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6 out of 7 people found the following review useful: "Gangsters and cops are the same. They both respect codes and laws.", 31 December 2003 Author: abel (abeldevil@hotmail.com) from Barcelona, Catalonia
The film is the Japanese answer to American mafia movies.The director Kinji Fukasaku also knowed for his recent successfull movie "Battle Royale", began his carrer with Yakuza's movies being the most representative director of the genre and considered like the master of this kind of films, inspiring well-known authors like Kitano and Miike. In "cops vs thugs" he breaks the thin border between cop and thugs and mix them in a violent and corrupted world, being difficult to know who is the good or bad guy. Perhaps because everyone have two faces.The actors play a good performance and the main character plays a superb role struggling between the law and common sense, he alone against the world like inspector Harry Callahan, but the humanity of the character consist in his doubts.The plot of the movie isn't very original, landscape speculation, but for the movie don't have any importance. Also the music inspired in American movies of seventies give more dinamism to action scenes.In conclusion a good movie highly recommended to genre fans, where no one is free of guilty, that can be summarize with a line from the script: "Gangsters and cops are the same. They both respect codes and laws."8/10
and then some more sex and violence, 1 May 2009 Author: christopher-underwood from Greenwich - London
This probably deserves a second viewing because I lost the drift a couple of times and found myself confusing the goodies and the baddies. I'm sure this is partly the director's intention, but probably not to the extent I lost it for a while. Never mind this really moves along and the confusion surrounding the participants and the minimal plot matters little. Great cinematic style with much variety, even use of black and white for flash backs and freeze frame for emphasis. Rousing score inspired by blaxploitation movies and a welcome and strong performance from the great Reiko Ike. Sex and violence, some debate about whether the cops or the yakuza are the good guys and then some more sex and violence. Very good but I'm sure I'll enjoy it even more another time.
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