Ichi the Killer (live-action movie)

At the day of the screening at the Toronto International Film Festival, vomit bags with the 'Ichi the Killer' logo were handed to everyone in the audience

For the film to pass UK certification, extensive cuts of 3 min and 15s were required. These are the most substantial cuts required by the BBFC to an 18 rated film since 1994.

When Kakihara's cell phone rings, the ringtone is the movie's theme song.

The fenced-in rooftop where Kakihara and Ichi battle is the same one seen in Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive: Hanzaisha, where three policemen talk about murder and the Yakuza.

For the sequence in which his character is suspended from hooks and tortured, actor Susumu Terajima required twelve hours of makeup and other preparation, and then spent twelve more hours shooting the scene.

Director Takashi Miike originally intended to have the author of the original manga, Hideo Yamamoto, to write a script entirely in manga form, but the idea fell through when Yamamoto felt he could not complete it due to writer's block.

Director Takashi Miike reveals on the US TokyoShock DVD release that the semen used in the close-up during the intro sequence, when the film's title raises out of a puddle of semen, is real.

Despite his ruthless anti-hero persona in Ichi the Killer, Tadonobu Asano is more relaxed and candid in person. He has his own site you can access at http://www.anore.co.jp/asano/link/index.html .

Ichi was shot in Shinjuku. Asano was nervous about filming there, particularly when one of the yakuza tried to get into a fight with him.

The soundtrack is credited to a band named Karera Musication, which consists of the main musicians from the band Boredoms.