Violent Cop
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Kengakusha Akiyama, Kenichi Endo, Makoto Ashikawa, Ritsuko Amano, Zhao FanghaoDVD: Region Code 0
Audio: Japanese (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English (Subtitled)
Format: Color, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 1.85:1
Running Time: 103 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1999-12-14
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Fox Lorber
Movie Reviews of Violent Cop
Movie Review: Beautiful Violence
Summary: 4 Stars
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, ky?b? 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.
Summary of Violent Cop
Japanese superstar "Beat" Takeshi Kitano was best known as a comedian and talk-show host when he was cast as brutal police detective Azuma in Violent Cop, but the career-changing twist occurred when the original director dropped out and Kitano took the helm. Half a dozen pictures later, Kitano has carved out one of the most idiosyncratic careers in Japanese cinema, and it all springs from this edgy, explosive crime classic. Azuma is a cop who plays by his own rules: He batters suspects, beats confessions from criminals, and plants evidence. He's a vigilante force the department quietly supports as long as he gets results, but when a volatile drug case results in the death of a colleague, the hair-trigger cop goes rogue as he matches wits with an equally impulsive assassin. Kitano's big teddy bear eyes and soft features maintain a calm, almost bemused expression even in his most violent moments: a Zen "Dirty" Harry with a deadpan sense of humor. For a first-time director, Kitano displays astonishing cinematic control, creating a style of long takes and serene tranquility shattered by startling explosions of gunfire and abrupt blows. It's a violent world in which adolescents attack beggars and grade-school kids pelt bystanders with garbage and insults, but Kitano also shows a tender, caring side ultimately swallowed by the unleashed anger. Ironic, grim, and focused to a mesmerizing intensity, Violent Cop is one of the great Japanese crime films and a brilliant debut. --Sean AxmakerAction & Adventure DVD Video
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