Violent Cop

This was Takeshi Kitano’s directorial debut. Like his first couple films Takeshi was still trying to figure out how to develop a story. The first part of the movie is just laying out his character as an abusive cop. There are definitely some memorable scenes of him beating people up. It’s not until the halfway mark however that an actual plot is revealed. The writing obviously could have used some work. Still I enjoyed the film and how Takeshi treated all the people around him.

It’s a slow moving story with lots of walking around, and no shortage of slapping, from a stone faced cop. There’s a great chase scene to break what was some tedious walking around but when it ramped up near the end it made the wait well worth it and the ending was a total surprise… for us anyway.

I am waiting for Sonatine to become available on Blu-ray. This is a great change for Beat Takashi, being a Detective instead of a Mob guy. Hanbi/ Fireworks is an Detective film that's even better in story telling.

Blu-Ray 5/5: Throw away that cruddy, $#!++Y Fox Lorber version (whatever it was called) because this is THE VERSION you want. The picture quality and audio is pristine and wonderful. And, yes, art cover sucks, BLAH BLAH BLAH!! WHO CARES!!?! Douche! This Blu Ray comes with a featurette and a booklet. It's in 1:85 widescreen and so forth.Movie 5/5: This a police drama dark comedy action movie that has humorous violence, stiff acting and a story or some sorts. I, as usual, enjoyed Takeshi Kitano screen presence and his comedic sociopathic attitude and some of the left-field elements of the film. Highly recommended.

Brutal, but crazy good. Think Bad Lieutenant but better. Great cinematography and acting.

A bit unrealistic but well acted tough cop. A new view of Japan.

Beat Takeshi can do no wrong in my eyes. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie.

Solid debut movie for Beat!

I loved this movie. Violent, bleak, blackly humourous in parts. Classic Kitano. However, I can only post these views after buying the Second Sight version of this film (2009). That version is full screen widescreen and has a wonderful documentary special feature "Takeshi Kitano: The Unpredictable", which features an extended interview with Kitano filmed over a series of days. Most importantly though, the Second Sight version of this DVD has COMPLETE subtitles. The Tokyo Bullet version (1998) of this movie on the other hand has an image with a big black border all the way around it, no documentary special feature and the subtitles are TERRIBLE. Not only are there big chinks of subtitles missing, but the words that are there, when compared to the Second Sight release, don't seem to come close to being a true representation of what is being said (I don't speak Japanese obviously so I can't be certain, but the story makes a lot more sense in the Second Sight version).

Takeshi's first film and the first I saw back in the day. Be warned this is a US Zone A Blu-Ray so you are going to have to have a player that can cope with US discs. But, having got the health warning out of the way, this debut remains as disconcerting as it was the first time I saw it. The transfer is good as you could expect given the age of the film stock and the budget it was filmed under. The big thing for me is the subtitles: they really are excellent and every bit as good, if not more complete, than those on the original ICA VHS release. Here's hoping that Boiling Point is as well handled - and that Sonatine isn't far away!

This film seems to be pretty good but the overall effect is spoiled but its having the worst subtitles ever. It would seem that, at best, only around one in every three sentences is titled, which means that you might get the answer to a question but not the question itself (or vice versa). In parts, whole conversation sequences go by with no indication of what's being said. So I guess, unless you speak Japanese, I would recommend not buying this version. Pity really.

Great film but the subtitles, like everyone else says, are poor. Lots of conversations are missing translations and it’s very frustrating. Buy it if you want a cheap version of the film because the only other I saw was the blu Ray for £20

I couldn't believe how bad the subtitles were on this movie. They miss out whole sections of the dialogue. I tried imagining that whoever was responsible had missed out bits that were unnecessary to the plot to give the film a minimalist feel, but that didn't last when I realised that whole parts of conversations were being left out. I gave up watching in frustration. Instead, I bought the original video release, dusted off the old video machine from the attic and lo and behold, I enjoyed watching a fantastic early Beat Takeshi movie. If you still have a video, I'd recommend it.