THE BODYGUARD (1973)

  Sonny Chiba plays Sonny Chiba here except in this universe Chiba is not just an actor playing an ass-kicking karate man but also a super dangerous martial artist out to destroy gangsters who push drugs so he takes a job as a bodyguard which puts him into their sites. Doesn't really make much sense like most things that happen in this film. There's quite a bit of bloody violence including a guy who gets his arm ripped off, a decapitation and much bone breaking. Sadly the version I watched of this was a crappy pan-and-scan DVD from back in the day so I mighta missed a few things. Stick with THE STREET FIGHTER for a much better example of Chiba's skills. AKA VIVA CHIBA! THE BODYGUARD

 Quentin Tarantino ripped off the Ezekial 25:17 quote from the beginning of this movie like he rips off pretty much everything else he's ever done. 

SENGOKU SELF-DEFENSE FORCE (1979)

  So if you ever wanted to see a movie where samurai take on a platoon of a modern army(or technically a Japanese self-defense force in this case) this is the film for you. Sonny Chiba is our out-of-time squadron leader and while he's always great, even without displaying his karate skills, the 2 hour 20 minute runtime is a bit much. Also I think this group could have most likely taken out most of the samurai fairly easily, given that a modern-day army has vastly superior long-range weaponry, if they just didn't get so close to them. Some expected raping and pillaging takes place. The oddest thing, to me, about this film is that it's technically a sci-fi film but almost none of the science to what has actually happened is explored. Director Keiso Saito(who also gave us the overly long NINJA WARS) was clearly more interested in transposing two completely different eras than time-travel theories. Maybe watch this in 2 sittings for a better time. 

 The English dubbed version throws in some rock ballads which seem totally out of place. AKA G.I. SAMURAI, TIME SLIP and I WANT TO BE A SDF

                              Known in France as THE WARRIORS OF THE APOCALYPSE:

THE RESURRECTION OF GOLDEN WOLF (1979)

 I feel like this is a movie that I should like more than I do. It's a well-shot Japanese action/crime flick with a cool leading man(Yuusaka Matsuda) doing cool stuff but despite this I couldn't really get into it. Perhaps the highly convoluted plot about a salaryman trying to take over his company wasn't for me or maybe it was the running time of over 2 hours that turned me off. The first thing that ticked me off though is that I own this film as part of a Sonny Chiba box-set and Mr. Chiba is not in very much of this. His small appearance was a highlight for me though. Another thing I couldn't fathom is how the main character goes from having a crazy semi-afro-looking hair-do to having a very conservative haircut whenever he was at his day-job. I realize it's supposed to be a wig but how does he fit all that curly hair under there?

 Apparently this was way more popular with Japanese folks though(perhaps due to star Matsuda's early death in 1980 making him something of a cult figure) because in 1999 it became a T.V. series called HUNT OF A NEW WOLF. I'm assuming it was a bit less violent but then again Japanese T.V. is pretty wild!

                                                  Great action sequence!:

LEGEND OF THE EIGHT SAMURAI (1983)

  This one starts out with a terrible 80s song while the credits role, then it gets boring for a bit while we get the back-story, which is based on some Japanese folklore. From there it's all about a princess and her samurai protectors hiding out from some demons and an old witch lady. This goes a little too much over into the fantasy realm for my liking but there are a few cool elements. Sonny Chiba is always good to see in his tough guy role, there's a few giant killer snakes, a couple of decapitations, naked blood-bathing and one giant centipede monster that supplies some goofy fun. Not my personal fave but if you're into the more cartoony stuff this might be for you. 

 Also of note is that this was directed by Kinji Fukasaku who gave the world THE GREEN SLIME and BATTLE ROYAL among other great Japanese films so check it out if you're a completist. . 

NINJA WARS (1982)

  Sonny Chiba gets to play a badass as usual in this Japanese samurai flick disguised as a ninja movie. He's technically only a supporting character though despite what my Chiba DVD box set promises me. Hiroyuki Sanada stars as a heroic ninja who never actually dresses like one. There are a lot of crazy elements in this one. You get an evil sorcerer, a bunch of magical warriors, a guy whop spits out some kinda killer quick-drying Krazy glue/goop, a decapitation that shoots out blood like a lawn sprinkler, a naked horny fat chick, rape and a love potion among other things. Even with all that stuff it never really reaches the insanity level of a Shaw Brothers film but still a good watch for something outside the normal ninja hijinks that these types of films deliver. AKA BLACK MAGIC NINJA and IGA MAGIC STORY. Released on DVD as DEATH OF A NINJA.

 I've only seen the subtitled version but this dubbed cut looks extra stupid!:

GOLGO 13: ASSIGNMENT KOWLOON (1977)

 I have this movie on a DVD set of Sonny Chiba movies and it was the last one I watched. Maybe because of the Chiba burnout I couldn't really get into it all that much. It seemed like a pretty standard Japanese gangster flick with Chiba playing the super tough guy hitman who luckily also knows his martial arts. 

 I don't know much about the Golgo 13 character, he sorta seems like a Japanese version of James Bond but way more cold-blooded. I do recall playing a Nintendo Golgo 13 game back in the 80s and I know he's based on a manga and a follow up anime series but that's about it. Apparently there was an early live-action version in 1973 and a bunch of follow up films after this but I've yet to see any of those.   

THE BULLET TRAIN (1975)

  This is the only movie I've seen where Sonny Chiba doesn't play an ass-kicking martial-artist of some sort. Instead he's the driver of a train with a bomb on it that will explode if the train goes under a certain speed. Who knew that the movie SPEED with Keeanu Reeves was a remake of a Japanese disaster film? I remember liking SPEED well enough back in the 90s but this version makes it look like a cartoon in comparison. They do that thing here where you start out hating all the villains but by the film's end your sympathies are, at least somewhat, changed. There's also a pretty big downer of an ending (because this was the 70s) giving everything an epic feeling. 

 The original Japanese version of this is over 2 and a half hours long. The dubbed version I watched is a little shy of 2 hours, apparently they removed some of the character's backstories which I'm not sure diminished my enjoyment. In some other countries they cut it down to around 90 minutes which seems crazy short for this story. 

 

                                        Released in France as SUPER EXPRESS 109:

Released in Germany as PANIC ON TOKYO EXPRESS:

THE EXECUTIONER (1974)

  This is kind of a DIRTY DOZEN deal with a group of ne'er-do-wells(Sonny Chiba being the main one of course) sent on a mission to infiltrate some Japanese drug-dealing gangsters. There aren't 12 tough guys though, just 5, with one of them not showing up until almost the end of the film. Mr. Chiba plays a ninja here and his partners include a disgraced ex-cop and a depraved sexual pervert who gets hard-ons throughout the film at weird times. This one features some nudity and really delivers on the violence with blood flowing and Chiba breaking bones(one guy gets a rib ripped out of his chest!) and is fun even if it all is pretty predictable.  

 THE EXECUTIONER 2: KARATE INFERNO was the sequel though it was way more of a goofy martial arts flick than the original.

 

THE POWER OF AIKIDO (1975)

 This one starts out in a kind of surprising manner since Sonny Chiba plays a villainous role as a henchman of a bunch of bad dudes. Not that Chiba usually plays a clean-cut hero but it still kind of took me back for a second. Don't worry though he rapidly transforms into a more sympathetic character. The unfortunate thing though is that he's not really the main hero in the film. The main role is actually portrayed by Chiba's younger brother Jiro Chiba, who I wasn't even aware of until watching this, who is fine but not the intense smoldering badass his older brother is. The plot deals with the creation of aikido by Morihei Ueshiba and while I'm sure that's historically of interest to some it's kind of done in a dull way for a martial arts film. Perhaps if you're a big fan of the aikido style you'll get more of a kick out of this one. AKA THE DEFENSIVE POWER OF AIKIDO

KARATE WARRIORS (1976)

 Sonny Chiba plays pretty much the same character here as he did in THE STREET FIGHTER here and that's his usual badass persona. The plot deals with 2 brothers who head up opposing gangs of drug-dealing mobsters that are causing chaos throughout a Japanese city(which city I'm not sure they ever clarify since the cheapass dollar DVD-version I have of this has a few unfortunate audio problems.) There's also a samurai swordsman character, who seems to have stepped out of a ZATOICHI film or something, that is the father of a little boy that luckily doesn't say too much and isn't as annoying as children often are in these types of films.  Lots of karate and sword-fights ensue. Hands, arms and blood flies. A pretty decent martial-arts/gangster mix that I've seen listed as the final entry in THE STREET FIGHTER series which it really wasn't but it's at least as good as some of the sequels to that one. AKA KILLING FIST AND CHILD

KILLING MACHINE (1976)

 Sonny Chiba plays the Japanese guy who created Kempo(Kenpo?) karate in what I imagine is a pretty loose interpretation of events in the man's real life. It's a pretty straight ahead heroic role for Chiba with none of the ambiguity/anti-hero stuff present in THE STREETFIGHTER but it's still pretty good. You get rape and revenge including a guy who gets his genitals snipped off with scissors and fed to a dog which is a fairly rough scene. Also a guy gets his arm sliced off with a sword and pants are pissed in fright. Besides this there are tons of kung fu fights and lots of arms are broken. Worth a look if you like martial arts extravaganzas.

EXECUTIONER II: KARATE INFERNO (1974)

 I've never seen the first EXECUTIONER(except for the bits they show in the opening here) but I'm not sure if it matters very much since from what I've read this sequel is pretty different from the first movie. Apparently the first film has lots of sex and violence in it while this one goes for a really slapstick comedy vibe for a lot of the film. When I think of Sonny Chiba screwball antics and fart jokes are not what I would normally associate with him and they seem really odd here. Towards the end there is some pretty graphic fight scenes including Chiba ripping out what I think is a guy's liver and also knocking some teeth and eyeballs out which is more in line with what you would expect from Mr. STREET FIGHTER. It's hard to fully recommend this one unless you want to see what it would be like if The Three Stooges made a Japanese action/kung-fu movie in the 70's. AKA KARATE INFERNO

KARATE FOR LIFE (1977)

 I think this one might be my favorite out of the Sonny Chiba 'Oyama Trilogy'. It definitely seems like the most outrageous of the three even though Mr. Chiba doesn't fight any animals. Instead he ends up in a wrestling ring involved in some ridiculous battles with masked grapplers and also takes on the mobsters who control the fight racket in Okinawa. Apparently in this version of pro wrestling it's perfectly OK to rip your opponent's eyeballs out, cripple them and generally do whatever the hell you want to win the match. Crazy stuff! There's also a rip-off/homage to that mirror fight scene in ENTER THE DRAGON. In fact the whole movie is kind of a take-off on that Bruce Lee classic. You also get a suicidal alcoholic hooker with a heart of gold and a gang of homeless street kids. I love movies with roving gangs of criminal children!

KARATE BULLFIGHTER (1975)

 The most memorable thing about this movie is the scene, which gives the movie it's title, where Sonny Chiba has a bare-knuckles fight with a bull. The rest of the movie is the, probably mostly fictitious since it was based on a comic book, story of Masutatsu Oyama, who was a karate teacher who trained Chiba amongst others. Apparently his ability to kill bulls with his hands is sorta true though since it was filmed. Whether these bulls were drugged up or otherwise incapacitated before facing Mr. Oyama I'm not too clear on. Ultimately It's an OK violent martial arts trip but not up to the legendary level of THE STREET FIGHTER.
 This was released in America as CHAMPION OF DEATH and followed by KARATE BEARFIGHTER where Chiba fights a bear and finally KARATE FOR LIFE which rounds out the trilogy. Unfortunately I don't think there was any animal fights in the last chapter but I have yet to see that one.



Footage of the real Oyama fighting?(dancing around with?) a bull. Animal huggers probably won't like this but it's a much fairer fight than the animal would get in Mexico:

THE STREET FIGHTER (1974)

Classic karate flick starring Sonny Chiba as an anti-hero who just kinda becomes the good guy when the mafia gets on his ass. That is the main thing to love about this film is that our bad-ass morally-blurry main character Terry Tsurugi can one moment be selling a female into drug-addicted prostitution and the next saving a lady from some no-good mobsters. He's a bastard but we're still on his side, well mostly anyway. A throat gets ripped out, teeth get punched out, eyes get gouged out, a skull gets cracked while we see the killer blow via x-ray and lots of dirty fighting goes down by the guy we're supposed to root for. While not as fancy or dazzling as your typical kung fu flick this is a more basic style of combat and it's one of the iconic performances in the ass-kicking genre really only topped by Bruce Lee and few others. There were a couple of direct sequels one of them pretty good and the other one not so much and a bunch of off-shoot SISTER STREET FIGHTER movies.

 

RETURN OF THE STREET FIGHTER (1974)

 
 This sequel to the classic Sonny Chiba STREET FIGHTER is a worthy follow-up to that violence-filled kung fu flick.  In this one you get throats ripped out with fingers, a guy punched in the back of the head so hard that both his eyeballs pop out of their sockets, a guy karate chopped so hard in the head that a river of blood pours down on him and more assorted bone breaking.  Chiba also gets a goofy sorta hippie-ish female sidekick which is weird and there's a little nudity thrown in for added quality.  While maybe a slight bit below the original in terms of crazy bloodshed it's still worth a look for fans. And as a plus it seems to be in the public domain so you can find it everywhere for super cheap.  Stay away from the 3rd movie though since it went really far downhill with that one.

THE STREET FIGHTER'S LAST REVENGE (1974)

The third film in THE STREET FIGHTER series starring Sonny Chiba.  As a martial arts movie this isn't the worst thing you could watch but as part of this classic series it is pretty weak.  The main problem is that they soften the character of Terry Suguri up too much and make him way too much of a hero.  If you know anything about this series it's that The Streetfighter is not very much of a good guy.  He's supposed to be a ruthless hitman for hire but not a secret agent spy with disguises or a secret hideout or any of that crap.  You do get some blood and boobs, the fight scenes aren't bad and you get that kick-ass theme song.  Not a complete waste of time but don't expect anything as great as the original.