Violent Cop (1989 film)

Synopsis

Kitano plays detective Azuma, a Dirty Harry-type who uses violent methods when confronting criminals. After the suicide of his friend and colleague Iwaki (a vice cop who was involved with drugs), and the kidnapping of his sister by yakuza gangsters, Azuma breaks all the rules of ethical conduct. He responds to every situation with violence, and resorts to unethical methods if they produce results.

Cast

Title

The Japanese title is the same as that given to the Japanese translation, by Makoto Sawa (佐和誠), of James Hadley Chase's 1968 novel Believed Violent, published by Tokyo Sogen-sha (東京創元社) in the Sogen Mystery Library (Sogen suiri bunko: 創元推理文庫) series in June 1972. The phrase 「その男、凶暴につき」appears to suggest the wording of a police wanted poster ("This man, because of his extreme violence [should not be approached]"), but does not usually appear on Japanese wanted posters (shimei tehai: 指名手配), and may have been Sawa's own rendering of the English original.

Production

Although Kinji Fukasaku was the film's original director, he stepped down over a scheduling conflict due to Kitano's TV commitments. The distributor suggested the comedian direct it at his own pace, and Kitano accepted. The screenplay was originally written by Hisashi Nozawa, but upon taking over as director Kitano rewrote the script heavily. Despite his contributions to the screenplay, he was left uncredited as a contributing writer.

The film was originally meant to be a comedy but Kitano wanted to try being a serious actor, therefore he made the movie into a police drama.

Reception

The movie was a moderate financial success in Japan, and also did moderately well in limited release internationally.

Soundtrack

The piano theme heard several times during the movie is Erik Satie's "Gnossienne No.1". The nightclub scene briefly features the Hi-NRG/Europop song "The Girl You Need" by Tracey.