Description: Also known as Kung Fu Street Fighter, a mercenary karate master is hired by Yakuza and Mafia to kidnap an oil magnate's daughter. After the fee for her kidnapping is denied, Terry (Sonny Chiba) converts over to the good side of the law smashing heads in and tearing off limbs along the way. Bonus Features: Sonny Chiba Bio| Scene Selection. Specs: DVD5; Dolby Digital Stereo; 92 minutes; Color; 2.35.1 Aspect Ratio; MPAA - R; Year - 1974; SRP - $9.99.
Kung Fu Master with a Neil Diamond haircut If you like Kung Fu movies with the whacky sound effects and over the top facial expressions, this is definately up your alley.
The star of this flick is a "Ninja for Hire" of sorts. In the beginning of the movie he is hired to save a dude from the hangman's noose. He does an ancient technique to slow the heart and and stop the breathing of the inmate. So when the criminal is about to be hung, he appears to have a heart attack. Now get this. The yare about to HANG this guy, but since they think he has a heart attack, they send him to the HOSPITAL!!! To cover this buffonnery, the warden simply says 'It is the code."
Well the brother and sister that hired him to save their brother from the gallows, cannot pay him, so of course a fight breaks out. The sister is pretty hot and I only wish she did more high kicks. Unfortunatly the brother has bad timing. He attempts a leaping cobra front kick, but instead of hitting his target (his opponent's chest), he strikes the window and goes right through. Too bad they were at least 20 stories up.
This movie has a few scenes of people falling to their deaths with a nice, rich, red colored paint oozing from their heads.
This ninja man is bad to the bone and kills about 200 people in this movie. The only person he cannot beat is an overweight Karate teacher. The Ninja decides then that he wants to help a deceased billionaire's daughter. He decides to do this 'because I hate punks'.
So the rest of the movie is fighting, fighting, and a little more fighting. This movie follows the old school rules. If you are the hero and you are surrounded by 30 bad guys, they will only attack one at a time. It is best that way anyway. If you fought everybody at once, the camera could not concentrate on each victim. Who would want to miss a dude getting punched in the stomach so hard that a pint of creamed corn comes out of his mouth?? I thought it was a nice touch.
The ninja man has a sidekick, but he meets his doom on a motorcycle atthe hands of a bling swordsman.
The evil chick who masterminds the kidnapping plot is really hot, and likes to play Russian roulette on other people. She get's killed, but unfortunatly, she dies at the hands of the ninja behind an overturned couch, so we do not get to see her 'Death Howl'.
What I liked best about this flick is the dude's facial expressions. Half the movie is close-ups of his deep breathing and opened mouth scowls. There are also plenty of grunts, howls, and 'aaaauugghhhhssss'. His face is pretty talented and can twist and turn many different ways.
Chiba is one bad mo'fo I agree with the previous reviewer. Terry Tsurugi is one of the most memorable and enjoyable martial arts characters ever. He's an anti-hero, not a smiling do-gooder. He helps break a guy out of jail, and when the man's brother and sister can't pay up, he throws the brother out the window and sells the sister into Hong Kong prostitution! Chiba's fighting style is unique. Whereas Bruce Lee fought with his trademark high pitched battle cry, Chiba does a strange deep breathing as a prelude to the painful punishment he's about unleash. Chiba uses a strange karate technique with some kung fu influences. It's not nearly as fluid and elegant and Bruce's, in fact a lot of his hand motions are kinda weird and awkward, but he gets the job done. And how! Oh, the plot? The Yakuza and the Chinese Mafia have teamed up with Western gangster's in order to force a deceased millionaire magnate's daughter to sign operations over to them. Terry switches sides and there is plenty of pain to be felt. Arm-breakings, eyeball-pokings, sword-snappings, throat-rippings and vomit-inducing punches, etc. The sequel, Street Fighter's Last Revenge, is also recommened. Fans seem to like it less than this one, but I found the action scenes to be superior.
It's good 'The Street Fighter' isn't one of the classier or more elegant martial arts films, but it's a lotta fun. The fight choreography obviously isn't as complicated or polished as you'd see in more modern films, or even some of the better films of the time, but it's still pretty cool. That, and Chiba's gots real charisma and presence, and is a very solid (...)hero. That's about all you need as far as character is concerned, in this sorta film. This film was infamously violent at it's release, and while this is gonna fade a lot over 30 years, some of the violence here is pretty amusing and impressive. I can imagine people falling out of there chairs while watching the (...) scene 30 years ago. In fact, I could imagine that happening to me now, if I hadn't known about it before hand. The vomit-punch is pretty nasty, too. That, and it just generally has a level of intensity and brutality lacking from most kung-fu films. (Note the scene where Terry breaks one dude's arm three times, right in a row. Painful stuff) The film does take a while to get going, as there is relatively little fighting in the first half of the film, but whaddya expect. It can't all be fighting. (And, some movies try to have too much fighting, which occasionally becomes more tedious and repetitious than just having everyone sit around.) And if avoids the common pitfall of having the neverending 1 on 1 duel. If two characters fight for more than 4 minutes, it's almost guaranteed to get boring. Fortunately, Terrry usually has to fight groups of opponents, which is the real way to go.
Yeah, I'm done. Very entertaining movie.
Grade: B-
this is not jean claude van damme this movie stars sonny chiba. it is an old movie. not the jean claude van damme version.
beautifully shot 70's genre action! Sonny Chiba really stretches it across the screen. The faces he makes! The story is that simple/complex gangster/spaghetti western fare, but this film is beautiful to look at. Great closeups, interiors and settings from Tokyo streets to woodsy sun-dappled river banks to oil tankers. Some creepy and outrageous side character/yakuza keep you on your toes as well. All that with a lotta red splatter and a killer soundtrack make this a classic. The DVD has a quiz at the end that is pretty dumb.
Anything Goes Trivia
Megaton Man
Trevor
