A Sexy Blog

With “Violent Cop,” Takeshi Kitano enters Japanese cinema not as a guest but as a one-man demolition squad—a laconic, poker-faced wrecker in a world so morally bankrupt that the cockroaches are considering an exodus. This is neo-noir at its most parched and asphyxiating, the kind of hard-boiled procedural that makes the whole notion of “procedure” look like a quaint bedtime story for children who still believe their parents will keep them safe. Kitano, directing himself with the offhand nihilism of a man who’s read too much Dostoevsky and refuses to be impressed, lets the camera sit and stare, as if daring us to look away first.