VIOLENT COP (Directed by and starring Takeshi Kitano. With Maiko Kawakami, Makoto Ashigawa, Shiro Sano)

THE TITLE could not be more direct. In an impressive directorial debut, Japanese comedian/actor/ novelist/sports commentator and all round media personality ‘Beat’ Takeshi Kitano cast himself as an oriental Dirty Harry. The plot structure is familiar: rogue cop versus psychotic villain, with only the bureaucracy of the law between them. But Kitano forsakes American action movie conventions for a kind of European formalism and distinctly Japanese pessimism. The film is as bleak and violent as they come, and cut to an unusual rhythm that echoes the central character’s own existentialist despair. Despite the inventive action, it has an elegiac tone, and a languorous pacing, its minimalist feel suggesting Melville rather than Siegel. A genuine curiosity, that makes all the recent fuss about John Woo seem overstated. Kitano may not rival him for his operatic shoot-outs, but he creates a climate of psychological violence that leaves you with no doubt about the pain involved.