Wolf Guy (1975)

Shinichi "Sonny" Chiba is WOLFGUY, the only survivor of a clan of werewolves who relies on his feral, full-moon-activated superpowers to solve mysterious crimes. One night, a bizarre and ... See full summary »

Director:

Kazuhiko Yamaguchi

Writers:

Kazumasa Hirai (manga series "Urufu gai"), Fumio Kônami (screenplay)

Stars:

Shin'ichi Chiba, Kyôsuke Machida, Yuriko Azuma

Cast

Credited cast:
Shin'ichi Chiba	...	Akira Inugami (as Sonny Chiba)
Kyôsuke Machida	...	Kato
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Yuriko Azuma
Saburô Date	...	Tsukada
Kôji Fujiyama	...	Seizo
Tooru Hanada	...	Inoue
Takeshige Hatanaka	...	Tsukada Member
Ryuji Hayami	...	Junichi Fukunaka
Jiro Ibuki	...	Nakao
Keiko Itô
Fukunosuke Izumi
Naoko Izumi
Haruki Jô	...	Yoshikawa (as Haruki Jo)
Osamu Kaneda	...	Hit Man
Shunsuke Kariya	...	Ishiguro

Storyline

Shinichi "Sonny" Chiba is WOLFGUY, the only survivor of a clan of werewolves who relies on his feral, full-moon-activated superpowers to solve mysterious crimes. One night, a bizarre and bloody death in the Tokyo streets plunges him into a far-reaching conspiracy populated by crooked politicians, naked white women, bit-players like Hideo Murota, a phantom tiger, and -- best of all -- a shadowy organization.

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Plot Keywords:

female removes her clothes | strength | gang rape | hanged man | black panties | 

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Genres:

Action | Horror

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

5 April 1975 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Wolf Guy

Company Credits

Production Co:

Toei Tokyo

Technical Specs

Runtime:

86 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Did You Know?

Trivia

This Toei-produced film is an unofficial follow-up to the Toho-produced film, Horror of the Wolf (1973), which in turn is based on the "Wolf Guy" novel/manga by writer Kazumasa Hirai. Akira Inugami is played this time by Shin'ichi Chiba.

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Quotes

Akira Inugami: There is a nastier pathogen than syphilis. It's the one they call hatred of humans. I had clearly caught that infection from Miki.

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Connections

Featured in Toru Yoshida: B-Movie Master (2017)

User Reviews

Japanese Action Werewolf

Sonny Chiba plays the only survivor of a clan of werewolves who relies on his feral, full-moon-activated superpowers to solve mysterious crimes. One night, a bizarre and bloody death in the Tokyo streets plunges him into a far-reaching conspiracy populated by crooked politicians, naked women, an invisible phantom tiger, and a shadowy organization known as the J-CIA.

Steve Kopian writes, "If you look up WTF in the dictionary, one of the top five definitions will be this film." He is not wrong. While this may not be one of he five most bizarre movies out there, it certainly makes every attempt. And if "weird" isn't your thing, there are also copious explosions and a great deal of gun play and squibs in the later scenes, evincing a definite Sam Peckinpah influence. So, there's that.

As author Bryan Senn points out, even though the title is "Wolf Guy", one of the strange things is that Chiba never actually becomes a wolf at all. He has his strength fluctuate based on the lunar cycle, and at its peak he can deflect bullets or even reverse the effects of being disemboweled. But at no point does he howl or even grow the slightest bit of hair.

If one person can be blamed for this bizarre mash-up, it must be writer Fumio Kônami (1933–2012). By this point in his career, he had already made a name for himself with "Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion" (1972) and "New Battles Without Honor and Humanity" (1974), both of which are available in the United States thank to Arrow Video. Director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi's first impression upon being given the story was actually, "Is this worth making a movie out of?" Luckily someone said yes.

On top of all the awesome visuals, there is an unbelievably funky score that I need to have. As noted in other reviews, it would be great is Arrow (and others) would more frequently add a bonus music disc to their Blu releases. We need more love for the soundtracks, too.

For decades the film was presumed lost, and remains tragically little known. Thankfully, Arrow Video has brought it out of the depths and on to Blu-ray. They also give us new video interviews with actor Shinichi "Sonny" Chiba (14 minutes), director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi (10 minutes), and producer Toru Yoshida (17 minutes).