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
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