Question for Sonny Chiba fans

[Derf]

I bought $1 copy of Sonny Chiba's The Bodyguard and watched it last night. I've heard Chiba's movies praised here, but I was a bit underwhelmed by this one; the plot device of having a star play himself as a superhero is a bit dodgy in my opinion. Also, the intense close up of Chiba's monobrow got old quick. As for the plot, Chiba announces that he is returning to Japan after five years in New York to rid Japan of the mafia's drug trafficking. To do this, he plans to hire himself out as a bodyguard to anyone with information about the mafia's activities (huh? bodyguard?). For the rest of the movie, he pretty much ignores the mafia except when they come to attack his client. In the end (**SPOILERS a'comin'**), he concentrates on three guys who are not in the mafia but who seem like they're pretty tough since they managed to beat the mafia in a gunfight that Chiba was doing pretty poorly in. He beats the three, but not well enough; with his dying breath, one of them kills Chiba's client. Okay, so he's a lousy bodyguard in that he lost his client, and he's a poor planner in that he thought he could end the mafia by taking a bodyguard job. This is a hero? (end SPOILERS)

The action is all right, though many of Chiba's "death punches" are obviously pulled and look terrible. On an ironic note, the editors of this release found it necessary to blur out bare breast shots, but left in scenes like a guy getting his arm literally ripped off.

And, finally, my question: Is this a typical Sonny Chiba movie, or are others better? I'm not the world's biggest martial arts movie fan, though I do enjoy many of them that I've seen (particularly the Jackie Chan/Sammo Hung movies).