Customer Reviews

Violent Cop

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Darkly humourous, Violent Cop (Sono Otoko Kyobo Ni Tsuki) is the story of an abusive detective named Azuma, as he goes head to head with a rogue member of a tokyo organized crime family. Not for the faint hearted, Violent Cop, is not a hollywood type story, it is depressing and deeply symbolic - very japanese/eurpoean in the flavour of its pathos. Highly recommended for those who appreciate good film.

Few have sampled the delights of Kitano's films, but for those of you who have, there is no need to continue reading this review. However, if your new to Kitano's films, or Japanese films in general then all I can say is, buy this without hesitation. Often gruelling, but most definitely engrossing, Violent Cop follows the story of a cop, played by Kitano, who is prone to bouts of severe violence against those who he despises in society. The fact that he works as a cop allows him to meet many of these sorts of people and he never hesitates to start kicking, and perhaps, ask a few questions later. His violent temper does not remain in hiding for the criminals of Japan, but is also unleashed against a man that has a one night stand with his sister. As the film progresses, Kitano'character, Azuma, discovers some shady goings on within the police force which cause grief extremely close to home. Now, if you are not a fan of violent films then I suggest you do not purchase this title as it contains shocking scenes that remain with you well after the film has finished. If you are willing to take the plunge then you will be rewarded with film making at its very best. Kitano's films are subdued to a point that may annoy the more impatient among us, infact alot of people have labeled Kitano's films Art House, which I would disagree with. This film, and all his others, deserve much greater recognition and respect. Do yourself a favour and buy this now. End of Days fans need not apply.

"Beat" Takeshi Kitano's movies aren't so much about story as comic situations, a mix of horror, humour and pathos (a tone later appropriated by Quentin Tarantino for Pulp Fiction), and characters whose unmoving consistency tends to lead them to tragedy.

Violent Cop is the most accessible of his films I've seen so far, with strangely staged but compelling action sequences (witness the white-knuckle knife-in-hand scene), some perfectly timed physical comedy, and more of Kitano onscreen than, say, Boiling Point. Though seemingly stiff, Kitano's persona is actually perfect for his movies and the more he writes himself into the story the stronger the movie tends to be.

Violent Cop, like many of his other films, has an extremely languid pace that you'll simply have to accept if you're going to accept this movie on its own terms. But the rewards are many: The final plot twist (including a hilarious familiar low-angle frame of his partner walking down the street); kicking at the man who slept with his mentally disturbed sister; playing video games; a strange car chase.

An interesting note in the annals of contemporary Japanese film history is that Kitano Takeshi's first film was not originally supposed to have been directed by him, but by the noted director Fukasaku Kinji who is famous for his yakuza and anti-war films. Kitano, known better by his stage name Beat Takeshi and better known for his television work than his film work, took the director's helm after Fukasaku became ill and heavily changed the script turning Violent Cop into a film that challenged viewers' expectations instead of the formulaic fare originally intended by Fukasaku and his scriptwriter Nozawa Hisashi.

Violent Cop revolves around the shambling, hard-as-nails presence of Azuma, a police officer who has few qualms about using his great strength and cold nature to hunt down drug dealers, muggers, and thieves and force them to submit to the law. As evident in the opening scene in which Azuma beats up a teenager who has just returned home after assaulting a homeless man, no one is safe from Azuma if he feels that the law has been challenged. However, Azuma does have one weakness: his baby sister who suffers from a mental handicap and with who Azuma is as gentle as he is violent with criminals. The only individuals with whom Azuma shows the least bit friendliness are with his co-worker Iwaki and his partner Kikuchi, a rookie policeman who is a stickler for the rules and rankles a bit at Azuma's brutal nature. Things seem to be going decently well for Azuma when his sister is released from the hospital, but when evidence surfaces that yakuza drug dealing activity is enmeshed within the police department itself, things quickly go downhill for Azuma, and all his troubles coalesce into the form of Kiyohiro, a homosexual yakuza assassin who is every bit as violent as Azuma himself.

The Japanese title for Violent Cop is Sono otoko, kyôbô ni tsuki which translates loosely to This Man is Wild or This Man is Violent. The title was created not only to describe vividly the characteristics of Azuma, but of Kitano Takeshi himself. In 1986, a tabloid magazine printed by the publishing giant Kodansha published a series of reports describing an affair Kitano was supposedly having outside of his marriage. Thanks to this, Kitano and a number of members of his comic troupe stormed into Kodansha and physically assaulted five individuals which led to the popular view that Kitano was a violent man.

Feeding on the popular image of himself being violent, Kitano created a film filled to the brim with violence and excised all traces of humanity within Nozawa's script. Instead, the viewer is given a film without a trace of humaneness and one that delves into violence so deep that everyone involved is nearly destroyed.

This movie started out looking like a cross between Dirty Harry and Lethal Weapon, where excess force is justified in policework. Somewhere along the way, without being explicitly told, the viewer realizes that rather than glorifying violence, the movie subtly condemns it. This changes the movie from your typical violent cop flick to a real work of art.

My only complaint on the movie was that some of the subtitles were oversimplified or mistranslated. (I know very little Japanese, and if there were mistakes I could catch, I only wonder about those that I didn't catch) They were not bad enough to reduce the overall value of a fantastic movie.

Takeshi Kitano plays Azuma, a cop dirtier than Harry ("Dirty Harry") as he's decided that the world truly has descended into anarchy -- an anarchy the results of law or its lack of true enforcement. Taking justice into his own hands (literally), Azuma achieves results but (inevitably) not without a cost of his own.

VIOLENT COP is a picture of quiet brilliance, and the intelligence is found largely in moments of silence -- Azuma walking down the street, Azuma staring emotionlessly at a criminal before administering his own form of punishment, Azuma walking several paces ahead or behind of whomever he's with. Once the weapons are drawn, even these moments are captured with tremendous subtlety but plenty of blood.

The film cleverly gives Azuma an adversary -- a tight-lipped assassin -- who is as violent as he is, and, once the killer offs one of Azuma's oldest colleagues, a clashing of polar opposites is inevitable ... and well worth the 103 minute wait.

Takeshi "Beat" Kitano has gained notoriety and acclaim in Japan as well as a large fanbase in the States, mainly due to his unique genre of films and his uncompromising vision and style.

Kitano does a great job in all of his films in protraying the brutal and violent world of the Yakuza, usually playing a character that seems cold at first but eventually having some amount of humanity in him. A common theme I have noticed in many Kitano films is the "unhappy ending". No peaches and cream here folks.

The title Violent Cop sums it up pretty nicely. Kitano plays Azuma, a cop who goes beyond the line that cops cannot cross legally. The movie is much deeper than the title suggests, however, because there are underlying themes of humanity, honor, and consequence. Tarantino has nothing on Takeshi, and after watching Violent Cop you can see why. Not many can pull off cold and brutal as well as Kitano can, and his characters are always intriguing.

This film isn't Kitano's best, but it's up there with "Fireworks" and "Sonatine". If you've seen Kitano's recent U.S. film "Brother", you'll love "Violent Cop", because it is more raw and disturbing, yet wonderful at the same time.

This film has humour, intelligence and extremely beautiful camera direction, which offers some of the most stunning and imaginative scenes since Hitchcock. Oh yeah, and it has lots of both realistic and comic violence. What more do you need? Go on, watch it.

Another reviewer mentioned Kitano and his friends, in the '80's, trashing a tabloid for reporting that he was having an affair. It made me recall an interview he gave that dealt with the period right after his serious motorcycle accident, when he was in the hospital. He said that his long-time girlfriend never showed up, during the months when he was recovering from terrible injuries; however, his wife was at the hospital all the time. This made him realize the importance of his family ties. So I guess what these two episodes mean is that Kitano didn't mind having his affairs revealed, as long as he did it HIMSELF.

Violent Cop goes further than our cosy American noirs; it's satanically black and utterly relentless. It also has a fiendish, laugh-out-loud dark humor. And in the character of Nito it creates a yakuza assassin so vicious, so sadistic, that he even kills his own henchmen for fun. His behavior shocks even his monstrous gangster boss. It's more scary, not less, that during scenes of torture and bloodshed Nito's hair never loses its hard shiny sculpted style. His sweaters continue to look pretty fresh, too.

One tiny point about Azuma's sister Akari: toward the end she's been kidnapped by Nito's thugs for only a day, tops, and they drugged her; yet in 24 hours or less she's become a raging drug addict. Is this even possible? Also, Azuma's action toward his sister at the very end seems almost impossible, since throughout the whole movie we've been shown his tender care of her. I guess we have to take it on faith that even a man of steel can snap.

Beat Takeshi stars as a cop named Azuma who goes about his job in a very violent way. When a fellow cop is killed, Azuma looks to settle things himself.

Like a lot of Japanese movies, the story moves kind of slow. It's always deadly serious and sometimes people will just stare eachother down for a minute or two. But if you look away for a second, somebody will be getting beaten down and there may be need to rewind. While the the movie has a slow pace, I didn't find it boring one bit. I really like Beat Takeshi's style and I will have to seek out more movies from him. He is a bad dude.

I was thinking about giving this just 3 stars, but Beat Takeshi is too cool.

3.5/5

The DVD from Fox Lorber Films has slghtly above average picture quality.