| The Street Fighter (1974) Cast:Sonny Chiba,Goichi Yamada, Yutaka Nakajima Terry (Sonny Chiba) is a ruthless mercenary/ karate expert who defends an heiress from the yakuza, not out of honor of course but because the yakuza wouldn't pay him enough to kidnap said heiress however along the way Terry punches out people's teeth, crushes people's skulls, pokes eyes out, challanges a karate expert to a match and even forces the heiress he's defending to kiss him, he also prior to the plot breaks out a prisoner on death row and when said man's brother and sister can't pay, he kills the brother and sells the sister into prostitution suffice to say the prisoner wants to revenge and Terry just wants to look out for himself. By the way The Street Fighter is one of the best martial arts movies ever made. The Street Fighter is sort of an anti-Bruce Lee marital arts take, where as Bruce Lee fights for honor and to defend his family and friends, Sonny Chiba could care less about either he is a mean bastard who would kill you as soon as he sees you. Chiba has nothing but contempt for his employers whether it be the yakuza or the kidnapped heiress he is truly the most angry hero every put on screen. Indeed he's the type of character that would be ripe for a Death Wish styled plot because it's all there and Chiba's presence makes The Street Fighter one of the best movies in the genre. Also the action sequences are brutal, realistic and devoid of any type of flashiness, these are fights where people do what they think will cause the more damage and because of that Chiba isn't afraid to fight dirty and that in itself is why this movie is so great. This is the type of hero we need in a world of whitebread heroics (Especially in this day and age.) and with martial arts sequences choreographed with brutal glory rather than agility and fanciness, you get a bitter pill of a marial arts movie full of extreme violence, a nasty hero and a point of view where hatred rules the day. In other words The Street Fighter is a movie that kicks serious ass. D.Shigehiro Ozawa**** |