Street Fighter, The (1974)

A tough karate fighter for hire refuses to kidnap a beautiful heiress to an oil fortune and comes to her defense by going to war with the Mafia who are after her estate.

The Street Fighter is a classic ’70s exploitation film that first introduced American audiences to Sonny Chiba, earned the first X-rating (equivalent to NC-17) for violence and established Chiba as the most charismatic martial arts star since Bruce Lee. Clearly inspired by the gritty yakuza films of the day, it features Chiba as an unrepentant antihero who ends up doing the right thing, but the wrong way by leaving behind a bloody trail of cracked skulls, gouged eyes and castrated rapists.

Takuma Tsurugi (Sonny Chiba) is a mean bruiser who hires his fists out to anyone who needs something unsavory done and is willing to pay the price. After he breaks a fellow karate man named Shikenbaru (Masashi Ishibashi) out of prison, the inmate’s two siblings fail to pay up and Shikenbaru’s brother winds up dead in a resulting fight with Tsurugi. This turns the two karate men into mortal enemies destined to fight to the death. A yakuza boss allied with Hong Kong triad and the mafia tries to convince Tsurugi to kidnap the daughter of a recently deceased oil magnate who has been left with the entire fortune. The deal goes sour and Tsurugi drops out to become enemies of the crime bosses and to protect the heiress. When she ends up kidnapped, Tsurugi and his cowardly, but loyal partner Rakuda come to her rescue. Tsurugi is eventually forced to fight Shikenbaru to save her.

By today’s standards, The Street Fighter has lost much of its violent shock value, but not all of it. The difference may be in tone rather than bloodletting. Takuma Tsurugi is a bastard of a hero who warns the people he is trying to help that he may be worse than the bad guys. He certainly doesn’t show any mercy to his opponents and is quick to kill and maim in gory fashion. He gives one opponent a mouthful of broken teeth, causes another to vomit from an explosive punch to the stomach, and tops it all off by ripping out the throat of one luckless victim. Towards women he is a supreme chauvinist who introduces himself to the heiress by breaking into her room and forcibly giving her a violent kiss simply to prove how vulnerable she is despite being protected by a dojo full of karate fighters. In true exploitation fashion, it isn’t long before she’s swooning over him when he comes to her rescue by ripping the testicles off a would-be attacker.

As Sonny Chiba movies go, The Street Fighter is not one of his better martial arts movies. There are a number of recycled villains, one looking like Mr. Han from Enter the Dragon and another crudely aping Zatoichi as a modern-day blind swordsman complete with a cane sword. Masashi Ishibashi becomes his arch enemy who returns for the sequel and for a number of Chiba’s subsequent unrelated karate movies. Chiba’s protégé Etsuko Shiomi plays Ishibashi’s sister and gets in a little action, but is mostly mistreated. She would end up in her own spin-off, Sister Street Fighter with Chiba in a supporting role.

The action is ruggedly shot with an emphasis on direct, violent effect rather than style or creativity. It’s not all that well shot and the drab ’70s art direction surrounding it is bland and forgettable. More memorable is Chiba himself who hisses and groans in his gathering of ki power before a strike. This and the emphasis on power betray his study of Kyokushin karate. He would go on to honor his real life master in his own particular fashion with the only slightly less exploitive Mas Oyama karate trilogy beginning with Karate Bullfighter (1975). Also memorable are the iron armbands with darts hidden in them that he wears to ward off bladed strikes. All that’s missing from the ideal Sonny Chiba wardrobe is a fishnet vest.

Despite its faults, The Street Fighter is still very entertaining as exploitation movies go. The action is consistently frantic and raw with Chiba very much in his element as an uncompromising badass. Although Chiba is clearly being sold as the next Bruce Lee, any direct references are kept in check and we basically end up with a yakuza-style flick with the emphasis put on gritty karate fighting.