Directed by Takeshi Kitano
Starring Beat Takeshi, Makoto Ashikawa, Hakuryu

Comparisons with Dirty Harry (US, 1971) are inevitable when discussing Violent Cop.  Some make the claim that Violent Cop is nothing more than the Japanese version of Dirty Harry with Takeshi doing a bad Clint Eastwood rip off.  I couldn't disagree more.  The two films only have one thing in common: a cop who does as he pleases, regardless of the consequences.  The cop in this case is Azuma, a brutal man who never passes up an opportunity to knock someone over the head.  The funniest scene in the film comes at the beginning.  A group of kids beats up an old man, knocking him unconscious.  Azuma happens to witness the incident and follows one of the kids home.  He politely enters the house, calming the fears of the child's mother.  Azuma knocks on the boy's bedroom door and when he answers, he punches him in the face and then proceeds to beat him to a pulp.  The main plot, however, follows the corrupt activities of one of the detectives.  When Azuma stumbles onto this corruption, he slowly works his way up the ladder, from the smaller drug dealers to the larger ones, trying to figure out who the supplier is.  When the corrupt cop ends up dead, Azuma goes on a rampage and loses his job as a result.  The last straw comes when the yakuza kidnap Azuma's sister.  He buys an illegal gun and takes his revenge.  While Violent Cop is a bit too long and the plot a bit scattered, Takeshi's magnetic screen presence manages to hold the film together.  The directing is clunky (awkward cuts, long takes) but this is to be expected in a directing debut.  One thing this film does not have going for it is the outstanding supporting cast that make Takeshi's later films so wonderful.  Not that these supporting actors weren't good, it's just that Ren Osugi and Susumu Terajima and the rest are better.  With that said, I highly recommend Violent Cop.

Tim