When, in 1988, director Kinji Fukasaka walked off Violent Cop/Sono Otoko, Kyobo ni Tsuki' at short notice, TV chat show host, author, actor and comedian Takeshi Kitano stepped in to take over. Few expected much out of the ordinary. What audiences saw instead was the unheralded arrival of a major talent. Yakuza flick auteur Fukasaka had already lined up the script, and the project was well underway when Kitano (nicknamed Beat') assumed creative control. Hence the final film, although clearly part of the director's oeuvre, lacks some elements making his later work so distinctive. But here already are the moments of stillness and sudden violence, the therapeutic view of the sea, the touches of surreality, as well as the shambling tension of Kitano's own presence which have since marked him out as one of Japan's leading directors.
Outside of tinkering with the finished result, Kitano had little to say about Hisashi Nozawa's script with which he was working. After this experience, the director took to frequently writing his own films, notably Sonatine' (1993), Hana-bi' (1997) and the American set Brother' (2000). In his first film he was confronted with a story that had vague echoes of such tough police procedural thrillers as Dirty Harry' (1971) as well as being predicated around the Nipponese Yakuzi revenge drama.
Police Detective Azume (Kitano) is the morose, violent cop of the title, who became a detective `through friends', constantly in trouble with his superiors for roughing up suspects. Like Siegal's Inspector Harry Callahan, at times he is virtually indistinguishable from the crooks he persecutes. `We sell guns' he jokes convincingly at one point to a bar girl who as asked what he and his partner do for a living. Even the dialogue supports an analogy: `Write a mitigating statement' demands Azuma's boss. `The usual'. `I want some drugs' says someone later on: `What sort?' `The usual'. Like Siegal's anti-hero, too, his life is subject to personal trauma: Dirty Harry's wife was killed leaving him an embittered loner, while Azume's sister is mentally deficient. (This seam of personal grief also informs the later Hana-bi', where, again playing a police inspector Kitano learns his wife is terminally ill). There's another resemblance to Dirty Harry' in that Callahan has his double' in the killer he so obsessively hunts as Azume's brutality and callousness is mirrored by the yakuza assassin Kiyohiro. Although sworn to each other's destruction, the fate of each is inexorably intertwined, and their moralities blur.
Loyalties are no clearer elsewhere. Azuma discovers that his friend and colleague, Iwaki, is supplying drugs from within the police force. Helped in his investigation, he has a new partner, Kikuchi, to whom he acts disdainfully, borrowing money and offering little advice or friendship (in the Dirty Harry films there are a stream of partners' Inspector Callahan rejects and abuses.) By the end of this film however, Kikuchi steps neatly into the shoes left by the deceased Iwaki, and the film ends on the busy typewriter in the new drug baron's office. Business is carrying on as normal after the `craziness' of the Azume-Kiyohiro feud, and the struggle between cop and gangster has been a temporary, personal aberration.
As can be deduced from this description, none of the plot is particularly fresh. What makes the film remarkable is Kitano's handling of the material and his own impact as an actor on screen. Some viewers have identified an alleged dullness' in the film, better viewed as Kitano's distinctive way of distributing tension. For instance Azuma and Kiyohiro stare at each other, at length and in silence, three times during the course of the film. In each case one or both of the characters is presumed close to the point of death. Such contemplation in extremis is hardly a dull moment, more a reflection of the personal honour at stake and of the gravity of the encounter. When violence does erupt, it is explosive and sudden made more so by the mute suspense of the preceding scenes. Whether sudden and unexpected (the schoolgirl's head struck by a stray bullet as Azuma and Kiyohiro struggle in the street), or extended and moody (the struggle between the cop and the escaping drug dealer armed with a baseball bat), Kitano's presentation is stylised and arranged. Its another hallmark of a director whose formalism can be seen as one characteristic of the best Japanese cinema.
Previously only familiar to western audiences through Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence' (1983), Kitano the actor often has a glum determination about him, entirely in line with the roles he sets himself to play. For home audiences, more used to seeing him as a TV host, the effect of his cop film must have been disturbing, to say the least. (Azume's coldness is cracked only one occasion, when he is taunted into rage about his sister, as even the death of Iwaki has no visible effect on him.) The effect must be roughly akin to seeing UK's Noel Edmonds or USA's David Letterman playing Popeye' Doyle. Arguably, the violence of Violent Cop' is on viewer preconceptions as much as the criminal fraternity. Recommended.
Outside of tinkering with the finished result, Kitano had little to say about Hisashi Nozawa's script with which he was working. After this experience, the director took to frequently writing his own films, notably Sonatine' (1993), Hana-bi' (1997) and the American set Brother' (2000). In his first film he was confronted with a story that had vague echoes of such tough police procedural thrillers as Dirty Harry' (1971) as well as being predicated around the Nipponese Yakuzi revenge drama.
Police Detective Azume (Kitano) is the morose, violent cop of the title, who became a detective `through friends', constantly in trouble with his superiors for roughing up suspects. Like Siegal's Inspector Harry Callahan, at times he is virtually indistinguishable from the crooks he persecutes. `We sell guns' he jokes convincingly at one point to a bar girl who as asked what he and his partner do for a living. Even the dialogue supports an analogy: `Write a mitigating statement' demands Azuma's boss. `The usual'. `I want some drugs' says someone later on: `What sort?' `The usual'. Like Siegal's anti-hero, too, his life is subject to personal trauma: Dirty Harry's wife was killed leaving him an embittered loner, while Azume's sister is mentally deficient. (This seam of personal grief also informs the later Hana-bi', where, again playing a police inspector Kitano learns his wife is terminally ill). There's another resemblance to Dirty Harry' in that Callahan has his double' in the killer he so obsessively hunts as Azume's brutality and callousness is mirrored by the yakuza assassin Kiyohiro. Although sworn to each other's destruction, the fate of each is inexorably intertwined, and their moralities blur.
Loyalties are no clearer elsewhere. Azuma discovers that his friend and colleague, Iwaki, is supplying drugs from within the police force. Helped in his investigation, he has a new partner, Kikuchi, to whom he acts disdainfully, borrowing money and offering little advice or friendship (in the Dirty Harry films there are a stream of partners' Inspector Callahan rejects and abuses.) By the end of this film however, Kikuchi steps neatly into the shoes left by the deceased Iwaki, and the film ends on the busy typewriter in the new drug baron's office. Business is carrying on as normal after the `craziness' of the Azume-Kiyohiro feud, and the struggle between cop and gangster has been a temporary, personal aberration.
As can be deduced from this description, none of the plot is particularly fresh. What makes the film remarkable is Kitano's handling of the material and his own impact as an actor on screen. Some viewers have identified an alleged dullness' in the film, better viewed as Kitano's distinctive way of distributing tension. For instance Azuma and Kiyohiro stare at each other, at length and in silence, three times during the course of the film. In each case one or both of the characters is presumed close to the point of death. Such contemplation in extremis is hardly a dull moment, more a reflection of the personal honour at stake and of the gravity of the encounter. When violence does erupt, it is explosive and sudden made more so by the mute suspense of the preceding scenes. Whether sudden and unexpected (the schoolgirl's head struck by a stray bullet as Azuma and Kiyohiro struggle in the street), or extended and moody (the struggle between the cop and the escaping drug dealer armed with a baseball bat), Kitano's presentation is stylised and arranged. Its another hallmark of a director whose formalism can be seen as one characteristic of the best Japanese cinema.
Previously only familiar to western audiences through Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence' (1983), Kitano the actor often has a glum determination about him, entirely in line with the roles he sets himself to play. For home audiences, more used to seeing him as a TV host, the effect of his cop film must have been disturbing, to say the least. (Azume's coldness is cracked only one occasion, when he is taunted into rage about his sister, as even the death of Iwaki has no visible effect on him.) The effect must be roughly akin to seeing UK's Noel Edmonds or USA's David Letterman playing Popeye' Doyle. Arguably, the violence of Violent Cop' is on viewer preconceptions as much as the criminal fraternity. Recommended.