Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

Best movie ever!

All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

This film is a biography of Korean karate master Oyama, whose students include the actor that drew me to watch this film, Sonny Chiba. I wasn't sure how I felt about a film about someone who, ignore the one heroic bull fight shown here, he did make a career out of "fighting" and killing tamed and tethered bulls with his bare hands; given my feeling on blood sports generally, this seemed to be a rung down the ladder from even those. That said I thought I'd watch the film to see what Chiba could do. The first thing that hits you is that the film has dated and unfortunately it is well enough made that it has not dated in a cheesy enjoyable way.The story told here is interesting enough in its very brisk flit through the early life of Oyama. We see his frustration with the world of karate, his killing in self-defence of a man and his subsequent attempts to make it right in regards the man's widow and young son. There isn't a lot of drama in the telling though and not a great deal of characterisation to gets one teeth into – interesting in the overview to a point but not a gripping story. This leaves the martial arts action to carry the burden and this it does, to a point. The fights are reasonably enjoyable but they are pretty "straight" in their delivery with very little in the way of impressive choreography or design to them. They aren't helped much by the very shaky camera which doesn't look like a deliberate choice since it tends to detract rather than add (those that think the Bourne movies etc just have "shaky cameras" should watch this to see the difference between it working as a device and not working as a device). The actions and tough standoffs are quite good though, but having Chiba in there makes them a bit better.As a physical presence I didn't see here why he has a big name, since to my amateur eye he is not as good as others I have seen make it into film, but he does have a decent presence as a leading man in this film. Yamaguchi maybe doesn't make this a thrilling martial arts film that I was hoping for, but there are some very good locations that are used well, a rain storm, the long grass of fields etc that I thought looked better than they played out.Maybe I'll try the rest of this short series of films from Chiba, but on the basis of this one I'm not so sure. It lacked a strong plot and characters to draw me in and the action was solid but not spectacular or thrilling. Still a solid martial arts film, but not a great deal more than that.

This movie would receive a much higher vote from me in general and I will talk about why, but first and foremost it receives four stars and should stay at four stars because of the directors ridiculously tasteless portrayal of rape and sexual assault. Not far into the movie Oyama sexually assaults a woman he rescued earlier, and while she briefly becomes somewhat miffed by his actions this attitude only lasts about five minutes before loving adoration sets in and carries her character through the rest of the film. I know many will argue that it's not that important in a kung fu beat-em-up, and as a fan of the genera I can't say that it's all that unusual, but that doesn't stop it from being completely tasteless every time I see it.What I will say in this movie's defence however is that it's somewhat refreshing to see a martial arts, or even action movie of any sort, that offers no actual hero for the viewer to get behind. Oyama is portrayed as a rapist and murderer; a societal outcast whose only student becomes completely mentally unbalanced before being gunned down by the police. The final shots of the movie leave one with the feeling that Oyama himself is poised for a major breakdown and no longer seems to care for the woman he earlier assaulted into loving him and has since followed him with puppy-dog like devotion.Whether this was truly the intended message of the movie or not, one can't help but feel a little hopeful that Oyama might be on the brink of suicide by the time the movie is over. This is a rare emotional treatment from the martial arts genre and its interesting to see a film that leaves you with a sense that its violence is not to be celebrated. If only Karate Bullfighter had treated the subject of sexual violence better, either by creating more emotional depth and recognition between the two characters involved, or by leaving it out all together, this would have been a much more interesting film.

Oddly enough, the Independent Film Channel showed this film a week AFTER it showed KARATE BEAR FIGHTER--even though the bear film was the second in the trilogy and this film was the first!!! What were they thinking?! While all three of these films are supposedly based on the life of this great Kyokushin Karate master, you can't help but think that they MUST have embellished the story quite a bit--especially in this first film. Sure, the guy evidently DID fight and kill a bull and later a bear (in fact, he fought and killed MANY bulls during his career), but in this film set in the early 50s, at the end of the film, the hero actually fights about 60 guys and kills many of them brutally. I just can't imagine that this really occurred. So I did some checking and found that while many of the details are correct, some of this film is pure bunk! Yes, he DID kill a man in self-defense and YES he did follow the widow and her son and spent a year working for them--trying to get them to forgive him. But the end of the film is great to watch but hogwash. Seeing one of his opponents get a staff thrust through his head and all the other gory details couldn't have happened or else the Japanese government would have locked Oyama up to protect society! The film is entertaining and the fighting is excellent. There are no complaints about the action or acting. The only minor complaint is the camera work--which is a tad sloppy during some of the fight scenes. Despite this minor complaint, this is a most enjoyable film. In many ways, the wandering Karate master theme is pretty reminiscent of the Zatoichi films--which are also lots of fun to watch but many of the exploits are truly impossible.FYI--There is an Englished dubbed version of this film entitled "Champion of Death" and I just saw it as well. It's not a bad dubbing and it was letter boxed (a big plus), but still I prefer the subtitled version.

Sonny Chiba, as everyone knows, is the man. In this film, he portrays Mas Oyama (1923-1994), a real martial artist who fought over 50 bulls with his bare hands…and won (interesting guy…look him up). Anyway, Chiba only kills one bull in the film but it's a memorable scene and as the liner notes say, right up there with the zombie vs. shark scene in Zombi! The film also offers up loads of hand-to-hand combat and a decent plot to boot, though I don't believe all of it is true. This film is the first of the Oyama trilogy Chiba made and is recommended for fans of martial arts action. Finally, three neat little tidbits; part of the opening theme was used in Kill Bill Volume 1, Oyama himself appears in the opening sequences, and that is because he trained Chiba in real life for five years!