New work from Takashi Miike is always unpredictable, and cinephiles may feel blown away yet again by Izo. It mocks the borders of taboo through extreme violence. The spirit of Izo, an Edo-period samurai, can go neither to heaven nor to hell after death, and so starts randomly taking numerous lives. In the film, Izo is on the journey of searching for his Imperial Highness, but he remains a killing machine who also seems to be questioning his own identity. By the time the audience feels the urge to scream "Stop!" at the screen, everything has been turned upside down. Time and space do not seem to hold Izo back, as he appears anywhere, at anytime, to kill anybody. Izo is a film that goes beyond the imagination. At films′ ends, viewers may feel a buzz in their heads. A mixture of strange-but-strong unconscious nightmares and iconoclasms, Izo is not confined by any boundaries and escapes from all justifications. (Kim Young-jin)