The One and Only

 

 (imdb)

THE GOLDEN BAT (Ogon batto)-1966-Akira (Wataru Yamagawa), a young guy who likes astronomy tells some scientists in an observatory that the planet Icarus is going to collide with the Earth. They don't believe him. He's contacted by a secret organization hidden in "the Japan Alps", who monitor abnormalities on Earth, to help destroy Icarus before it strikes Earth. Unbeknownst to them is that Nazo (Koji Sekiyama), an evil alien who sort of resembles a muppet rabbit has send Icarus at the Earth. Meanwhile a “super destruction beam cannon” is developed by Dr. Yamatone (Shinichi “Sonny” Chiba) and Prof. Pearl (Andrew Hughes; also in DESTROY ALL MONSTERS). When one of the organization's ships mysteriously disappears the group all put on shiny suits (including Pearl's young granddaughter) and board super car #2 to investigate an uncharted island which turns out to be a submerged portion of Atlantis. . 

When they are attacked by Nazo's alien henchmen the group hides in a cave where they discover a sarcophagus of "The Golden Bat". When they pour water on his stomach he comes to life and proclaims himself "the protector of justice". He vanquishes the attacking aliens and helps the group escape. When Nazo finds out about the super destruction beam cannon he sends disfigured Keloid (Yoichi Numata), female Piranha (Keiko Kuni) and wolf like Jackal (Keiichi Kitagawa) to destroy it. They invade the organization headquarters and The Golden Bat, who has a skull face, a cape and a baton and laughs just as maniacally as bad guy Nazo, shows up to help but Prof. Pearl is kidnapped and the cannon stolen. Piranha takes over the body of Noami, one of the crew. Later Keloid is transformed into Pearl. GB invades the base and takes back the beam just in time to destroy Icarus before it hits. 

The Ogon Batto character was created in 1931 and is now generally considered the first comic book superhero. He kind of reminded me of Dr. Phibes! Although an Anime series was produced in 1967, this is the only feature film made featuring the character. Director Hajime Sato later made GOKE, BODY SNATCHER FROM HELL.

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Big Debut!

 

 (wikipedia)

INVASION OF THE NEPTUNE MEN-1961-Invaders from space attack Earth. While scientists investigate, a group of little boys are saved from the pointy headed metal invaders by the superhero Iron Sharp (Shin'ichi “Sonny” Chiba in his film debut) who is also the friend of one of the scientists. 

It's very dumb and kiddie oriented. 

When the aliens attack there's a quick shot of Hitler on billboard being destroyed. This led to rumors that actually footage from WW 2 was used but all the destruction footage is taken from a movie called "WW 2 Breaks Out". This Toei production was directed by Koji Ota.

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Tsuguri is Dangerous...and Smart....

THE STREETFIGHTER'S LAST REVENGE-1974-Sonny Chiba returns as Terry Tsuguri, in his third "street fighter" film. The plot concerns a formula for making heroin. He battles a lot of pushers over two cassette tapes. A crooked cop gets in the way and Terry (who's dubbed voice sounds like George Takei) beats up people while trying to regain one of the tapes. Reiko Ike (who has a brief topless scene) and Etsuko Shihomi (who was later in the "sister street fighter series) are the female leads. Masafumi Suzuki returns as Terry's former mentor.

Director Shigehiro Ozawa had made the previous 2 Streetfighter movies and later made SISTER STREETFIGHTER (with Shihomi).

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Chiba Trio

KARATE BULL FIGHTER-1977-Sonny Chiba plays another unbeatable Karate drifter in this standard Martial Arts drama from Japan that's actually based on the real life of a Korean fighter who changed his name to Mas Oyama and founded the Kyokushin Karate Organization in 1953.

After killing a bull with his bare hands, Chiba wanders around the countryside getting into trouble with various dojos. Later he befriends a young boy (and beats up his father) and has to fight a bear (man in a bad costume)! There are lots of fights, some blood and Chiba gives his classic stare at the camera several times.

KARATE BEAR FIGHTER-(Kyokushin Buraiken)-This is actually a sequel to the above title with Shinichi “known as Sonny in The US" Chiba. Everyone is on his case because he’s such a great Karate fighter especially a certain Dojo. He beats up all the students. He beats up a father who abuses his son and helps the boy fish. (and catches them with his bare hands) For some reason he must fight a bear to get money for the injured father. Since he once killled a bull barehanded fighting a bear seems like a reasonable task I guess! Chiba does his usual staring and fights a lot.

KARATE FOR LIFE-1977-Sonny Chiba returns for the third time as Karate master Mas Oyama in the last of this martial arts trilogy based on a real person. It’s the best of the 3 with some great and violent fights. Oyama beats up a Karate school and gets involved in pro-wrestling and gangsters. Director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi made all three in the series.

The real deal!
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The Fury of Chiba

T

HE FURY WITHIN-(1998)-A made for cable horror movie that unfortunately looks like it.

Ally Sheedy stars as a wife recently separated from her husband (Costas Mandylor) raising their two kids. After a close encounter with a dog who had been locked up with it's dead master for a couple of days (and eating him) weird things ala POLTERGEIST begin to happen. Lights go out, kitchen untensils fly everywhere, etc. It seems her young son is possessed...or is he? Except for the downer ending, this isn't much.



THE BODYGUARD-(1976)-I love Sonny Chiba's STREETFIGHTER movies but this thing is the pits. It's very cheap, badly made and boring. The US version opens with a short tour of NYC's 42nd Street (in the bad old days) and then a shaky hand held camera leads us into a dojo where Karate champs Aaron Banks and Bill Louie beat up some students and debate on who's better, Chiba or Bruce Lee. This scene is really awful and sets the tone for the whole movie even though it was added by US schlockmiester Terry Levene!

After he beats up and kills some assassins on a plane, Chiba (playing himself) holds a press conference and announces his war on drugs. After his sister has a warning carved on her arm (by The Costa Nostra) he has one fight after another while trying to protect another woman who knows more than she's telling. Chiba's real life brother Jiro appears too.

The theme song is really cool though!

Credited director Simon Nuchtern has worked (or re-worked perhaps?) on a lot of crap including the notorius SNUFF, the 3-D SILENT MADNESS, an '80's biker film SAVAGE DAWN and something called THAT MAN IS PREGNANT!

Chiba made STREETFIGHTER'S LAST REVENGE the same year.....

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Out For The Count!

BODY COUNT is a US/Japanese co-production shot in New Orleans in 1994. It's a haphazard action-revenge flick that's only really redeeming quality is the appearance of Japanese martial arts icon Sonny Chiba!

He plays Macado, a pony tailed assassin responsible for several mob deaths. The porous faced Robert Davi plays an investigating cop who tries to take out Macado at a topless bar. After wrecking the place they manage to capture him (but mistakenly interrogate him in Chinese!).

18 months later he's in prison meditating, doing one arm push-ups and taking flack from guards while serving on a chain gang. He's sprung by former Stallone girlfriend Brigitte Neilsen. Once out, Macado goes around killing cops, trying to find the one who set him up.

At one point Davi's character says "It's the '90's" but the weird disjointed structure of this film makes it seem like something out of the '70's! Com'on! When the highpoint of a movie is that a minor character is wearing a "Residents" t-shirt...well, what more do I have to say???

Actually a lot.

To show how far his career had sunk by this time, Jan Michael Vincent has a small role as a cop who's thrown off a roof. And too much time is spend on Davi's relationship with a female special agent (Cindy Ambuehl). Since Davi looks like his face has been scrubbed with sandpaper why would anyone care whether he gets laid or not???


Despite his bad English Chiba could be a low budget action star (he had a role in KILL BILL VOL.1) but this is too talky and drawn out. He does comandeer a trolley, wreck a bus and kill in various ways (but usually with a samauri sword). Steven Bauer is on hand as a mobster/victim and hardly has anytime to do his usual scenery chewing (I guess that's a plus.....). The topless dancing was ok though......

Many hands were behind the making of BODY COUNT. The weak story is credited to David Prior who has been making his own shitty movies (many of them starring his brother Ted) for untold years. One of BC's producers David Winters has also been on the low budget film scene far too long and even directed ALICE COOPER'S WELCOME TO MY NIGHTMARE TV special and a musical version of DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE starring Kirk Douglas & Donald Pleasance! Really!!!

Director Talun Hsu also helmed WITCHCRAFT 5 and GEDO and has a small role as the Chinese interpreter.



Beware! There are several movies known as BODY COUNT! This one is also called CODENAME:SILENCER. Chiba also made a movie with wrestler Roddy Piper around this time called IMMORTAL COMBAT where he played a good guy.



Go watch STREETFIGHTER instead..



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Ya Ya Yakuza

THE YAKUZA PAPERS (1973-1974) is a five part movie series directed by Kinji Fukusaku. It follows the rise and fall of different crime families mostly through the eyes of one character named Hirono played by Bunta Suguwara, who stars in all five. Most of the time rival gangs are arguing, killing or double-crossing each other. It hardly seems they have time for actual criminal activities! It’s very bloody and fast paced with some crazy camera angles and unintentional laughs but seems to carve out a pretty bleak future for crime fighting.

Sonny Chiba co-stars in the second one (DEADLY FIGHT IN HIROSHIMA) as a sleazy hood. Part 3 is called PROXY WAR, followed by POLICE TACTICS and FINAL EPISODE. Director Fukusaku (who died in 2003) made many other Yakuza related dramas but took time out in to make two wacky Sci-Fi movies THE GREEN SLIME and MESSAGE FROM SPACE.

“Regret for things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for things we did not do that is inconsolable”. …Sidney J. Harris

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Sword Play

LEGEND OF THE 8 SAMURAI-(1983)-This is a entertaining fantasy based on an actual Japanese legend. It features Sonny Chiba as one of the Eight but really doesn't have any martial arts. The real star is Hiroyuki Sanada (aka Duke/Henry Sanada) who plays Shinbei. For some reason, the eight legendary samurai are referred to as ninjas. I guess they were more popular in the early '80's. The TV show THE MASTER with Lee Van Cleef debuted the next year. Shinbei captures a princess and battles a giant snake and centipede. The two major villans are great and the SFX aren't too bad. The director, Kinji Fukasaku (who died in 2003) was also responsible for THE GREEN SLIME and MESSAGE FROM SPACE.

SAMURAI SPY-(1965)-I saw this Japanese period piece on IFC recently. It's a pretty cool sword drama involving two clans who constantly betray each other. Samurai Sarutobi tracks down a spy named Nojiri while the mysterious Sakon has his own agenda. A bit talky but it doesn't take away from the overall plot.

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