COPS VS. THUGS | 県警対組織暴力 (Japan, 1975)
Directed by: Kinji Fukasaku
Starring: Bunta Sugawara, Hiroki Matsukata, Ken Takakura, Mikio Narita, Nobuo Kaneko

Kinji Fukasaku follows his Yakuza Papers series with a film focusing on the other side of the coin, a police department where the yen far outweighs the law. Sugawara plays a guy who emerged from the wreckage of postwar Japan and by a twist of fate wound up a cop instead of a yakuza. No matter, because he’s so corrupt he’s basically a criminal anyway, delivering witnesses to his yakuza buddies and looking the other way while they murder rival gangsters. But with a gang war breaking out, a new boss is installed: an anti-corruption police reformer. This bad lieutenant is going to have to choose sides, or get down and dirty. Print courtesy of The Japan Foundation.