Gekitotsu! Satsujin ken (1974)

Director:

Shigehiro Ozawa

Writers:

Kôji Takada (writer)
Motohiro Torii (writer)

Release Date:

November 1974 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

If you've got to fight...fight dirty!

Plot:

Terry is a tough, mercenary, master of martial arts. When an important business magnate dies, leaving billions to his daughter...

Plot Keywords:

Martial Arts | Yakuza | Fight | Tragic Hero | Anti Hero

Cast

  (Credited cast)

Sonny Chiba	...	Takuma Tsurugi (Terry)
Goichi Yamada	...	Rakuda Zhang
Yutaka Nakajima	...	Sarai Hammett
Tony Cetera	...	Abdul Jadot
Masafumi Suzuki	...	Kendo Masaoka
Masashi Ishibashi	...	Tateki Shikenbaru
Akira Shion	...	Liang Dong-Yi
Osman Yusuf	...	Kingstone
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Bin Amatsu	...	Môrôkô
Jirô Chiba	...	Gijun Shikenbaru
Tatsuo Endo	...	Bayan
Ryuji Katagiri	...	Hanada
Nobuo Kawai	...	Tetsunosuke Tsuchida
Takuzo Kawatani	...	Ôshima
Chiyoko Kazama	...	Yang Ji-Chun
Ken Kazama	...	Senkaku Kan
Takashi Noguchi	...	Yokoyama
Hitoshi Omae	...	Musukari
Chico Roland	...	Bondo
Etsuko Shihomi	...	Nachi Shikenbaru
Kojiro Shirakawa	...	Inspector Chen
Fumio Watanabe	...	Renzo Mutaguchi
Rinichi Yamamoto	...	Kowloon Dinsau

Also Known As:

Clash! Killer Fist (International: English title) (literal title)
Sudden Attack: The Killing Fist (literal English title)
The Street Fighter
The Streetfighter (International: English title)

Runtime:

Australia:91 min | UK:87 min (cut version) | USA:75 min (R-rated version) | USA:91 min (unrated version)

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor) | Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:Not Rated (DVD rating) | UK:18 | West Germany:18 (cut) | Finland:K-18 | Australia:M (DVD rating) | Australia:M (VHS rating) (cut) | France:-16 | New Zealand:R13 (DVD rating) | Norway:18 (video premiere) | USA:R | USA:X (original rating) | Canada:18+ (Quebec)

Filming Locations:

Hong Kong, China

Company:

Toei Company

Trivia:

The blind assassin wielding a cane sword appears to be an obvious reference to the Zatoichi blind swordsman films starring Shintarô Katsu.

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: Near the end of the movie, on the ocean liner, Terry is fighting three men in a hallway and some equipment is visible at the bottom of the screen.

Quotes:

Terry's Father: Listen my son, TRUST NO ONE! You can count on no one but YOURSELF. Improve your skills, son, harden your body, become a NUMBER ONE MAN! Do not ever let ANYONE beat you!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in True Romance (1993)

Become a number one man!

Streetfighter is a show case for the karate talents of Sonny Chiba. Chiba plays Terry Tsurugi, a man who was orphaned when his Japanese father was executed in China during World War II. Terry is now back in Japan and kicking ass for a living. He's the best of the best in Japan and is hired to help get a criminal on death row out of prison. He manages to do this using an ancient technique (yeah, I know, they all use some ancient technique). Sonny then ends up killing the guy's brother due to an argument over payment and getting his sister sold into prostitution.

After this Sonny is propositioned by the Yakuza to kidnap a girl who is an oil heiress. Sonny jumps sides and starts working for her protectors after a show down with her uncle, the leader of a karate school. This flick is packed with violence galore. Sonny does some pretty cool stuff, and amazingly, the whole plot manages to come together at the end. There are also a few one liners that are pretty cool.

This is the flick that made me a Sonny Chiba fan.