Cast:
Sonny Chiba (Takuma Tsurugi), Yutaka Nakajima (Sarai Chuayut-Hammett), Goichi Yamada (Rakuda Zhang), Masashi Ishibashi (Tateki Shikenbaru), Etsuko Shihomi (Nachi Shikenbaru), Masafumi Suzuki (Kendō Masaoka), Chiyoko Kazama (Yang Gei-chuan), and Nobuo Kawai (Tetsunosuke Tsuchida) Directed by Shigehiro Ozawa.
Review:
You might wonder what the fuss is about with old-fashioned fighting, dubbing or not. This was the breakthrough role for Sonny Chiba, who had over a decade of work in television and thrillers (Key Hunter was roughly popular in its run from 1968-1973, with Chiba as a featured presence); he also had his own training school for martial artist actors and stunt performers. Chiba had wanted to work with Bruce Lee because of the interest people had in the show in Hong Kong, although obviously Lee's death put an end to that. The movie was initially released by the Toei Company in February of 1974, having wanted to do their own martial arts movie after seeing the success of Enter the Dragon (1973). The resulting script was written by Kōji Takada and Motohiro Torii. This is the most notable movie from its director in Shigehiro Ozawa, a Nagano native who directed over a hundred movies from 1954 to 1976 before he died in 2004 at the age of 82. The Street Fighter quickly found a distributor in the States with New Line Cinema (in Japan, the movie was originally titled Gekitotsu! Satsujin-ken, which translates to Clash! Killer Fist, but I'm sure you see how the American re-naming fits anyway) that found itself with an X-rating...the first movie to get the rating solely for violence (wonder if the babies who complained about horror movies having gore had anything to say about this movie). Yes, this is the movie that you could see X-ray skull punches. Ozawa directed the two follow-up Fighter films that were released in 1974: Return of the Street Fighter (released in April) and The Street Fighter's Last Revenge (released in November). A spinoff series with Sister Street Fighter also came out around this time (with its own director in charge that is probably known even less than Ozawa with Kazuhiko Yamaguchi).
Admittedly, it has a cheap thrill aspect, regardless of if you watch the original version, or the, uh, dubbed version. You've got ridiculously contrived ideas of prison breaks, goofy companions, countless assassination attempts on a clearly intense man, and, well, a real hoot for an ending. Lean and mean in a manner that balances the tightrope of entertainment without losing credibility, one clearly sees a star worth checking out further with Chiba. Look, if you can't get with a movie that sees a man accidentally leading to another man falling out of a window and then deciding to sell a person to slavery because they owe him money, I don't know what to tell you. It all relies on the power of Chiba in a performance that isn't exactly detailed beyond primal expressions and handiwork to match that will fit just as well for a horror movie if you get down to it (evidently Chiba liked that people still appreciated his character years later, as evidenced here). One scene even has him tear a guy's...sensitive parts, just to name one scene in particular. Ozawa and company had an assignment and just went with what looked like the best angle possible for those action sequences that come in and out (to say nothing of the attempts at comic relief) for what obviously had to being grinded out to reach 91 minutes, but I do respect the hustle of just making some action scenes that stand out a bit from the usual martial arts stuff. It can't top Enter the Dragon in any particular department, but sheer will in riding with a star presence from the word go that at least can be called an adequate partner to go with, say, The Big Boss (1971). The movie barely even bothers with having an adversary to match with Chiba, unless you count a condemned murderer set up to escape and maybe fight our hero (interpret the word how you like) that gets the highlight of having their *vocal cords ripped out* as a quality presence. But the climax gets you intrigued of what mayhem could happen next with Chiba, so that is a win in my book. Ultimately, The Street Fighter is a relatively decent production, managing to grind its way towards engagement for the action enjoyer at heart, fisting fury with guts and amoral commitment that manages to not wear out its welcome.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
