The Street Fighter

For other uses, see Street Fighter (disambiguation).

The Street Fighter
Theatrical poster
Directed by	Shigehiro Ozawa
Written by	Kôji Takada Motohiro Torii
Starring	Sonny Chiba
Music by	Toshiaki Tsushima
Cinematography	Ken Tsukakoshi
Editing by	Kozo Horiike
Distributed by	Toei Company (Japan) New Line Cinema (USA)
Release date(s)	February 2, 1974 (1974-02-02)
Running time	91 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese

The Street Fighter (激突！殺人拳, Gekitotsu! Satsujin Ken), literally Clash, Killer Fist!, is a Japanese martial arts film released in 1974 and produced by Toei Company Ltd. It was released in the US by New Line Cinema and became one of the first films to be a commercial success for the distributor. It is notable as the first film to receive an X-rating in the United States solely for violence.

The film is an unrelated sequel to TOEI's gangster-martial film Bodyguard Fang from 1973, also starring Sonny Chiba. The Street Fighter inspired two sequels, Return of The Street Fighter and The Street Fighter's Last Revenge. Additionally, the film Sister Street Fighter and its sequels is a spin-off of the film. There was another spinoff entitled Kozure Satsujin Ken, which was brought to the US by a different company under the title Karate Warriors. The video game The Darkness has the entire movie available, to watch, on any of the in-game TVs.

Plot

Takuma Tsurugi (Sonny Chiba) is a martial arts master for hire who comes to the rescue of a kidnapped heiress.

The film begins with Tsurugi meeting the condemned murderer Tateki Shikenbaru while disguised as a Buddhist monk. Tsuguri applies his "oxygen coma punch" to Tateki, causing him to collapse just before he can be executed. As Tateki is rushed to a hospital, Tsurugi and his sidekick Rakuda ambush the ambulance and free him. Later, Tateki's brother Gijun and sister Nachi arrive and plead for more time to pay for Tsurugi's help. Outraged, Tsurugi refuses and attacks the siblings. Gijun falls to his death and Nachi is sold into sexual slavery.

A group of gangsters attempt to hire Tsurugi to kidnap Sarai, the daughter of a recently deceased oil tycoon. Tsurugi refuses after discovering that the gangsters are Yakuza. He escapes, but the Yakuza gangsters resolve to kill Tsurugi as well as kidnap Sarai. Tsurugi immediately seeks out Sarai, who is being protected at the Nippon Seibukan dojo by her uncle, Kendō Masaoka, a Karate master. Tsurugi captures Sarai and challenges the entire dojo to a fight. He brutalizes the rank-and-file students before Masaoka bests him. Ultimately, Tsurugi offers to protect Sarai, and Masaoka agrees, against Sarai's protests. Meanwhile, the Yakuza's allies in Hong Kong recruit Tateki Shikenbaru to avenge his siblings by killing Tsurugi.

The gangsters make several attempts to kill Tsurugi before they successfully kidnap Sarai. Tsurugi manages to rescue her, but gets captured himself. Rakuda gives up Sarai's location to save Tsurugi, causing the honorable Tsurugi to forsake him. When Tsurugi faces a blind swordsman working for the Hong Kong gangsters, Rakuda dies in a reckless attempt at redemption. Tsurugi finally tracks the gangsters down to a shipyard and fights his way through their guards. In the end, the Hong Kong crime lord permits Tsurugi to duel Tateki. Nachi sacrifices herself to give her brother a free shot with a sai, but Tsurugi survives and kills Tateki. Critically wounded, Tsurugi stumbles to his feet and the film ends abruptly in freeze frame.

Cast

Sonny Chiba as Takuma Tsurugi

• Takuma Tsurugi: Sonny Chiba
• Sarai Jōyū-Hammett: Yutaka Nakajima
• Rakuda Zhang: Goichi Yamada
• Tateki Shikenbaru: Masashi Ishibashi
• Gijun Shikenbaru: Jirō Chiba
• Nachi Shikenbaru: Etsuko Shihomi
• Kendō Masaoka: Masafumi Suzuki (Nippon Seibukan)
• Tetsunosuke Tsuchida: Nobuo Kawai
• Senkaku Kan: Ken Kazama
• Onaga: Yūshiro Sumi
• Abdul Jadot: Tony Cetera
• Kingstone: Ousmane Yusef
• Bondo: Chico Roland
• Bayan: Tatsuo Endō
• Yáng Jì-Chūn: Chiyoko Kazama
• Liáng Dōng-Yī: Akira Shion
• Kowloon Dinsau: Rinichi Yamamoto
• Muskari: Hitoshi Ōmae
• Blind Láng Gōng (Mōrōkō): Bin Amatsu
• Renzō Mutaguchi: Fumio Watanabe
• Ōshima: Takuzō Kawatani
• Hanada: Ryūji Katagiri
• Yokoyama: Takashi Noguchi
• Inspector Chen: Kōjirō Shirakawa

US releases

The Street Fighter was the first film to receive an X rating solely for violence. The film was especially controversial because of a scene in which Tsurugi castrates a rapist with his bare hands; it is this scene (among others) that reputedly gained the film its 'X' rating. A similarly violent scene involves Tsurugi delivering a powerful punch to an henchman's head, followed by a cut to an x-ray shot of the skull being completely shattered and blood gushing from the man's mouth. 16 minutes were later edited from the film in order to get an R-rating. This was the version initially released on home video by MGM/CBS Home Video in 1980. Since then, the film was re-released in its entirety. Consequently, the English dub of the uncut version suffers from inconsistencies to the soundtrack quality, as the restored footage was dubbed by a different studio using different voice actors.

In the English dubbed versions of The Street Fighter and Return of The Street Fighter, Chiba's character is identified as "Terry Sugury" in the credits but dubbed by the voice actors as "Terry Tsurugi". In The Street Fighter's Last Revenge, however, the voice actors call him "Terry Sugury." Rakuda is named "Ratnose"; The villain Tateki's name is also mistranslated as Junjō.

In 1993, the film (and its sequels) received mainstream exposure in North America when they were featured in Tony Scott's True Romance (written by Quentin Tarantino), which had the two lead characters spending time at a Sonny Chiba Street Fighter marathon.

External links

• The Street Fighter at the Internet Movie Database
• The Street Fighter at AllRovi

Reviews

• Internal Bleeding