The Street Fighter

Sonny Chiba is one of the very few martial-arts stars that has escaped Bruce Lee's shadow and this film shows you why. Though he wears dark clothes and is shirtless, (just like Lee), during some of the fight scenes, he still comes across as an original.

He's got screen presence to spare and his deadpan approach to the exaggerated violence and fight scenes makes this funny and a totally awesome guy movie with lots of blood, gore and fighting. The one thing that I thought was strange was the throaty, phlegm-sounding war-cry that Chiba and other karate masters use throughout the film, but even that grows on you.

I was inspired to watch this film when I saw short clips in "True Romance". The fight scene looked original, so I gave it a shot. Loved it.

How can you go wrong when the star of the films utters lines like, "Maybe some day we can hold a death match." and, after punching a guy in the back, "You'll be unconscious through lack of oxygen; it's an ancient technique."

And I really dig the roly-poly karate master who goes on to teach Chiba's character a few new things about fighting. How many times do you get to see an obviously overweight character show that being overweight doesn't prevent you from kicking ass?

The character of Ratnose does get overbearing after a while, but it's a small price to pay to watch Chiba play one of the coolest anti-heroes of all time.

"Become...a number one man!" and rent this movie. Pure 70s martial-arts cheese and ass kicking.