Detective Azuma is a Dirty-Harry style rogue cop who often uses violence and unethical methods to get results. While investigating a series of drug-related homicides, Azuma discovers that his friend and colleague, Iwaki, is supplying drugs from within the police force. After Iwaki is murdered and Azuma's sister is kidnapped, he breaks all the rules to dish out his particular form of justice. A violence prone police officer discovers that his colleague is trafficking drugs. Kitano cripples the senses and jars the nerves in his films. This is a movie about a two-fisted cop whose blunt face and cliff's edge personality drive every scene, even the ones Kitano is not in. Kitano's character is not reacting to a violent world, but infecting it with his own brand of violence. The "violent cop" has lost his hope, therefore he fears nothing.<br/><br/>Kitano as director gives us a real world of humor and interaction. Events happen, there's no plot. Every scene has this pulse that is raging, the characters even when still seem kinetic as sprinters. Punches, kicks, and bullets explode bodies. Kitano's character clashes with a psychotic hit man, but it is Kitano's cop who is out of control, unstoppable in his desire to inflict justice as he sees it.<br/><br/>There's scenes which cannot be forgotten: Kitano's cop<br/><br/>interrogates a punk drug dealer in a club rest room. These two actors go through a scene in which Kitano slaps this man over and over until he talks. The difference is that Kitano is really slapping this actor, and slapping living hell out of him. Cringe-worthy, and up there with one of the other scenes that illustrates what a hard man Kitano is: stabbed with a knife, Kitano grips the blade as it comes out of him, clinching his fist down on it so he cannot be stabbed again. Blood pours out from between his fingers, he cannot let it go because his fist and knife are one; Kitano understands the brutality of the fight, the reality of two men trying to kill each other, no quips, no words, no yells or curses, just blood and rage; cut to the bone, it's the way the whole film makes you feel.<br/><br/>As far as the recent BROTHER is concerned, it makes perfect sense for Kitano to use similar themes seen in his earlier films. BROTHER is Kitano's first real attack on American audiences. They, en mass, haven't seen his stuff, and if Kitano's going over old ground, he's doing it in HIS style. Better a retread Kitano than most of Hollywood's slobbering star-cramped idiocy. When Kitano directed and acted in this masterpiece of his production, as well as of the whole Japanese cinematographic panorama, people expected him differently. It was 1989 and Beat Takeshi (as Kitano is known in his homeland) was realizing his first experience on the big screen. He was and still is a comedian, a master of jokes but here we have a hardboiled movie with a soundtrack and slow scenes that reminds some noir ones. So something so different from a style of a comedian. However in this story we have a link given by some grotesque elements that make us grin rather than smile. The way Azuma inspector run after the criminals, the way he punish them, as well the corruption among the police are a proof of this black humor. We sympathize with his methods justified by the circumstances even if are violent. Another element that emerges here is the way of filming with a alternation of close-ups. This technique, developed by Ozu in Japan, put the face of Kitano in front of us as well that of his rivals. We wait for a smile, a joke or, on the other side, an hungry expression full of hate and desire of revenge. But we find something different, a mix of this two way. A grin, the same we have at the end of this amazing movie. A masterpiece that shows a comedian becoming a policeman to show how ridiculous and dumb the institution can be. And all we have to do, is laugh. Rather than cry. As when we guzzle a bitter beer at the end of an hard day like Azuma did here. Wandering what is good and what is not and finding again ourselves doing that thing. Grinding.
Leskat replied
295 weeks ago