OK, juts like others said, this movie is really hard to categorize or even to explain. But could this really be bad? When you first watch Izo, you really wander who's who and what is happening. Just relax and stay calm. It's kinda like going on a movie ride with Nietzsche and some LSD. Izo, to my sens, is a nihilist tale of a guy loosing is humanity has he goes against everything that makes humankind civilized. He slashes through religion, political powers and so on until nothing is left but himself. It's a philosophical essay drawn on a samurai flick background. If your looking for something like "Lone wolf and Cub" or "Samurai Reincarnation", you're in for a disappointment. Even though the movie contains some great fighting scenes, they seemed to me more like a symbols, a way for Izo to scream is rage and is rebellion against humanity. Has the movie goes, you even see Izo loosing is facial trait to become more and more inhuman...a monster of some kind. Monster because he is leaving all social convention behind and refusing to submit himself to any kind of structure. No powers are legitimate to him, but is own free, untamed will. Has I said earlier, try to see it like a Nietzsche statement about how fake and hypocrite our whole society his. About how we live in a lie that we take for a fundamental truth and how easily it would all crumble if we only free our will and mind. Chronologicly, the movie is also hard to get at first. My opinion about the period jumping back and forth is simply a statement about how society is always structured the same way. Based on lies and power, human power. And only our eternal submission to those powers confers them the power to rule our body and mind. Izo takes all that away, casting humanity (even his) away for pure free untamed willpower. So if you sit for the Izo ride, make sure you bring an open mind and not your grand mother. This is one movie you won't forget, even if you hate the hell out of it...