Azuma Ryosuke Takeshi Kitano is a police detective who lives with his intellectually disabled sister Akari Maiko Kawakami and wrestles with a gambling problem that constantly forces him to borrow money. He embodies a strict sense of morality and a readiness to break police rules with brutal efficiency when criminals cross lines; for instance, after witnessing a gang of teenage boys beat a homeless man for fun, he enters the gang leader’s home and administers a severe beating, then makes the leader promise to surrender himself and his crew the next day. His superiors admire the results he achieves and quietly overlook repeated violations, forcing him to write “apologies” whenever he acts unlawfully.
Azuma and his new partner Kikuchi Makoto Ashikawa are assigned to investigate the murder of a drug dealer and to disrupt a drug deal inside a nightclub bathroom. The dealer implicates Azuma’s close friend Iwaki Sei Hiraizumi as the supplier, sending Azuma on a hunt to uncover the truth behind the crime. Iwaki has seemingly vanished as newspapers expose his ties to the yakuza, and a fisherman later discovers Iwaki’s body hanging from a bridge. Refusing to accept suicide, Azuma pursues the remaining leads, only to learn that both the dealer and Iwaki were executed by the brutal yakuza hitman Kiyohiro [Hakuryu], a figure who operates with his own code of terror.
Unable to take action against the well-connected Nito [Ittoku Kishibe], a powerful boss who pulls strings behind the scenes, Azuma resorts to desperate measures—planting drugs in Kiyohiro’s apartment, capturing him, and torturing him in the police station for information. The Inspector-General’s office, worried about the mounting heat on the force, pressures the deputy chief to intervene, and Azuma is forced to resign to shield the department from scrutiny.
On his first day of unemployment, Azuma chases his own impulses and moves through town with a dangerous freedom, but Kiyohiro and his henchmen take the opportunity to kidnap Akari and bring her to their hideout where she endures abuse and is progressively hooked on drugs. Kiyohiro himself defies orders and makes a bold strike at Azuma on a busy street; Azuma wrests a knife from him as the gangster pulls a gun, misfires and accidentally kills a young woman, and Azuma responds by stabbing Kiyohiro in the leg and slipping away. He buys ammo and an unregistered firearm from a gambling parlor friend and trains, preparing for a final confrontation.
Kiyohiro orders his men to ready for a gunfight, but when they balk at the idea of a shootout, he executes two of them and chases the third down himself. When Azuma arrives, a fierce exchange erupts; Kiyohiro shoots Azuma multiple times, but Azuma finally kills him. He is reunited with Akari, only to find her condition has deteriorated into a drug-fueled haze as she rummages through Kiyohiro’s corpse for more drugs. Azuma, moved by mercy, ends her suffering with his final bullet. Wounded and exhausted, he begins to walk away, only to be shot dead by Shinkai, Nito’s former advisor Ken Yoshizawa in revenge for Azuma killing Nito under the mistaken belief that he had ordered Kiyohiro to target Akari.
Sometime later, Kikuchi—now a senior vice detective—meets with Shinkai, who explains that with the heat around Azuma’s actions dying down, he wants Kikuchi to take over Iwaki’s drug distribution and continue using the police to move product, effectively passing a corrupt pipe dream from one generation to the next.
