THE STREET FIGHTER (1974) – Long before the Street Fighter video games there was this ultra-violent cult film from Japan starring the one and only Shinichi “Sonny” Chiba. Long before Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky and Romeo Must Die, this 1970s grindhouse actioner featured an “x-ray vision” scene of the damage being done to a villain’s skull and brain by a powerful blow from the star.
Sonny Chiba had been a television and movie star in Japan for decades by this point, starring in everything from serious action films to kid-friendly ventures like Invasion of the Neptune Men and The Golden Bat. The Street Fighter, titled Clash! Killer Fist in Japan made Chiba an international sensation.
The iconic Chinese superstar Bruce Lee had passed away by this point, and Japan’s Sonny Chiba was hailed as Lee’s true successor in martial arts cinema, albeit with karate, judo and other skills. There is a degree of truth to such claims, but Sonny was a much darker, grittier figure even if he DOES make the same kind of noises that Bruce made.
The Street Fighter is notorious as the first U.S. film to be tagged with an X-Rating based purely on violence. Chiba’s character Takuma “Terry” Tsurugi is a brooding, bitter man of half-Japanese and half-Chinese background, and he grew up as an outcast due to such a mixed heritage. Hell, he was even imprisoned in an Imperial Japanese concentration camp as a child.
A lifetime of fighting in the streets of Japan has molded Terry into a legendarily hardened and ruthless man who is now a high-priced mercenary badass for hire. He’s not quite a “hero” since this film doesn’t have any, he’s just the main character like Michael Corleone in the Godfather movies.
The Street Fighter begins with Tsurugi being hired to bust out a Japanese gangster before his scheduled execution. Posing as a Buddhist Priest before revealing his kickass abilities, Terry accomplishes this mission with backup from his lackey/ live-in servant Ratnose. Continue reading
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