Takeshi Kitano: NO doubt a gifted cineaste but I just can't abide by the sheer brutality of this film. I believe that even artistically fine films must have at least some vestige of humanity to them, otherwise the sheer meaningless violence: what's the point? Kitano can masterly lull you into complaceny with his peculiar sense of rhythm and motion and then out of the blue: bam, bang and splash! Once again it proves that all violence is useless and a waste of time given us on this planet! Violent Cop is somewhat styled after the classics of the ultraviolent genre a la Clockwork Orange (SPOILER: the opening scene here closely relates to the infamous opening sequence from Kubrick's deviants' study). Even the venerable "Dirty Harry" looks like a babe at times compared to Kitano's brutal cop and his fiendish foe. What makes this and other Kitano cop/yakuzza works so horrifying is the utter lack of any redeeming quality: mayhem is employed for its own sake; the sadistic disregard for any human life and/or dignity make Kitano's works hard to watch, his characters hard to feel for. "Sonatine",for example, does have moments of great lyrical beauty, a sense of humor and poetic feeling. In "Violent Cop" there's little or any of it: the camera work is impressive. I love his tracking shots, his pacing: but over all: 1/10 for its debased human "value" 6/10 for its technical/artistic importance