Yudan Daiteki

Rating: * * * * (out of 5)
Director: Izuru Narushima
Running time: 110 minutes
Language: Japanese
Currently showing
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Cops and crooks aren't supposed to be pals, but in any society they often become . . . acquaintances, if not quite allies. In Japan the relationship between the two sides has long been a symbiotic one, with the police turning a blind eye to yakuza activities, as long as they stay within certain bounds, while the yakuza "support" poorly paid beat cops in ways the tax office will never discover. (Or at least that's how it was once explained to me by Tony Miyashiro, the "godfather" of Roppongi.) In other words, live and let live -- or one hand washes the other.

A true cop-crook friendship, though, is a rarity -- in Japanese movies at least. I've seen plenty of onscreen cops take a familiar, even roughly affectionate approach with the baddies -- but few exchange confidences, unburden their souls or otherwise get up close and personal. That would make them look ridiculous -- a fatal flaw in a hard-boiled hero.

But the cop played by Koji Yakusho in "Yudan Daiteki (The Hunter and the Hunted)" is soft-boiled. That is, the tousle-haired, eternally boyish Sekikawa is too good for this corrupt world -- or perhaps I should say the cop trade. Not that there aren't decent men among his colleagues and superiors, but they want results, by whatever means necessary -- and Sekikawa hasn't been getting them. Since the death of his wife, he has been too busy taking care of his 8-year-old daughter, Mika, to devote himself the expected 110 percent to his job.