Soul of Chiba (1977) & Fighting Fist (1992): Rarescope Sonny Chiba Double Bill

[Guest Chong Lei]

Is Soul of Chiba any good? I figure any flick with Chiba, Bolo Yeung and Bronson Lee must be interesting, at least.

[Guest monwobobbo]

its ok but not a great film by any stretch.

[Guest kungfusamurai]

I recently decided to check out Soul of Chiba after seeing a clip of a fight scene on one of the other boards. Man, does Chiba open up a can of beatdowns on this one! The story seems to be pretty crappy (I was just fast forwarding), but the scenes where Chiba fights off groups of guys are awesome and well worth owning the flick.

Cliff @ BCI - do you have any plans to acquire this flick as part of your Sonny Chiba line? It doesn't appear to be a Toei production. I think it was probaby a Japanese/HK or Thai co-production.

KFS

[Guest LoBo]

Yes, i would like to see that movie.

A another Chiba that should be released is "The Defensive Power of Aikido".

I have heard it`s very good.

[Guest Daigoro]

BCI. do they have a site? if possible i would like to learn more. i really

enjoy the sister street fighter collection. i have that and i also have the

japanese remasters. i feel i would like to be more informed about what

they will be releasing in the future.

here is a screenshot of the jap/remastered (well, one o them), o ya it has eng subs somebody probably custom tweak that menu.

[GwaiLoMoFo]

Never heard of either one of these Chiba flix until I saw em on the shelf this week. Anybody seen either of these titles and are they any good?? Honestly they SOUND terrible . Recently released as a double feature from BCI/Rarescope. Check out that CLASSIC cover. (lol!)

[Yakuza954]

Wow, these were released already? They fell under the radar for me. Soul of Bruce Lee is aka actually Soul of Chiba, was an HK-co production in the 70's, and is actually a pretty fun movie if you're a Sonny Chiba fan. It has Etsuko, "Bronson Lee" and Bolo Yeung. Fighting Fist is one I haven't seen but it was also made in HK and in the 90's so I'm interested in seeing it.

[Guest LoBo]

The release date is actually April 8. They must have got it before.

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WEED VAPORIZER

[GwaiLoMoFo]

I saw them at my local Best Buy. Sometimes Best Buy does that, dont think its intentional.

[Alex]

which best buy did you see these at? i've been dying to check this out, I've heard tons of positive stuff about Soul of Chiba

[kungfusamurai]

Are they in their original languages or are they english dubs? Also, I hope the Soul of Chiba/Bruce Lee is using a nice source print.

I bought the VHS a few months ago, and I think I mentioned it in another thread here, that it featured some really great fight scenes. The movie itself is just so so. But Chiba really opens up in this flick. The way the fights are filmed are more like HK than the Japanese filmmakers of that same time period.

KFS

[Righteous Master]

Never heard of either one of these Chiba flix until I saw em on the shelf this week. Anybody seen either of these titles and are they any good?? Honestly they SOUND terrible . Recently released as a double feature from BCI/Rarescope. Check out that CLASSIC cover. (lol!)

That has got to be one THE WORST DVD covers that I have ever seen. What were they thinking?

[Morgoth Bauglir]

Yeah that cover is as ugly as can be, but still, I can't wait to get this.

[kungfusamurai]

That has got to be one THE WORST DVD covers that I have ever seen. What were they thinking?

What's wrong with seeing Chiba covered in wires and wearing Depends? It's actually a scene from the movie. Maybe it was the only lobby card photo they had that was presentable enough for the cover art.

I'm just hoping the film itself is widescreen, and japanese language.

KFS

[Alex]

Considering it's rarescope it will most likely be widescreen but dubbed, or with really bad embedded subtitles. I'm not complaining mind you, I love rarescope and buy their stuff religiously. I'd much rather see a poor print of a good movie than not see it at all.

[Alex]

Before I get into the details, I'll say that this set is without a doubt worth picking up for Chiba fans. Some of the stuff below will sound disparaging, so keep this in mind.

Soul of Chiba (soul of Bruce Lee)- this is a list of reasons to love this one:

1. Chiba vs the monkey dudes which really is one of the best fight scenes he ever shot

2. Chiba literally eating handfuls of heroin throughout

3. Bronson Lee with a fake Fumanchu mustache

4. Bolo!!!!! (and subsequently Bronson Lee vs Bolo)

5. The wire contraption on the cover actually plays a pretty significant role, and makes for a hilarious training scene

6. An ending so depressing it makes Grand Silencio look like It's a Wonderful Life

7. An overall vibe of a movie made by Robert Tai on a PCP binge in a desparate scramble to pay off his coke dealer or something Al Adamson made in the Phillipines as a tax write off

It's cheap, fast, fun, trashy action packed goodness.

Now for the bad news: Fighting Fist just flat out sucks. Chiba is in it for what barely amounts to a cameo, and he does not fight. If I read the credits correctly he actually directed this (HKflix doesn't agree), which makes me glad he stayed in front of the camera in the more fruitful days of his carreer. The plot is about 90% standart HK 80s action and 10% Japanese Karate flick, although neither part is realized to anything resembling its true potential. The talents of the main actors are woefully misused, in fact there's very little action here at all. Sibelle Hu doesn't fight at all, Chin Kar-lok dies in the first 10 minutes without ever throwing a punch, Ken Lo's sequences are short and terribly edited. The protagonist, whom I vaguely recognize as the Sonada lookalike from either Ninjas and Dragons or Shogun's Shadow, is clearly a gifted kicker but is given very little to do. Whatever miniscule amount of action is here is edited terribly and for some reason looks very stilted. The final showdown, which I expected to be the saving grace, can be in the dictionary under anti-climatic. All this could have been somewhat overlooked if the film offered anything interesting in terms of plot, acting or even exploitative value - unfortunately this is not the case. There are only two moments that I genuinly enjoyed, the first being a short demonstration a Karate master gives his students and the second being Lo kicking really high with spurs to cut off Kar-Lok's ears.

Honestly, it seems like Rarescope only released this based on its obscurity, because there's very little to redeem it otherwise. Sometimes things fall from memory for a good reason, this is one of those times.

Bottom line: it's a cheap release, so get this for Soul of Chiba, it's not his best but it's still a riot. And since you already bought it, and if perhaps you're a masochistic completist, you might as well check out the other one as well.

[Yakuza954]

Aw damn, I was hoping Fighting Fist would be good so it'd be worth picking up this disk. With the exception of Soul of Chiba, it's a shame Chiba never had the same kind of success as Kurata did in his Chinese productions.

[Morgoth Bauglir]

Dang, I also was hoping Fighting Fist was good. Thanks for the review

[Alex]

Yeah it's a shame, the disc is only worth it for Soul of Chiba. This is the only widescreen release of it as far as I know, which is why I recommended it.

[Guest LoBo]

Here`s what i thought of it:

I saw Fighting Fist. I think it was a very poor film. Chiba was only on screen 2-3 min. He did not fight at all. The picture quality was not so good. This film looked like it was a low-budget film. I think it had a terrible plot also.

On the back cover it says: Please note: Every effort has been made to find the best possible source material for this dvd. Unfortunately, these films has been lost for many years and these discovered prints are the only known surviving elements available.

In Soul Of Chiba. When you get to the menu, you can choose between the English Version which was 5 min shorter than the Japanese version which you can also choose.

The picture quality was worse than Fighting Fist . Sometimes the colours was bleeding. Throughout the film it had some scratches and hissing if you had the volume high. I liked this film better than FF. But, i don`t think it was the best Chiba film i`ve seen.

Sonny had some good fight scenes with cool slow-motion. I didn`t care much for the plot. This version also was cropped. Which means some of the image is missing. That was evident in some of the fight scenes. It was very annoying. They used too much of close ups during the fights also, which in my opinion ruined it. I don`t think i have anything more to say about it.

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Dr-z series

[Yakuza954]

So is Soul Chiba wide screen or cropped? And what are the extra 5 minutes in the Japanese version?

[Killer Meteor]

Cramped close-ups doesn't mean its been cropped. SOme of the Chibas go for extreme, disjointed close ups. is this release 2.35:1?

[Guest LoBo]

I don`t know what is cut in the English version, since i only saw the Japanese. I saw a bit of English and noticed it was 5 min shorter than the other.

It certainly looked like some of the image was missing.

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I-INHALE VAPORIZER

[Alex]

Cramped close-ups doesn't mean its been cropped. SOme of the Chibas go for extreme, disjointed close ups. is this release 2.35:1?

that's exactly what it was

not sure if it's 2:35, i don't think so though

As far as picture quality, it's standard Rarescope stuff. Considering how cheap the disc is and the fact that this is the closest to the correct OAR version that has been out so far, I really don't mind it.

[saltysam]

Both english and japanese versions of Soul Of Chiba are on the disc.quality is crap on both.one version is letterboxed at about 1:66:1 and the other 1:85:1.