Only Takashi Miike could make a film like that. This movie is very symbolic, and bizarre. Izo is story about an evil spirit, who once was an assassin, who travel trough time and realms, to avenge his death. Miike have expressed his feelings in a very unnatural way. The question is what is "Izo"?, there are many answers to the question, my personal opinion is that, Izo is the Japanese part of the second world war, and japan in war situation trough the history, and the cruelty of the human nature, he is the dark side of every person. Miike show you clues pretty clear in the movie. When he kills his first victim he ask him, are you so brutal because you are human or human because you are brutal?(cruelty of the human nature). He shows also how religion can be misused, in personal interest and how hypocritical it can be. In the scene where he kills his own mother is also an symbolic example, his mother says "killing me is like killing yourself Izo", when a population corrupts and destroy there country they destroy there own system...they destroy themselves. The whole thing start to make sense if we relate it to the second world war. In the beginning Izo looks like an ordinary person ,cool, but later on he becomes more fierce, he even kills children and innocent people, civilian people are those who suffer the most in a war. With other words the war from the Japanese side didn't look like bad thing, but later on they saw the cruelty of the war. In the end Izo do look like a monster, with a mask, evolution... changes of war how it changes in a negative way, mask is an accessory, just like the army used armored weapon in later wars.<br /><br />Izo is brilliant movie, I'm not saying that everyone going to like it, because entertainment for everyone does not exist. A must for Miike fans ;)