AKA ‘Karate Cop 4’
This time we find our hero Gen Katayama in Kochi prefecture in Shikoku. He is guarding a prisoner on a train when a pregnant woman on the train starts complaining of stomach pains. As he attends to the young woman we find out that she just ate too many snacks. The criminal he was minding escapes and these events set Gen on a particular course for the rest of the movie as the credits start and we are treated to a panoramic chase across train tracks.
For letting the criminal almost escape Gen is fired by the chief of police and has to find a new job. He bumps into the pregnant lady again much to his displeasure but soon learns that she is single and faces the reality of raising the child alone, more on that later. Gen finds a job in a very Showa era looking hostess bar and soon finds trouble by running into the yakuza. He later learns that this was all a ploy by the chief of police who didn’t actually fire him but wanted him to be undercover at the hostess bar. The reason for this is due to a drug robbery and murder in Kyushu by two members of the same yakuza group. These two younger members have done a runner with the drugs and are also wanted by the Yamanashi yakuza. The Yamanashi yakuza themselves are going through something of an inner conflict with the top elderly boss not wanting to get involved with drugs and his second, younger in command seeing drugs as the future. As you can see, the plot is fairly complicated which does a disservice to the film. There’s too much going on and unlike the previous 3 movies these events and characters aren’t as interconnected story-wise.
Gen himself though is still the hopeless romantic. While not in love with the pregnant lady, he offers to be a father to her unborn child stating that his mother had raised him alone and he wants the woman’s child to be happy. Oh Gen… Well, you can guess where this is going if you’ve seen the other movies. Gen Katayama is a pure character who always tries to do the right thing. This is clear visually too, he is dressed in white from head to toe in what has become his unique look over the course of these 4 movies. In this movie also he says that he has lied for the first time in his life. He truly is whiter than white… That lie too is not because of his own selfishness but for those he cares about which ultimately leaves him in the same position where we find him at the end of each film. Alone….
As for the martial arts. There are few fights scenes here, about two if I recall. The film is overall light on action. The last fight scenes gives it’s all. The first scene in the club feels rushed, punches and kicks clearly don’t connect. If anything, this film focuses more on Gen the man than his abilities which seem to decrease with each movie.
All of this has happened before 