography, this is by far and wide the worst Miike film I've yet to see.Great premise, but the execution is all wrong.A samurai is crucified on a cross in feudal Japan, and spends the remainder of his afterlife travelling through space and time at random, hacking and slicing away pretty much everyone in sight. While there are certainly those characters who might represent the ills of modern Japanese society (particularly religion and big business), some of the violence is just downright incomprehensible, including the slaying of innocent children and the rape of mother earth (seriously). I had no idea what Izo was supposed to represent, nor half of the villains he encounters, and, as a reasonably intelligent art-house film fanatic, it absolutely infuriates me that I had to come online to figure all this meaningless and half-assed symbolism out.I get it Miike; you hate religion, technology, government, law, major corporations (like the ones you make movies for... ahem), and women. You love to get your audience talking, and you certainly love making critics think you are a thematic genius even when everything you do is lazy (given, he does make about 5-6 films a year) and pushing them to find hidden meanings behind things where there are none (example: all the ranting and raving about AUDITION being a feminist film). But by the looks of IMDb and RT ratings of IZO, I think this 2 hour mind-f*ck was the straw that broke the camel's back.Bad CGI, bad fight choreography, bad dialogue, bad acting. Sure, it's an "art" film, and so those things should be secondary to theme, plot, and message, but when 90% of the film is made up of sword fighting, you could at least try a little harder to wow us.This should be paired up with Takeshi Kitano's movie TAKESHI'S (ironice, since Kitano is in this movie), for they are both the most over-indulgent films by otherwise incredible talents in Japan cinema. File this under I AM A F*CKING GENIUS AND THE AUDIENCE WILL EAT UP ANYTHING I RELEASE EVEN IF IT'S JUNK.On a side note: I am still stoked for your 13 ASSASSINS remake!

Having watched "Fudoh: The New Generation" just days before I saw this, and getting blown away by it, I came into this film with moderate expectations. Not just because I thought "Fudoh" was awesome, but because I'm a fan of the director's work, and "Fudoh" showed that some of his more underrated work was excellent."Izo" tells the story of a samurai crucified for being an inhuman and bloodthirsty man, who wanders in modern times, getting revenge for everything he suffered through. I must say, I found myself throughly disappointed. It started off pretty good, but eventually became too weird, even for me. It was too linear to be abstract, and too abstract to be linear. Also, because the main character is a spirit, and therefore already dead, there is no tension because no matter how much damage the protagonist takes, he just gets back up. On top of this, the films constantly cuts to some guy playing the guitar, for up to five minutes. I suppose the songs he plays may have some deep meaning in them, but they were lost on me. However, there were two things I liked about this film: 1. The main character looks like a Japanese Rambo, and pretty much acts like one too. 2. There was some decent gore in a few places, and some awesome fight scenes. Unfortunately, these two things are not enough to save the film. 2/5 stars.

Well everybody knows what we are expecting when we see a Miike film. He is one of the very few surrealist horror director in the world. This movie is everything El Topo,Terminator, Judge Dread, Rambo,Gothic & Roman Epics put into one. The story is supposed to be of a warrior who has returned to earth for revenge. The torture scenes will make you flinch, the various episodes will make you scratch your head and with all those crazy things you will still appreciate Miike's effort. The characters, the crazy ways they kill him, Izo's flawless performance, the music, the editing, the camera angle's everything is special. Its more like Miike has donned the cap of a psychotic philosopher who goes to preach the world with blood. Its really difficult to get a DVD version, but I think if you are a Miike fan you should definitely give this movie a shot. Having seen more weird things in his movies than in my whole life I can safely say you will not be disappointed. I rate this one 7/10