 "Magnificent and Pitch-black" | 2009-03-05 |
| - Reviewed By MSB from Madison, WI, USA |
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. |
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| "Beautiful Violence" | 2008-06-13 |
| - Reviewed By Daitokuji31 from Black Glass |
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. |
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| "Violent Cop" | 2007-04-07 |
| - Reviewed By we lamas are traditional enemies of the shaolin from omaha, NE |
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. |
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 "Much more than a typical cop action flick" | 2005-04-18 |
| - Reviewed By therosen from New York, NY United States |
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. |
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| "Grittier Than Some, More Contemplative Than Most" | 2004-12-26 |
| - Reviewed By Miguel B. Llora from Bay Point, California USA |
Perhaps not the best of Takeshi Kitano's movies (I have to admit to preference for Hana-Bi on many levels) but this is by far the grittiest of Takeshi's work. In his directorial debut, famous Japanese television comedian Takeshi Kitano (more commonly known as `Beat' Takeshi) plays Azuma, a brutal but honorable cop who runs out of patience - a Dirty Harry of sorts. Azuma's stifling daily routine necessitates him dealing with - among other things - a naive new partner as well as taking care of, mentally challenged sister. Azuma reaches his breaking point when a fellow cop is killed and drug dealers take prisoner his sister. It is time to take matters in his own hands and Azuma begins taking a different approach - vengeful course that crescendo in a shocking finale. AS mentioned previously, Violent Cop is a startling first feature from Kitano, who replaced director Kinji Fukasaku. First and foremost a television comedian, Kitano allegedly reworked the script to better suit his dark mis-en-scene visualization of the film. This turn of events serves an absorbing introduction to his one of its kind directorial style. Kitano intermixes scenes of intense violence with beautifully contemplative shots - as is evidenced in Hana-Bi aka Fireworks and Boiling Point (both also available on Amazon.com). Notches above in the yakuza genre by adding a contemplative twist, Kitano's films are signposts in 20th century Japanese cinema.
Miguel Llora |
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| "Quiet (When the Guns Are Silent) Brilliance" | 2003-12-08 |
| - Reviewed By ncc1205 |
| 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. |
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