Doberman Cop - 1977

 Last week the film world lost a legend in Sonny Chiba and many of us sought to celebrate his life by watching one or more of his movies. Though I wished it had been under better circumstances I decided it was time for me to finally catch up to Kinji Fukasaku's Doberman Cop. Fukasaku had a long and wildly varied career beginning in the 1960s and he might still be best known in the US for directing the Battle Royale films in the early 00s. However, in the 1970s Fukasaku directed a string of violent and gritty crime dramas including the blistering Yakuza Papers/Battles Without Honor or Humanity films which include his first collaborations with Chiba. Doberman Cop is one of those crime films - focusing more on the police than on gangsters in this case - and is based on a manga inspired by Dirty Harry. If you took Dirty Harry and combined it with the rural cop in the big city set-up of another Clint Eastwood flick - Coogan's Bluff - you might have some approximation of Doberman Cop but this is Fukasaku at work so things get much crazier.

Doberman Cop opens strong with a murder scene and a burnt corpse - according to the attending detectives this killing is part of spate of murders/arsons targeting sex workers. The evidence on the scene leads them to believe the latest victim is a girl named Mayumi from Okinawa. We then cut to the main theme/credits which are played over some gorgeous city night footage and Chiba as Joji Kano - sporting a straw hat, white slacks, and a pig in a sack. Kano is a detective from Okinawa looking into the details of the murder - the pig was meant as a gift to the Tokyo police from his mom - as well as return the remains to the island. Kano believes that Mayumi is still alive and that the identity of the murdered girl is mistaken. This belief largely stems from Okinawan folk traditions - Mayumi's mother is a kind of Okinawan priestess and Kano himself keeps performing a divination with tiny shells. Despite the evidence and frequent demands that he return to "the boonies" Kano sticks around to investigate resulting both in some fish out of water comedy and opportunities to demonstrate his virility and physical prowess to the relatively soft city folk. While Kano investigates and makes some new friends - a couple that run a live sex show, a biker who is suspected to be the murderer - we're also introduced to Yakuza backed, drug addicted, rising pop star Miki Harakuze who Kano believes has some connection back to Okinawa. 

The action in Doberman Cop is wild and energetically shot - often using handheld set ups similar to the Yakuza Papers. My usual preference for fight sequences featuring someone as skilled as Chiba's is for wide and medium shots that allow for the action to flow - instead Fukasaku presses close and uses a lot of edits. The results are frantic, claustrophobic, and brutal - a fight between Kano and some gangsters in a small apartment is an absolute scorcher. Chiba's stunt skills are on display when - as far as I can tell - he actually rappels down a high rise building to foil a hostage situation earning Kano the nickname "Tarzan." Fukasaku was never one to shy away from gore and once Kano comes into possession of a Dirty Harry inspired .44 Magnum revolver some bloody results follow including a head explosion and three gangsters impaled by the same bullet. While he is ferocious and a self-described "furimun" - madman - Chiba's Kano isn't nearly as grim as Harry Callahan. He finds amusement in his city experiences, he hangs out and smokes dope with the biker gang, he seems to really care for that pig, and he's mostly looking to get a lost girl home to her mom. 

It's not easy to juggle a hardboiled, gritty crime story with lighter elements - I mean there's a pop star competition at the heart of this film - but I think Fukasaku is successful here. Part of this is that despite any levity the film mostly leans into the grime - the industrial showdown between Kano and the killer is truly gruesome and the film ends on a somewhat bleak note. However the tone is also managed due to Chiba's natural charisma and screen presence. The man was absolutely electric in action and while more expressive in many ways than Eastwood or Bronson - like them he could do a lot with a glance. Doberman Cop is not the most essential Chiba film or even the most essential Chiba/Fukasaku collaboration but it's an excellent crime flick and one deserving of a larger audience. As of this writing it is available on blu-ray from Arrow and is also streaming on their subscription service.