Public Enemy (2002)

Knowing my penchant for elderly films, you might have thought that a film with this title was the 1931 James Cagney number (still very worthwhile), but no, it is a Korean policier with a difference.  Despite its 138 minute (!) running time, this is an involving and fast-moving story of a maverick cop in a department of oddball detectives -- none of your noble public-serving spirit here -- who is convinced that he knows the identity of the murderer of an elderly couple who also attacked him while he was "taking a dump" (probably the most unnecessary bit of business in any cop movie).  No one else credits that the wealthy yuppie businessman could be the felon, but our hero goes about bringing him to justice in his own way. I found the notion of a policeman who occasionally works outside the law very reminiscent of the early Takeshi Kitano films, so maybe this violent approach (but always leavened with black humour) is a particularly Asian thing.  Throughout the action, the policeman is being investigated by Internal Affairs (not just for his unorthodox methods, but also for taking bribes, and possibly drug-dealing as well) but they are unable to bring him to book; and at no time does the viewer lose sympathy with this likeable anti-hero.