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

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 Tsurugi: [after punching Junjou in the back] Soon you'll be unconscious through lack of oxygen; it's an ancient technique.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in Undercover Brother (2002)

Become a NUMBER ONE MAN!

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.