Is Karate Warriors Chiba's best?

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

I just read the review for Karate Warriors over at kungfucinema and the reviewer says this film is Chiba's best. Can anyone confirm this? If it's true I'm definately gonna order it, wasn't to crazy over Chiba's Streetfighter films but I liked his Mas Oyama Karate(Bullfighter, Bearfighter, and Karate For Life) films quite alot and thought he looked great in them. How do you rate Karate Warriors?

[Guest GwaiLoMoFo]

I read that same review, but have yet to watch my copy yet. Ive heard nothing but good things so far. Btw, Ive got an extra sealed/new copy of the new BCI release of "Karate Warriors/Dragon Princess" if your interested. A preorder I cancelled was mistakenly shipped. So now I have 2.

[Guest kow pad moo]

That depends.

As with much of Chiba's stuff from that period, "Karate Warriors" is a pretty representative exercise in formulaic exploitation filmmaking, resulting in the usual strange melange of genres and familiar plot devices featured in all his films from the time that mixes in bits of bad 70's fashion and swordplay and yakuza and cute kid stuff with the martial arts elements, and tosses some gratuitous nudity and misogyny into the mix for good measure. And again, as with much of Chiba's stuff, your response to the movie depends in large part on how much you enjoy any/all of the above mixed in with the fisticuffs.

Since I'm admittedly a sucker for the Chiba formula (other than the misogynistic moments), I'll readily agree with Pollard's kungfucinema.com assessment that "Karate Warriors" ranks up there among Sonny's better stuff. As Pollard mentions in his review, though, the versions of "KW" that had been in circulation until now had been pan-and-scan disasters, so it was always tough to objectively evaluate the film beyond recognizing that Sonny's fist and footwork looked pretty sharp. Still, that slow motion roundhouse kicking business early in the film is a classic moment, even when seen in excessive edgeless fullscreen vertigo-inducing closeup. That alone says plenty about the quality on display.

Pointless trivia -- the woman who serves as a punching bag in much of the movie is the actress wife of the guy who directed another Japanese masterpiece of seventies exploitation cinema, "In The Realm of the Senses."

[Guest monwobobbo]

i wouldn't say his best but one of his better flix. personally i prefer MEAN MACHINE to this as well as THE EXECUTIONER. closer to the STREETFIGHTER series than the series you liked. i never really thought that series was all that great. Bearfighter was kinda silly for the bear fight.

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

Thanks for the info guys, much appreciated. And gwailomofo I would definately take you up on that offer but I had already ordered it from hkflix before I read your post because I'm pretty sure I would like the film, thanks anyway man. Btw monwobobbo, even though the Streetfighter films weren't my favorite of Chiba's I did enjoy them. I just thought Sonny looked more crisper in the fight scenes in the Mas Oyama series.

[Guest monwobobbo]

i agree that his fighting was portrayed better as those films were made to highlight karate as opposed to just kicking ass.

[Guest morgoth]

Karate Warriors is defintely one of his better movies. My favorite chiba movie is Killing Machine.

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

I hear ya morgoth, I have seen The Killing Machine and liked it alot as well, definately one of Chiba's best. Didn't Sonny also star in a film called The Bodyguard? I remember hearing about it but never have seen it and was wondering if it was any good. One of Chiba's I didn't like was Bullet Train, I got it in a box set called Kill Chiba which also included The Executioner which I liked, especially Yasaki Kurata's supporting role.

[Guest kungfusamurai]

I still have to watch the film. I don't know if it would be my favorite in its English dub format versus if it was in its original language. Killing Machine definitely is the best in my opinion, and I think it was that in it's English language version.

Also, does anyone here think Karate Warriors was a turning point in Chiba's career? Before this film, he hardly picked up a sword, but in this movie, the sword was his main method of combat in the finale. So could this have been the film that made him wave 'bye' to the SF-style karate films, and go straight into sword fighting epics like he did in the late 70s to current day?

KFS

[Guest monwobobbo]

THE BODYGUARD is ok. its from 1973 so don't expect STREETFIGHTER etc. he does chop a guys arm off which is cool. not a great film but worth a watch. its one of the films available in THE GRINDHOUSE series cheap.

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

Thanks man.

[Guest TambaChibaYama IchiFune]

I feel ashamed of myself that i havnt really seen that much of Sonny Chibas movies. I owned Street Fighter for many years and have yet to watch it. The only movies that come to mind that i saw were Shoguns Ninja, Karate Bullfighter and maybe a couple that he was not the main actor in. As a matter of fact, i never watched Seven Samurai. Yojimbo was the only Kurosawa movie i watched and i own almost all his movies. I own so many movies i just dont have time to watch them.

This may sound stupid, but is Seven Samurai really worth the watch for being that long of a movie? Actually, it is a stupid question...i need to watch it soon. Was it shot in full screen only?

[Guest morgoth]

I think it was shot in full screen. And yes, it is definitely worth watching. Toshiro Mifune is great in it.

[Guest TambaChibaYama IchiFune]

Thanks morgoth...now only if i can find over 3 hours of extra time on my schedule to watch it!

[Guest Skrotnissen]

I would not say best, but it is great anyway. I`d say Street Fighter is his best movie.

[Guest morgoth]

Hey TambaChibaYamaIchiFune, yu can always watch it in 2 sittings. There is intermission, but once you start watching you won't be able to stop.

[Guest Tosh]

This may sound stupid, but is Seven Samurai really worth the watch for being that long of a movie?

:eek Are you kidding me! If you liked Yojimbo watch it asap! Along with Rashamon! And Throne of Blood!

Hmm I saw Karate Warriors a long time ago, I barely remember it, I need to pick this up.

[Guest stormybman]

I feel ashamed of myself that i haven't really seen that much of Sonny Chiba's movies.

:lol

How can you call yourself TambaChibaYama IchiFune?

Man... "You have offended my Forum Family, and the Kung Fu Film Temple."

"Whenever you're ready, I'll take on any Japanese here."

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

I finally got a chance to watch this film the other day and while I did enjoy it I don't consider it Chiba's best at least not action wise, but he does have one cool ass persona in this flick. I still like Sonny's films about Mas Oyama better and think that those show him at his fighting best. Killing Machine was also better imo.

[Guest TambaChibaYama IchiFune]

How can you call yourself TambaChibaYama IchiFune?

LOL... I know. Of what i seen of him on screen, he is one of my favorites. I know there are many more movies of him that will more than likely impress me even more. Just need to track those movies down!!

[Guest kungfusamurai]

Anyone notice how much abuse the kid took in this movie. There was one scene where I thought they would have used a doll in his place because Chiba was holding him while fighting, jerking him around quite viciously, and it turned out to be the real kid! The kid also gets his face clamped by the hands of various characters throughout the movie (pretty hard, it looked like). Just before the final fight scene, he gets tossed into a sand pit and some heavy items are used to cover the hole. I wonder if there were takes where they fell in? And the last moment, violently shoved into Chiba's crotch, before being crushed by Chiba in a hard hug!

No wonder that kid had that expression on his face throughout the film where it looked like he was about to cry.

KFS

[Guest Yakuza954]

I'm sure showing off to all his friends that he starred in a movie outweighed any of that.

[Guest kungfusamurai]

That's if he lived to tell the tale! Maybe we didn't hear about it:

News story - Sonny Chiba accidentally killed kid during filming of Karate Warriors in a sequence where he's throwing the kid off a bridge to escape from some yakuza thugs. As the film was mostly completed, they'll release the film with the scene removed.

KFS

[Guest Yakuza954]

I just saw this movie. Really, I think it had the potential to be better. The first action scene really blew me away- youtube.com/watch?v=84bqIE9jvmU and I was preparing myself for "300" esque-action for the rest of the movie, only with Chiba's unique style. But it wasn't meant to be. The rest of the movie was just standard Chiba fare. I wonder why the other action scenes weren't edited like the first one, as it's easily the best in the entire movie. Too time-consuming? Not enough budget? Or were they just content with that? Chiba did a few action scenes like that earlier in his career in "Soul of Chiba", only it wasn't as refined as it was here. Shame really, as he finally seemed to have it down.

I still consider this one of Chiba's better martial arts movies, but I can't help but continue to go over the negatives because of what could have been. The other fight fight scenes in this film are bogged down by the same jazz/blackploitation-esque music that all 70's Japanese movies seem to have. It works for Yakuza movies, but for martial arts movies it just ruins the moment. Even though they stole most of it, HK really did a superior job of selecting the right music for their martial arts movies. I don't know, with better choreography and music, this could have been the best Japanese martial arts movie ever made. As it is now, Street Fighter is still my favorite and Karate Warriors is more interesting as a forecast of what was to come later in Chiba's career. Someone mentioned it earlier, but this is really the first time in his career that Chiba used mainly a sword. After this, with a couple odd exceptions here and there, Chiba pretty much abandoned hand-to-hand martial arts and stuck to the sword. Its like Terry Tsurugi permanently turned into Yagyu Jubei during Karate Warriors.

[Guest Chinatown Kid]

I agree, the first action scene in the film was awesome but sadly the rest of the fight scenes after didn't seem to be up to the same standard. I prefer Chiba fighting bare-handed rather than using a sword as well.