Directed by Takeshi Kitano
Written by Misushi Nozawa and Takeshi Kitano
Cinematography by Yasushi Sasakibara
Edited by Nobutake Kamiya
Music by Daisaku Kume
Produced by Shozo Ichiyama, Toshiba Nabeshima, Takio Yoshida
Starring
Beat Takeshi as Azuma
Hakuryu as Kiyohiro
Maiko Kawakami as Akari
Ittoku Kishibe as Boss Nito
Nobuyuki Kaisube as Deputy Police Chief Higuchi
. . .
"Maybe we'll get in a shootout."
. . .
Review by William D. Tucker.
Dear Reader, I have a question for you. If a movie has a title like Violent Cop, what kind of an ending do you suppose it will have? A happy ending? Is it about an unswerving avenger-with-a-badge who blows away the bad guys and makes the world safe for consumers, taxpayers, churchgoers, and children? Is it going to be a tragedy of systemic corruption, normalized betrayal, irrational outbursts of violence, and urban alienation? Could it possibly be a story of finding love in the least likely places?
Dear Reader . . . what if I told you . . . that a movie with the title Violent Cop . . . was 'All-of-the-Above?'
Hear me out . . .
Late 1980s . . .
A prosperous city in Japan . . .
People got money to spend . . .
The fashion is on point . . .
Great suits . . .
Great music inside glittering nightclubs . . .
Great shit to snort or inject or smoke . . .
Lots of fuckin' to get into . . .
You can party all night . . .
Nice sit-down restaurants . . .
Lots of electronic consumer goods to purchase . . .
It was a happy time . . .
Had to be . . .
We begin with an elderly homeless man who is seemingly about to enjoy a quiet evening meal, when he is brutally attacked by a gang of teenage boys. This man may be an off-kilter invocation of the unhoused street comrades from the sublimely quirky culinary comedy Tampopo. In Tampopo, the big city is a place of both conflict and gritty perseverance. Life can be hard, but people pull together, things can be worked out, and we can imbue our toils with love, and thereby a sense of meaning.
We're not in Tampopo anymore.
The little teenage monsters torment their helpless victim, and disperse into the night. The ringleader makes his way home to a very nice house. Two stories. Upstairs bedroom full of action figures and sports gear. Oblivious parents. Looks like wages without sin, doesn't it?
That's because it is.
But then along comes our avenger: sardonic and stony faced Azuma, our titular Violent Cop, as we will come to discover. Azuma shambles out of the night. At first, it's not entirely clear if he actually is a cop. He could as easily be a serial killer or a con man impersonating the law. Azuma bulls his way into the house, and, hopefully, instills righteous fear in that little terrorist's heart.
We're rooting for Azuma at this point. This is the guy that sorts out punks. He's Uncle Buck without the power drill.
But something is off. As the movie unspools, it's never made clear how Azuma knew where to find the ringleader. The elderly victim was in no position to make a positive ID due to his failing eyesight, and the filmic language implies a smooth temporal flow from the opening assault to Azuma's righteous home invasion. So, how did Azuma know to show up at the exact right house?
This suggests to me that Azuma must’ve been lurking in the shadows, and observing the teen gang's attack on the homeless man.
So . . . why didn't Azuma intervene to spare the elderly man the brutality?
Well . . . maybe Azuma liked what he saw. And Azuma's rousting of the teen terrorist wasn't an act of righteous justice, but merely an extension of Azuma's good time.
Yeah . . . it ain't called Justice Cop.
Or Normal Cop.
It could've been called Sadist Cop, I guess.
Azuma, as we will discover, likes getting into fights and chases and shootouts. He also likes observing violence. He even gets a kick out of anticipating violence. Azuma prefers to dominate, and when his rage is fully loosed, only sheer weight of numbers seems to contain him. But then we see a moment where tears are pouring down his cheeks. It's Azuma's only moment of emotional release that seems halfway justifiable by any sane framework of mental and moral health. And this only comes when a ruthless gangster has a gun to the Violent Cop's head. Could it be that Azuma has a somewhat more cuddly Masochist Evolution Form chained inside his tormented heart?
There's a Cop vs. Gangster plot afoot. Gangsters sell drugs in nightclubs. Cops endeavor to stop this popular form of recreation and commerce. Gangsters make so much money that some of the Cops want in on the action. So you got Cops vs. Crooked Cops in the mix, too.
None of the Gangsters seem interested in going over to the Cop Side, which is interesting, and may have something to do with the fear that Azuma spreads as he ruthlessly pummels and tortures various suspected criminals.
Azuma's excesses get him a handslap from his boss, Higuchi, a newly appointed authority figure. Higuchi chastises Azuma in front of other people, but privately expresses support. Higuchi could be described as a kind of mild-mannered tyrant: not too fond of civil rights, but not comfortable going full police state. Higuchi seems to be a stand-in for a certain kind of voyeur: a coward who likes to authorize and spectate violence, but no desire to get his knuckles bloody.
To his credit, Azuma clearly has no respect for Higuchi. Nor should he. Of course, this is because Azuma is locked into his own obsessive death trip as opposed to any sort of rational principles. But even once Azuma crosses a few too many lines, the spineless Higuchi still expresses furtive admiration for Azuma.
Hey, that's love for you. Sometimes, you have to settle for beholding your truest heart's desire from afar . . .
Luxurious sighs . . .
The Gangsters are led by a heartless son-of-a-bitch named Nito, a contemptuous toad of a man who could easily be a United States Republican Presidential candidate if not for endemic white supremacy. Nito loves money. Nito loves giving orders. Nito loves bribing cops who come sniffing around his various nightclubs and sit-down restaurants with rubber-banded stacks of cash. Nito isn't used to having people tell him no. Nito, like Higuchi, likes to keep his hands clean. Unlike Higuchi, though, Nito makes no pretense of upholding some sacred order . . . at first . . .
You see, Nito has come to depend upon a ruthless hitman named Kiyohiro. Kiyohiro likes to kill people with a knife. But Kiyohiro is also good with guns. Kiyohiro is flexible. Kiyohiro is a snappy dresser. He’s also a good lookin' guy. You wouldn't peg him for a remorseless killer. Kiyohiro blends in, gets where he needs to, and kills the people Nito orders him to kill.
Much like Azuma, Kiyohiro emerges from shadows, strikes, and fades. And, unlike Azuma, doesn't have to sit for a debrief, or fill out paperwork. Gangsters ain't so big on leaving paper trails, y'know?
Kiyohiro is an overachiever, and ends up killing a few too many people. This pisses off Nito-who's a bit of a control freak-and results in humiliation for Kiyohiro. Nito slaps Kiyohiro and verbally berates the hitman . . . and Kiyohiro seems to take it kind of hard. As scary as he is, Kiyohiro has taken on the truly worthless Nito as some kind of surrogate father figure.
You know what they say:
Gangsters can't feel good inside . . .
Meanwhile, Azuma's one non-Cop relationship is with his sister, Akari, recently released from a psychiatric hospital. Akari isn't capable of taking care of herself or holding down a job. Because we view her through Azuma's eyes, we never understand what her condition is, because, unfortunately, Azuma isn't equipped to understand all this. He's too consumed with his rage to engage with Akari. He tries. He doesn't mean to ignore Akari. But he seemingly disengages to protect her from his rage. This is probably the most unsatisfying element of this film. Needless to say, Akari, too, becomes trapped in the vortex of mayhem that ensues.
As frightful as they are, Azuma and Kiyohiro are the two most competent characters in this story. Therefore, they are also the most despised, because they serve corrupt, idiotic systems-Cop and Gangster-that foolishly chose to cultivate walking time bombs as their champions.
Azuma and Kiyohiro are on a fated collision course. Because they have identified themselves with their systems. But also because they are the only people who can authentically connect in a world of vacuous capitalist hypocrisy. Sure, their shared love language is one of extreme violence, but at least there are no lies between them, no bogus promises, no pretense, just action.
It ain't pretty.
But it could be an annihilating kind of love.
Which is better than nothing, right?
It was a happy time . . .
Had to be . . .
