VIOLENT COP

Japan, 1989, 103 minutes, Colour.
Takeshi Kitano.
Directed by Takeshi Kitano.

Violent Cop (Warning! This Man is Wild) is the directorial debut of former actor (Merry Christmas Mr Laurence) Takeshi Kitano. It looks like a typical enough American police thriller of the Dirty Harry, Renegade Cop type. However, the director seems to be playing it straight as well as parody. The audience seems to be able to appreciate this kind of violence in a Japanese film - but might be horrified to see it in an American film.

The film focuses on corruption in Tokyo, drug dealers, gangsters, hired assassins, the infiltration of the police. Kitano himself plays the hero, Azuma, a Dirty Harry kind of policeman. However, he is a slob, violent in his behaviour who, ultimately, is sacked from the police force and decides to go for a western style confrontation and shoot-out.

The film shows a Japan of the 80s and 90s, glossy and modern, westernised in many ways, with similar problems to those of the U.S., especially in police corruption.

Kitano was to go on to world celebrity and awards as both actor and director.

1. Japan of the 80s and 90s? The comparisons with the American models? The film as an example of cross cultural influences?

2. The Japanese city, the police precinct, the suburbs and the streets, offices and homes? The chases in the street? The parallels to American films in locations and style, action? The musical score?

3. The glossy style, authentic atmosphere? The title?

4. The violence, Japanese society, audience response to crime, violence, the need for justice?

5. The opening with the teenagers and their brutalising and killing the old man? Azuma's visit to the home of one of the protagonists and violently making him confess? rhe killer and the chase? Azuma and the killer and the interrogation, slapping him? Violence, guns, shooting and death? A violent society?

6. Azuma in himself, age, experience, authorities? His style and violence? At the office? His concern about his sister, drug taking, getting her from the hospital? His rookie assistant and treatment of him, of humiliation, toughening him up the car chases, the interrogations? getting information? His encounter with the superior, the drug dealing, confronting him? The authorities and their treatment of him, the interviews, the dismissal? His wandering the suburbs? The decision to get the gun, the confrontation, his sister, the assassin? His death - and the effect of his life?

7. Police work, authorities, on the beat, in cars? Answering calls? The irony of links with gangsters, police corruption and drug dealing?

8. The portrayal of violence, the hired assassins, the drugs and the police? The murder of the police chief? The gangster boss, his assistant? Their using the killer and his violence? The homosexual overtones? The scene at the top of the building and the fall?

9. Azuma's sister, in drugs, being used by the killer? The violent rape of the young men - and their being killed?

10. The death of Azuma, the rookie and his stepping into police corruption?

11. The blend of the slick and the glossy, the comic, the pessimistic?