AKA Sono Otoko Kyobo ni Tskui (Original Japanese title, translated as "Warning:This Man Is Wild")

Violent Cop was my first exposure to the films of “Beat” Takeshi (Takeshi Kitano) and it probably ranks as one of my favourite all time movies. It’s almost flawless to my eyes. The acting, script, music and of course directing are all beyond the call of duty. And when I found out that this was Takeshi’s directorial debut I was even more impressed.

The story revolves around Detective Azuma (Takeshi) who uncovers police corruption amongst his colleagues and along his investigation makes enemies with some of the most ruthless criminals around. Under his wing, so to speak is a young rookie cop that wants to learn from Azuma, this leads to some great comic scenes with Azuma leading the young impressionable cop on. Also thrown into the mix is Azuma’ younger sister who has just been discharged from hospital and is a little slow, and seems more like a daughter to Azuma than a sister (A great scene involves Azuma “interrogating” his sisters new boyfriend like an over bearing father)

Azuma's way of dealing with crims.

Of course it is Takeshi’s Detective Azuma that the film is named after, a man who is prone to sudden bursts of violence, like chasing a drug dealer and instead of the norm, he runs him over with a car. Azuma has a real presence around him in all his scenes, with his blank stare that would give the hardest of Hollywood “hard-men” a run for their money. Originally Takeshi was not set to direct, but when scheduled director Kinji Fukasaku heard of Takeshi’s busy schedule he dropped out, as it would have greatly interfered with filming. Takeshi re-wrote the script making his character more of a disturbed man rather than a Japanese Dirty Harry/cliched hard-boiled cop.

The film is superbly paced with and ending that will leave you unsettled if not depressed, but is that a bad thing? Because lets face 95% of American films have the usual happy ending, it’s refreshing when a film makes you think instead of leaving you with that numb, unimpressed feeling of “…is that it?” So to sum up, Violent Cop is a true masterpiece of brutally real cinema that won’t be forgotten once you’ve seen it.

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