Story in that movie is bullcrap, fighting scenes are what counts. And it's not possible for humans not to feel emotions, just like some tattoo junkie isn't more "emotionally aware" than little old me. Drawing pictures on your skin doesn't make you a different person.
Tattoos had (have) important role in certain societies but unlike many people think, there is nothing cool about tribes of savages and their tattoos. People think they were (are) free and that we (civilized world) are slaves. That's incorrect. Where people have little to no education, oppression is strong. People think women have no rights in muslim states, guess they have never seen how they live in Ethiopian mountains. Tradition is so rigid in those societies, everyone has a role he has to live by. If he choose not to (to think freely with his own head), he is purged from the tribe (and left to die in the wilderness). Tattoos are actually achievement markers, that show that individual has gone through certain phase of his predefined life (rules of the tribe).
