You won't be disappointed!

Masterful Movie

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Sonny Chiba is a legend in his own right I guess, but for some reason, to this day I had not seen any of his movies. It was time to remedy that situation, in the same vein uncle Argyle remedied the not-speaking-Latin conundrum of William Wallace.If I had seen this movie in the seventies, I would have probably thought it was one of the best movies ever. Sadly, I have seen the future of martial arts films, and Tony Jaa is my guide to the promised land. I'm sorry to say that my taste is more refined nowadays. The action here is way too... intermittent. I don't like how the movements end abruptly, I fancy a more flowing style. The quirky codes of the fighters seem very outdated as well. "Your karate is inferior, I will kill you. But I will fight honorably using only my fists, even though several of my henchmen surround you with pistols. Let us begin." Funny stuff.It feels like these Japanese movies were counter-programming for the Chinese kung fu cinema, or it could be that Japan was making these before China (useful sentence, right?). Whatever the case, they now have their own cult hero... Who makes lots of stupid faces. Seriously, he could be Jerry Lewis for all I know. And why on earth does this one dude call Chiba Darling throughout the film?! It is not his name. There is one awesome scene though, when Chiba does to a rapist-wannabe the exact thing I would do to them all. Satisfying much? Oh yes.I will always extend more leniency to martial arts movies as far as my ratings go, so I will give this five stars, even though it makes absolutely no sense. There are lots of fights, but they are mostly mediocre. Definite bonus points for brutality, awesome theme song and a badass ending.

The Streetfighter remains one of the defining films of the Japanese martial arts, "grindhouse", "chop-socky" era from the 1970s. It's one of the titles that made Sonny Chiba famous and features really impressive high-level karate.But the film isn't light-hearted, nor is it made humorous by its dub (as is the case with the contemporary Shaw Bros. films of the time). It is violent, gritty, misogynistic, and a bit racist. It explores gritty underworld elements: drug trafficking, sex slavery, contract killing, etc.The plot revolves around Terry, an underground mercenary in modern Japan, who is forced into a life of crime (presumably) for being half-Chinese in a racist, conservative society. He is offered a job to rescue a wealthy oil baron's daughter-heiress after she is kidnapped by Yakuza. The way the events transpire and the plot develops is actually pretty solid for a "B" movie, and here Street Fighter stands far above its sequels or genre contemporaries.Terry as a character is complex and depressing. He is angry and violent and completely unsympathetic to others, but he is the one we are supposed to connect with. Many people who cross his path are perhaps more upstanding people but are killed either because they are in the way of his contract jobs or because they are not as equally driven by hatred.Sure, maybe it's a character study or a commentary on Japanese society in post-World War II. But that's only in hind-sight and even if so, it's just icing. The premise of the movie is to create a situation for Sonny Chiba to kill a bunch of violent criminals while on commission. But this is okay, because the acting is good, the martial arts are real good, the music is catchy funk-inspired rock and enka from the '70s, and the plot maintains your attention throughout.

Sonny Chiba puts the "K" in "Karate", "Kick Up", "Knock Out", and so many other words that is too long to list. In "The Street Fighter", Chiba plays Taguma Tsurugi aka "The Street Fighter". Swift, lethal, effective, and downright bad to the bone. He takes on a lot of bad guys with the simplest blows known to man, no other fighter could match him. However, there's one man who could think can take on and kill the super fighter. Not a chance. Ever villain that took on the Street Fighter met their painfully fast ends at his hands. One fighter gets his voice-box crushed by Terry, and the man who ordered the showdown hates dirty tricks when one of the henchmen shoots the fighter, he killed the gunman. Most villains would laugh at this predicament. What gives? Anyway, this movie is amazing, I heard talks about it, and it was a must see movie! 4.5 out of 5 stars!

I must confess that upon initially sitting and viewing this, it struck me to be one of those films that you hear lots of praise for but upon watching it yourself, cannot for the life of you understand what all the fuss and hype is about.Certainly, the film starts off in a decidedly disjointed manner and to be honest is a somewhat less than spectacular affair until a good way into its total running time. However, keep watching because matters do pick up and indeed pick up admirably towards the end….You see what really saves and indeed makes this film so memorable is its incredible scenes of graphic ultra-violence which even today still pack quite a wallop. In fact, this film was ostensibly the first non-horror film to be awarded an 'X' certificate back upon its initial release.Amongst the choice sights on offer include our protagonist gouging various cronies eyeballs, ripping off a would be rapists genitals with his bare hands(!), tearing out a mans throat and punching one poor chap so hard in the gut that he pukes! (probably the nastiest scene of all in fact!) Also of note include some nice gory head smashings such as when one poor wretch takes a fall over a railing and the infamous sequence in which our man cracks another chaps skull; the fatal blow being shown in 'x-ray' form!For fans of a bit of screen violence, you can't go wrong with this classic!