Intro
While pouring back through all the Tarantino films recently I realized a couple things:
1) There's not that many of them. I mean he's only one guy and he pretty much only works off of his own material that he wrote... which takes time, and thus this is very understandable.
2) His films make reference other movies constantly. Now call it what you want homage, reference or just plain theft but I'm thinking that a lot of people don't catch the majority of these references to other films because frankly, we don't have the film same exposure as a young Tarantino did going to the grindhouse theater constantly in his youth or working in a video rental store. However, hypothetically with the vastness of the internet and Amazon, Netflix etc. these films should be easier to get a hold of today, if you know what you're looking for that is.
So I figured there's probably more people out there, like me, who crave more Tarantino constantly and I could showcase some films that I'd consider essential viewing for Tarantino fans. And thus the 10 must-see films for Tarantino fans was born. Now let me warn you this is in no way a comprehensive list and there's no particular order to these either. There's probably hundreds of films that Tarantino references in his own films, and I found enough films I could write about to probably do this series again but that will have to wait until next time there's another big Tarantino release.
DAY 9: The Street Fighter (1974)
Quentin Tarantino loves The Street Fighter so much that he wrote it into the background of his first script, True Romance (1993) where the main character talks at length about how cool Sonny Chiba is in it after going to a Street Fighter marathon. Years later he also gave Sonny Chiba a really cool part in Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) as the legendary sword maker Hatori Hanzo. Also in Kill Bill: Volume 1, the "Crazy 88 fight sequence" seems to be inspired by the fight on the ship in this film, in both the leads go on a killing rampage killing a ton of people with different weapons, in a ton of different ways and there's even a part where the Bride is running up stairs as she's fighting just like Terry. Tarantino also lists this film in his top 20 favorite grindhouse films (thanks to The Quentin Tarantino Archives).
"I hate punks worse than anything, and I would love to see the mob destroyed."
The Street Fighter (1974) is the dubbed version of 激突！殺人拳 [Clash, Killer Fist!] a violent Japanese martial arts film. This film is technically an unofficial follow up to ボディガード牙 [Karate Kiba] (1973) which was recut and released as The Bodyguard (1976) in the U.S. but other than also starring Sonny Chiba, this film is unrelated. This film follows Terry Tsurugi an assassin for hire who follows no school or code except his own.
[This film will focus on the English-dubbed version that was released in the U.S.]
This film has a really good opening sequence, it draws you into the film and is very cool and also sets up the character of Terry right off from the begining. All the fight scenes in this film are pretty clever and unique, it doesn't ever seem like it gets old and with each fight they just keep finding new and creative ways to kill people!
The story in this film is pretty decent too, (SPOILERS:) every time I see this film I'm surprised that they kill off "Ratnose", Terry's humorous sidekick. This is such an Eastern thing, because a Western story would never do this, and yet it really adds a lot to the story, this affects Terry it actually gives meaning to how much more fierce he gets in the last part of the film. This is exactly how Quentin Tarantino could have given the "Crazy 88 fight sequence" in Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) more story rather than just a mindless action sequence!
As with most of these types of films from the dub is quite bad, the voice actors are trying way too hard to put more into the performance and match the lips.
This film seems pretty dated when watched today, and the fights go on longer than they need to (admittedly a martial arts-ism). The villains of this film are very flat and one-dimensional, and I think the plot could have been tied together better. I also never understood why there's this part in the end where the antagonist's sister grabs Terry and tells her brother to finish him, then he stabs her through the back to stab terry! This seems completely unnecessary, he's fast but not so fast that you have to kill your own sister to get to him!
It's no surprise that this is the film that turned Sonny Chiba into an international star. His character is really interesting, a school-less, martial arts assassin dressed in black. And he's not invincible: he gets beaten, beat up and captured throughout this film which somehow only seems to make him cooler! Chiba's acting is really great too very intense but always with a bit of humor too.
The Street Fighter (1974) is an action packed martial arts film with a surprisingly good story, starring the amazing Sonny Chiba. 4/5 Stars.
Happy watching!
This film is part of my month-long Tribute to Tarantino in honor of his latest film Django Unchained (2012) and his 20-year career. If you've missed any of my reviews so far, be sure to check out his filmography and click on any film you've missed.
The 10 must-see films for Tarantino fans countdown concludes tomorrow, so be sure to check back!
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