Ichi The killer   (殺し屋１, Koroshiya Ichi)   

Ichi the Killer  is a 2001 Japanese film directed by Takashi Miike.

The movie is based on a seinen manga series written and drawn by Hideo Yamamoto. The manga series concerns Ichi, a psychologically troubled killing machine, and his confrontation with the yakuza of Shinjuku Kabuki-Cho. Ichi the killer was serialized in the Shogakukan magazine Weekly Young Sunday from 1998 to 2001 and was later released in ten tankōbon volumes.

Takashi Miike intented for Hideo Yamamoto to write the script entirely in manga form. Even though Yamamoto finished the script -it took him 1 year- he couldn’t show it, because he wasn’t satisfied with it (Mes, 2006). So eventually Sakischi Sato wrote the screenplay.

(See this post on the special Ichi The killer page: click here).

References:

Mes, T. (2006). Agitator. The cinema of Takashi Miike. FAB Press.