I am inclined to see the film as a (somewhat controversial, if not hilarious) take on the "second coming of Christ" and I kinda believe Izo stands for Jesus. An amusing company to Mel Gibson's "oh-so-provocative" religious attempt the same year.
That had occurred to me as well. I'm not a Christian but it makes sense as a way a western audience could relate the ideas.
Gibson's Passion to me was about the equivalent of an entry to the Guinea Pig series; merely a somewhat amusing gore-fest, can't wait for the sequel.
what are you people talking about? How does him killing every living thing and turning into a DEMON make him jesus? Look the movie has something to do with a god or gods and redemption might be a part of the movie's plot but Jesus? come on guys you can do better than that.
Western audiences have a habit of comparing a lone hero or protagonist with some form of quest or implied quest with the Christian concept of a messiah; The Matrix would be a prime example.
This view isn't my own, and it never seemed to me that this was the intended message of the film, merely that it would be interpretted in that way by some western viewers, hence my response the the original post.
1) the last matrix was a whole Jesus thing
2) still a lone guy on a quest does not make the guy Jesus especially when his quest involves destroying everything. i mean there's something wrong with this picture if Izo was supposed to be Jesus
The film is opening with a cruicifixion scene. The main character, named Izo (doesn't sound like Jesu?) is "returning", which is what everyone in the film is fearing. Izo/Jesu's return is a refengeful one - apparently for what has been done to him in a certain past. Taking into account that there are notions in the Western culture associating Apocalypsis with the second coming of Christ, what else do you need? Okay, Miike's Jesus does not exactly meet our expectations, but which of his film characters ever did? :)
Oh for the love of... look he's being crucified because... he was an assasin, or did everyone forget that and think of him like jesus. there was a real Izo and he was crucified because he was a dishonorable assasin... THATS WHAT THEY DID TO ASSASINS! come on theres not even an apocalypse everyone scared of him because he's coming to kill them because society forsaked him. (thus why each of the council members represents a part of society).
shareIntended or not, there are similarities between izo & jesus. both were outsiders, fighting the rich & the establishment, both were led by "divine" fate, had to suffer a lot and were finally cruzified.
Remember that jesus last words were something like "my god, why have you forsaken me?". this seems odd, it actually sounds like someone who is just pissed off about dieing nailed to a cross. What we see then seems like a tormented berserker-jesus who has lost believe in everything, going on a killing spree in the afterlife to get revenge. of course, i doubt this was intended by miike, but this thought and the izo/jesus-similarities were hilarious imo xD
question: what is the meaning of a snake in asian culture? because the snake is a symbol in the bible as well, it represents evil, trickery or lies. it looks like the snake had a similar meaning here.
Quite naturally, after centuries of enforced "education" we tend to look at Jesus and the whole "story" quite one-dimensionally, following the "script" left in the form of a Great Book (which in itself seems to allow for a number of interpretations, as history has shown). Now I am not stating that Miike was filming based on that very "script". There sure is another story in Japan, contemporary or not.. yet keeping in mind that art, cinema included, is symbolic (or allegoric in the least) - it always offers a certain "delirium of interpretation" on the viewer's side. I personally find the parallels between Izo and Jesus evident in the film and I find them quite amusing.. no matter what the director's intention was.
sharewell first, sorry for my (poor) english but i m not native.
About Izo's religion i must say that most of europeans and americans will see a bit of Jesus in it : well for sure cause we have blood, cross , revenge, fate, society...'s symbols.
But i think that's probably faulty to understand that movie only through western's eyes. Think that Japan, even is not the whole population is, has deep and aged relationship with bouddhism.
That way, i think that the cross symbolic is nothing more that a historical reality : "hitokiri" (as we names the shogun/emperor's assasin), when they were caught, were crucified that way, being tortured.
Anyway, the thema of violence and revenge, has for me, nothing to deal with an "idea" of Jesus or some kind of western's messiah. Izo, is "just" a represention of the most brutal way of taking a revenge, a tortured and killed man that comes back to "life", as a ghost or a demon, that wanna revenge himself from the political and religious power (the descendant of Shogun and alike that remain important characters through history). And then, as i m studying japanese classical litterature and legends for some years now, that this thema of revenge is one of the most used since Kamakura's period in Japan, through ghost, demon (so called "oni"), poltergheist story, even through well known litterature in Japan ("Konjaku Monogatari" by example). Think about all the legends you can find through movies, games, books that settle a "deadly samourai" avenging his death, his familly, his pride.
A second important thing in this movie is probably the link that exists trough Izo, the enigmatic guitarist and the "enlighted snaked man" at the end.
As i ve just explained, Izo is trying to take revenge, avenging his death, what he lost. The guitarist, for sure give a lyrical touch in this blood-ranged plot, but there s no doubt, that he is on some way the unconsciouss or subconscious of Izo, reminding him why he is travelling in the time of japan, what his goal is.
And, i think, the concept of goal in this movie is the hardest thing to understand : more than taking his revenge (i mean that he kills a LOT of people in the movie), we can see trough his arm and sword a sort a divine judgment. He is a ghost, a demon, he not fears death, he has probably himself no idea of what he is going for. That is, somehow, the processus of a man that want to turn into a god, a man that overwhelmed the power of human defying the gods. Talking about god, i think that the last man in the movie is no less that a representation of Buddha or Bodhisattva, the ultimate step that Izo has to go over if he wants to become a god. But well, finally, Izo is just a dead man, a wandering soul, he has no power to stand against the real god, he has just to bow to him.
I think, to conclude, that we can have an other opinion on the structure of this movie : i mean that in japanese Boudhism , the notion of Hell is really an important thing, and we can see through the processus of violence and revenge a sort of conceptualisation of "hells on earth". Demon, who are the guardians and the messengers from hell, Izo in here, tend to bring sinfull people to hells and torture them. Perhaps, Izo is not only avenging himself, but he serves too (as he did in history killing people for the Shogun)for a greater aim, a kind of divine justice on earth, the hand of god(s)....
Thank you for this completely new interpretation of this film, you just "broadened my horizons" (although I don't completely agree with you hehe). But though one could say that this film has a "japanese" perspective on things, there are still pieces of Western culture attached: Now that I read about him, I think the guitarist stands for the chorus of the greek tragedy. There are more references to Western culture, but right now I'm too wasted to elaborate on that.
shareDdrruler, I just watched this movie for the first time and I was trying to figure out what if the refrences were intentionaly western or if they just seemed so because I am a westerner. Thank you for giving a different view on this film.
shareThis movie definitely has a philisophical outreach although it's not exactly clear which is something Miike tends to do somewhat often with his more experimental films. I've only watched the first half because I didn't feel I was in the right mindset to take the whole film in yet.
I think you're all on the right track so far (from what I've seen) There are definitely western references, however, many of these references pervaded japanese culture during the age of the shogunate before the expulsion of foreigners. For example, crucifixion was introduced by Jesuit Missionaries around the 1600's (i don't have the EXACT date) and certainly before the foreign expulsion, western culture in terms of dress and personal presentation had also pervaded Japanese society. One must also remember that Miike is an artist and the art of film is universal.