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:

Featured in "I Love the '70s: Volume 2" (2006)

"If you've got to fight, fight dirty!!!"

Sonny Chiba has been described by some as an anti-Bruce Lee and I agree, but to a certain extent. You see, it's not really fair considering that Lee is dead, they both hail from separate nationalities, represent different martial arts ideals (Lee founded Jeet Kune Do, Chiba was a mean karate machine), and Chiba has demonstrated he can more than hold his own against the disposable bad guys sent in his direction. Like Christian Slater's character described in "True Romance" (1993) regarding Chiba's "The Street Fighter" (1974), "he's just a bad motherf**ker, he gets paid by people to f**k guys up." Directed by Shigehiro Ozawa, Sonny Chiba's Terry Tsurugi is that lethal, that ruthless, that dirty a fighter. He's a one-man hit-squad, paid by gangsters to spring a condemned fighter from prison but when his price gets to high on his next assignment - a kidnapping - he's forced to make his hands and feet do the talking. The action in "The Street Fighter" is fairly gruesome, allowing it to become the first film to be rated "X" for violence in the United States. He pokes eyes, kicks feet, slaps around women, rips out tonsils (and other choice body parts), targets the solar plexus, and throws dudes out of top-floor windows. I loved it from start to finish, and it's easy to why it's so beloved to Quentin Tarantino.

10/10