Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.5

Doberman Cop Blu-ray Movie Review

How much is that piggy in the window?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 11, 2017

A title like Doberman Cop might lead some to believe they would be watching a film at least somewhat along the lines of K-9, Turner & Hooch and/or Top Dog, or perhaps at the very least a film like Wolf Guy, where an investigator’s “animal instincts” come into play. That last film might come closest to describing at least some of Doberman Cop’s proclivities, and is linked to this film if for no other reason than the fact that both star Sonny Chiba. (There's a perhaps tangential connection to Wolf Guy in any case, or at least the Arrow Blu-ray release of it, since Doberman Cop offers Part 2 of the Chiba interview that's featured on the Wolf Guy disc.) As is related in one of the supplements included on this Blu-ray, Doberman Cop came from an extremely popular manga, one of a "new breed" of so-called gekiga, manga that had cinematic aspirations in terms of how they presented their stories, and that, coupled with a star of Chiba's magnitude, led many to believe that Doberman Cop would be the perfect antidote to what one of these same supplements describes as a perilously declining Japanese film industry of the seventies. Kind of oddly, then, Doberman Cop ended up failing to really connect strongly with either critics or audiences, and has been one of the harder Chiba titles to find as a result. Those finally able to see the film after longing for it for untold years may fall sway to that old adage "the anticipation is greater than the realization", but Doberman Cop has some interesting elements, even if many of them are presented in a kind of haphazard fashion.

At least some elements in Doberman Cop play rather closely to genre conventions in Western films, including the fact that Joji Kano (Sonny Chiba) is a supposed hayseed policeman from a small town whose rural ways ostensibly aren’t a match for “big city” policing, an assumption that of course Joji puts to rest rather convincingly. But there are also a number of rather odd little character elements like the fact that Joji carries around a pot bellied pig that he wants to try to give to the police captain when Joji is called in to help with a murder investigation that may have ties to a missing persons case Joji has been working on for some time.

Joji has spent years trying to figure out what happened to a girl named Yuna, and when a corpse is discovered who could conceivably be the missing girl, Joji is called in as at least a consultant. The corpse has been badly burnt, but some circumstantial clues seem to point to the strong possibility that it is in fact Yuna. It probably shouldn’t surprise many viewers that Joji is not that easily convinced, and once a corollary plot involving a famous singer named Miki (Janet Hatta) enters the fray, it seems like perhaps there’s more than one “candidate” in terms of what ultimately happened to Yuna.

While this basic plot outline would seem to detail a fairly standard police themed film, there’s an undeniably gonzo quality to a lot of Doberman Cop which may make it appealing to those who like their mysteries served with a certain surreal element. The whole pig angle is probably the single best clue as to the weirdnesses that pop up throughout the film, and in fact the pig plays a central “role” in one of Doberman Cop’s most outré sequences, when Joji’s adventures take him to a strip bar, where the performer wants Joji to participate in a live sex show — with the pig. You’re probably not going to see anything like that in a typical seventies’ cop flick from the United States.

The film cartwheels fairly regularly between at least potentially shocking scenes like this one and more traditional action adventure vignettes (including some great stunt work by Chiba), as well as more silly and even shtick laden comedy exploits. It’s an odd mixture of elements in any case, and the seemingly intentional chaotic ambience that pervades much of the film may be at least one reason why it didn’t connect as strongly as its makers had hoped or expected at the time of its original release. There are some interesting, if somewhat subliminal, hints that screenwriter Kōji Takada was hoping to explore issues of lost innocence and the corrupting influence of big city life, but when there’s a pot bellied pig cavorting with a striptease artist, it’s kind of hard to take any of those elements that seriously.

Doberman Cop Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Doberman Cop is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. In what may be another subliminal connection to Arrow's release of Wolf Guy, Doberman Cop's insert booklet contains more or less the same verbiage as Wolf Guy's did with regard to the transfer, offering only this general statement:

Doberman Cop is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and the original mono sound. The film was remastered in high definition and supplied for this release by Toei Company, Ltd.

As I stated in the Wolf Guy Blu-ray review, masters coming directly from Toie have had a history of being hit or miss, and this presentation has some of the deficits that I mentioned in the Wolf Guy review, but arguably at least a few more pluses than that transfer did. While this has some of the same chunky looking grain as Wolf Guy, and a somewhat faded, brown skewing overall appearance, the palette is at least marginally more vivid than with Wolf Guy, and this transfer exhibits none of the "striping" that I encountered in Wolf Guy. Detail levels and densities are still slightly variable, with an expected uptick in brightly lit scenes. Several darker scenes have some fairly clumpy looking grain and noticeably less fine detail. There are also noticeable variances in sharpness and clarity which can actually vary fairly widely even within shots from the same sequence. Again, as with Wolf Guy, this is completely watchable (and arguably more watchable than Wolf Guy), though some may find it less than optimal.

Doberman Cop Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Doberman Cop features an LPCM 2.0 mono track in the original Japanese, with generally very good fidelity that can nonetheless occasionally sound a bit boxy at times, especially with regard to both sound effects and some of the underscoring. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and is generally well prioritized, though a few noisy scenes like the striptease with a pig (I can't believe I just typed that) have a few passing issues with parts of lines getting slightly buried.

Doberman Cop Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Beyond the Film: Doberman Cop (1080p; 8:54) is an appealing interview with Fukusaku biographer Sadao Yamane, who discusses the genesis of the project and its perceived initial failure.


• Koji Takada: Cops, Pigs and Karate (1080p; 17:55) is a late 2016 interview with the screenwriter.


• Sonny Chiba: A Life in Action, Part 2 (1080p; 17:53) continues the enjoyable conversation with the actor that was begun on the Wolf Guy Blu-ray disc from Arrow.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 3:16)

As usual, Arrow has also supplied a nicely appointed insert booklet with some good essays.

Doberman Cop Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

There's a kind of goofy quality to some of Doberman Cop that's actually kind of endearing, including the repeated appearances of the pot bellied pig (with or without a naked lady in attendance). But those very quirky elements tend to clash a bit unevenly with more melodramatic aspects as well as occasionally graphic things like looks at burnt corpses. Chiba is as commanding as ever, though, and fans of him and this era's action films will probably get a kick out of this lesser seen enterprise. The "mystery" at the core of the film is eminently solvable virtually from the get go, but the film's brisk pace and unassuming demeanor make some of its less successful aspects easier to handle. Video and audio both encounter some hurdles, but the rarity of this title is probably going to be enough to encourage most fans to cut appropriate slack where needed. As usual, Arrow has also assembled some appealing supplements. Recommended.