I recently picked up St. Clair Vision's 'Martial Arts Masters' DVD at WalMart for 5 bucks, and out of the 9 films in the set, 5 were Sonny Chiba flicks. I took some time and watched them all and here are my thoughts:
The Street Fighter (1974) - I already had a copy of Street Fighter on DVD before buying this set but I went ahead and rewatched it anyway. Fantastic flick. The fight scenes are absurd and overly violent, but more entertaining than any of the modern day action fare. Chiba is a complete badass in this flick, not worried about anyone but himself. Terry Tsurugi is by far one of the best anti-heros of all time. 4/5
Return Of The Street Fighter (1974) - I had never actually seen this flick until I picked up this boxset. This film does something that is quite rare in the film industry - it surpasses the original in all aspects! Return is one hell of a fun ride with an abundance of fight scenes, cheesey gore, and bad acting. I especially loved the fact that the American mob boss is dubbed "quite badly" in English. There were only two things that I would have changed with the film though. First, I wish the director would have cut down on flashbacks. The film contains about 20 minutes of footage from the original! The only other thing that bothered me was the dubbing for Masaoka's character. He sounded exactly like Larry David's impression of George Steinbrenner from Seinfeld. Started to get on my nerves after a bit. Overall though, the film was fantastic. 5/5
Sister Street Fighter (1974) - Meh. Didn't care for this one that much. A girl is trying to save her brother from a drug ring and she enlists the help of The Street Fighter. For me this just wasn't as much fun as the first two Street Fighter flicks. Just didn't have the same feel (nor director) and I just couldn't get into it. I must say though that Sue Shihomi was gorgeous. 2/5
Shogun's Ninja (1980) - This film was an absolute surprise in every sense of the word. Going into it, I had no idea that it had Sonny Chiba nor did I realize how much ass it would kick. Here's the deal. Sonny Chiba kills another clan in Japan so that he can find out where a secret goldmine is. The son of the family that is murdered escapes with his father's dagger. The boy eventually grows up and must fight Chiba and his army of ninjas dressed in blue. This movie had quite a few "Holy Sh!t" moments for me. As I watched it, I became more and more aware that this film is the sole influence for Tarantino's Kill Bill. You have the badass who kills the family, the sole surviror, Hattori Hanzo, the mentor who can do amazing things and has long white hair/beard. I really can't stress enough how much fun (and strange) this film is. Ninjas draped in all blue, bad 70s funk/jazz, blood, kung fu, and more Sue Shihomi! 4.5/5
Ninja Wars (1982) - Strange flick. It starts with a wiseman telling an already powerful Lord that whomever marries a certain young girl named Ukio will be come the ruler of the world. Lord Donjo hears of this and devises a plan to find Ukio and marry her. Of course there is a noble ninja that will try to stop his plan and all that. Didn't really care much for this flick, and there just wasn't enough Chiba in it. But, I do have to say that watching a ninja vomit acid onto another ninja's face is a sight to behold. 3/5
Well, that was my weekend. I hope to finally buy a copy of Revenge Of Street Fighter sometime soon.
I had STREET FIGHTER and RETURN OF STREET FIGHTER on DVD from Diamond Entertainment a few years back for more than you bought all 5 films and I didn't even get to see them all the way through before exchanging them for something, but that sounds like a great purchase Skaboi. I might to out to Walmart and pick it up. NINJA WARS is great stuff. I saw it on VHS long ago. NINJA WARS also has that neat ending with the crosses. Also the decapitation and head spinning to go with the vomit. Good film that I would like to have on DVD.
By the way RFID Walmart heir John Walton died today in a plane crash. Worth 8 Billion dollars.
Post Edited (06-28-05 09:59)
Scott,
I might have to revisit Ninja Wars at some point in the near future. After about 10 hours of ninja flicks, the brain begins to turn to mush. I'll give it another go sometime soon.
I intorduced myself to Sonny Chiba by renting all the Street Fighter movies. Revenge of the Street Fighter was the weakest of the bunch for me, but for a big Chiba fan probably still worth watching. In Revenge they almost turn the Street Fighter into a James Bond type character.
Yeah, I really need to get my hands on a DVD of it. I'm hoping (although I probably won't) to get a cheap box set of Chiba films with Revenge Of Street Fighter and Samurai Reincarnation which I rented a while back.
I had long heard of the Streetfighter movies but had never seen them until about 2003. They were going cheap at a local DVD store so I picked up the first and second, and I was not disappointed. Any movie that involves ripping off some dude's sac along with a good chunk of his pants, or chopping him so hard on the back of the head that his eyes pop out, is a cool movie in my book. Weren't they the first movies to get an X rating in the US due to violence?
The 'x-ray of fist through skull' was repeated in more recent times in Jet Li's 'Romeo Must Die'. In the prison escape scene, Jet breaks a guard's arm, and the action is captured in CGI. Another scene involves a woman being impaled on a metal spike, and you see an x-ray CGI shot of it going through her heart. And of course, Jet Li kicks the bad guy on the head and you see all of his vertebrae being crushed like dominoes. What fun!
~Archivist~
Streetfighter Kicks ass!
The second movie was a good sequal I wouldn't say it was excellent but it was good. The movie needed to be a bit longer and have less flash backs plus Terry is a bit absent for a little too long at the begining of the movie. There wasn't as much gore as the first one sadly but it's still plenty violent. The best part is the huge fight at the end where he takes on a huge room full of thugs and goes throught out the building killing them. Awesome.
I need to see those other three still.
There is another Sonny Chiba marathon DVD available.
It contains Shogun's Ninja, The Bodyguard (where Sonny Chiba plays Sonny Chiba) and Eight Samurai (where they are all referred to as ninjas)
1 and 3 are good (although I was disappointed by how short the final battle was in Shogun's Ninja) but 2 is just god awful. It does however have a very tastefully done nude scene of Sue Shiomi... Almost worth watching the movie to see....
Shadow,
I already own both Shogun's Ninja (listed in earlier post) and Legend Of 8th Samurai. Both are pretty good.
I have the DVD widescreen 4-pack of STREETFIGHTER, RETURN OF THE STREETFIGHTER, SISTER STREETFIGHTER and THE STREETFIGHTER'S LAST REVENGE. A great investment!
Saw Ninja Wars yesterday. I was disappointed. Too slow and boring, but it was the first film I've seen to use what I have dubbed the "gleam hand", where they slice with their hand which sort of lights up, and then something is cut in half. You see it in anime and occasionally live action Japanese films (like Casshern).
Not nearly enough craziness. Maybe I've been spoiled by watching too many ludicrous 70s kung fu films though.
Oh yeah, the one demon monk sounds REALLY a lot like the orcs in Warcraft 2. Dubbed version of course. I thought that was hilarious. ZUG ZUG!