Isamu Kosuji is a disciplined, smart police officer, with strong ties to the community, but when Eiji Nakano, his best buddy from high school re-enters his life just as his mentor is shot, it takes him a while to put the circumstances together and build a case.
Tomu Uchida's silent police drama covers most of the bases; it's a personal story and one of dedication to the force and a forensic drama, all rolled into one, with a bang-up finish. Because this was a silent picture -- they would still be in production for two or three more years -- Uchida could use a moving camera far more casually than some one supervising a sound rig possibly could, and this movie is replete with tracking shots and pans -- in fact, the final confrontation is shot with a camera moving just below the speed of swish cuts, for a tremendously exciting, dizzying feel.
Once again, I am confronted with the often-stated dictate that Japanese cinema doesn't travel outside Japan, and the reality. Switch out a few of the police officers for some of Warner Brothers' Irish Mafia, and have Minor Watson read the Policeman's Creed, instead of, presumably, some benshi, and Lloyd Bacon could have directed this, with Cagney and Bogart in the leads.