The Street Fighter,[2] originally titled in Japan as
Gekitotsu! Satsujin-ken,[3] is a 1974 Japanese martial arts film produced by Toei Company, directed by Shigehiro Ozawa, and starring Sonny Chiba. It was released in the United States by New Line Cinema and became one of the first films to be a commercial success for the distributor.[4][5] It is notable as the first film to receive an X-rating in the US solely for violence.
In the United Kingdom, the film was originally released as Kung-Fu Street Fighter[6] presumably to avoid confusion with the Charles Bronson movie Hard Times which was initially released as The Streetfighter in the UK.
Plot
Martial artist Takuma Tsurugi meets the condemned murderer Tateki Shikenbaru while disguised as a Buddhist monk. Tsurugi applies his "oxygen coma punch" to Shikenbaru, causing him to collapse just before he can be executed. As Shikenbaru is rushed to a hospital, Tsurugi and his sidekick Rakuda ambush the ambulance and free him. As Tsurugi and Rakuda watch the incident on the news, Shikenbaru's brother Gijun and sister Nachi arrive and plead for more time to pay for Tsurugi's help. Outraged, Tsurugi refuses and attacks the siblings. Gijun accidentally kills himself when Tsurugi dodges his flying kick, causing him to go out of a window, and Nachi is sold into sexual slavery through Renzo Mutaguchi.
Mutaguchi and his associates attempt to hire Tsurugi to kidnap Sarai, the daughter of a recently deceased oil tycoon. Tsurugi refuses after discovering that the gangsters are yakuza. He escapes, but the yakuza gangsters resolve to kill Tsurugi as well as kidnap Sarai. Tsurugi immediately seeks out Sarai, who is being protected at a Seibukandojo by her uncle, Kendō Masaoka, a Karate master. Tsurugi captures Sarai and challenges the entire dojo to a fight. He brutalizes the rank-and-file students before Masaoka fights him to a standstill—then recognizes him as the half-Chinese son of a karate master he knew long ago. Ultimately, Tsurugi offers to protect Sarai, and Masaoka agrees, against Sarai's protests. Meanwhile, the yakuza's allies in Hong Kong, led by Kowloon boss Dinsau, recruit Shikenbaru to avenge his siblings by killing Tsurugi.
The gangsters make several attempts to kill Tsurugi before they successfully kidnap Sarai. Tsurugi manages to rescue her, but gets captured himself. Rakuda gives up Sarai's location to save Tsurugi, causing Tsurugi to forsake him. When Tsurugi struggles fighting with a blind samurai working for the Hong Kong gangsters, Rakuda dies by his sword in a reckless attempt at redemption. Tsurugi finally tracks the gangsters down to a shipyard and fights his way through their guards. In the end, Dinsau permits Tsurugi to duel Shikenbaru. Nachi sacrifices herself to give her brother a free shot with a sai, but Tsurugi survives and rips out Shikenbaru's vocal cords. Critically wounded, Tsurugi is helped to his feet by Sarai and Dinsau in the final shot of the film.
During the final year of production of Sonny Chiba's show Key Hunter, Chiba met with Bruce Lee through mutual friends and began discussing working on a film project together as Key Hunter was quite popular in Hong Kong.[7] Due to Chiba's schedule discussion of the film had to be put off and it was only upon Chiba's return to Hong Kong where he'd learned of Lee's death.
[7] Inspired by the financial success Toho-Towa from their release of Enter the Dragon, Toei Company opted to create their own Martial arts film with Chiba as the headliner.[7]
US releases
The Street Fighter was the first film to receive an X rating solely for intense violence and gore.[8][9] The film was especially controversial because of a scene in which Tsurugi castrates the rapist Bondo with his bare hands; it is this scene (among others) that reputedly gained the film its 'X' rating. A similarly violent scene involves Tsurugi delivering a powerful punch to an henchman's head, followed by a one-second cut to an x-ray shot of the skull being completely shattered and blood gushing from the man's entire face. 16 minutes were later edited from the film in order to get an R-rating.[10] This was the version initially released on home video by MGM/CBS Home Video in 1980. Since then, the film was re-released in its entirety. Consequently, the English dub of the uncut version suffers from inconsistencies to the soundtrack quality, as the restored footage was dubbed by a different studio using different voice actors.
In the English dubbed versions of The Street Fighter and Return of The Street Fighter, Chiba's character is identified as "Terry Sugury" in the credits but dubbed by the voice actors as "Terry Tsurugi". In The Street Fighter's Last Revenge, however, the voice actors call him "Terry Sugury." Rakuda is named "Ratnose"; The villain Tateki's name is also mistranslated as Junjō.
On November 7, 2018, it was announced that Shout! Factory has acquired the license of all three films in the series for a Blu-ray release on February 19, 2019 via their Shout! Selects line.[11] It contains the dub, and original Japanese audio.[12] For the first time, the uncut original English version was made available, but without the newer audio recordings.
The 1991 Hong Kong film Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky includes a scene where protagonist Ricky Ho Lik-wong delivers an X-ray punch to an attacker.
In 1993, the film (and its sequels) received mainstream exposure in North America when they were featured in Tony Scott's True Romance (written by Quentin Tarantino), which had the two lead characters spending time at a Sonny Chiba Street Fighter marathon.[15][16]
