(aka "Gyakushû! Satsujin ken" or "Revenge! The Killing Fist" or "Street Fighter Counterattacks!")
directed by Iishi Teruo
Japan 1974
Ok, now we are Toho, we just made two very successful
films with China as the street fighter, both directed by Ozawa and written
by Takada Koji, so what do we do? Lets replace the writer and director.
In the last official street fighter film, veteran director Iishi Teruo, best
for his adaptations of mystery author Edogawa Rampo stories, turns Tsurugi
into a James Bond sort of antihero and while the film has it’s share of
action, the story is a cliché upon the street fighter legacy and also is the
weakest story of them all. And many blame Iishi for killing the series, as
Iishi never liked to make karate flicks, and draw reference to his work with
Chiba in “Chokugeki! Jigoku-ken”, where he parodied the entire genre, even
while making one of the most violent Chiba films ever.
Tsurugi chases two audio tapes, who combined reveal the formula for
synthetic heroin. Along the way he loses them, gets them back and loses them
again. Tsurugi is far from the anti-hero of the two prior films and openly
puts his brain on stand-by whenever he is near a girl. And where the two
prior films had great villains , this one has one the most stupid villains
ever to be seen in a karate flick: A sombrero wearing Mexican bandito named
Mr. Black. And speaking of villains, they are really mean this time: They
use guns. And the girls are really naked this time, and Tsurugi never misses
an opportunity to grab a tit.
The probably reason why Toho changed director and writer should be seen in
the speed by which they turned out street fighter flicks. Between “Return of
Street Fighter” and “Street fighters Last Revenge”, they also made “Sister
Street fighter”, which only had Chiba in a few scenes, directed by Yamaguchi
Kazuhiko, who made two additional sequels to “Sister Street fighter”, before
making the last and fourth entry in the street fighter saga with “Kozure satsujin ken”, perhaps the best of all four flicks story wise. Chiba
continued to make karate flicks up thru the seventies, mostly bad ones, some
horrible bad ones as “Karate Kiba”, perhaps his worst film ever, and some
truly great ones, as “Gekitotsu! Aikidô”, where he joined up with Ozawa
again.
Theatrical Release: November 22, 1974
Reviews More Reviews DVD Reviews
DVD Comparison:
Brentwood (10 Faces of Sonny Chiba Box) - Region 0 - NTSC vs. Optimum (The Street Fighter Box Set) - Region 0 - PAL
Big thanks to Henrik Sylow for all the Screen Caps!
(Brentwood (10 Faces of Sonny Chiba Box) - Region 0 - NTSC - LEFT vs. Optimum (The Street Fighter Box Set) - Region 0 - PAL - RIGHT)
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| Distribution |
Brentwood Region 0 - NTSC |
Optimum Region 0 - PAL |
| Runtime | 1:18:49 | 1:20:06 (4% PAL speedup) |
| Video |
2.24:1 Aspect Ratio |
2.39:1 Original Aspect Ratio
16X9 enhanced |
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NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes. |
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Bitrate:
Brentwood (10 Faces of Sonny Chiba Box)
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Bitrate:
Optimum (The Street Fighter Box Set)
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| Audio | 2.0 Dolby Digital English (dub), 2.0 Dolby Digital Chinese (dub) |
2.0 Dolby Digital Mono Japanese |
| Subtitles | None | English, Dutch, None |
| Features |
Release Information: Studio: Brentwood Aspect Ratio:
Edition Details:
Chapters 13 |
Release Information: Studio: Optimum Aspect Ratio:
Edition Details:
DVD
Release Date: January 24, 2005 Chapters 15 |
| Comments |
Native resolution of the
Brentwood DVD is 720px, but as there are black bars left and right, the
film frame takes up approx 705px. Black bars were removed and frame
resized to 700px. In order to compare, the Optimum frame of 1016px was
resized to 700px. Both are DVD5 editions, but there is a world in difference. BRENTWOOD The Brentwood suffer from edge enhancements, heavy ghosting (even during normal movement), its very bright and lacks detail and. It is dubbed into English (and Chinese) and the dub is simply awful. All the characters have gotten English names, like Takuma (Chiba) now is Terry, and translation is very "liberal". It also has an English title sequence, but if its created by Jack Shoulder ("The Hidden"), as "Street Fighter" was, I don't know. OPTIMUM The Optimum is based on a digitally re-mastered source of the recently restored original version, showing next to none signs of artifacts. It is as dark as "Street Fighter", but has great details and contrast, and while it also has ghosting, it seems only to be during fast movement. Again a great transfer. It comes with the original Japanese 2.0 Dolby Digital mono track, which also has been re-mastered. There is no noise and dialogue is clear. The interesting difference here is running time, as Optimum runs 80 seconds longer, even with 4% PAL-Speed up. The reason is, that Optimum is the complete fully restored 83 minute version. |
DVD Menus
(Brentwood (10 Faces of Sonny Chiba Box)
- Region 0 - NTSC - LEFT vs. Optimum (The Street Fighter Box Set) -
Region 0 - PAL - RIGHT)
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Screen Captures
(Brentwood
(10 Faces of Sonny Chiba Box) - Region 0 - NTSC - TOP vs. Optimum
(The Street Fighter Box Set) - Region 0 - PAL - BOTTOM)
Captures resized to 700px
width from 1016px original (Optimum)
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(Brentwood (10 Faces of Sonny Chiba Box) - Region 0 - NTSC - TOP vs. Optimum (The Street Fighter Box Set) - Region 0 - PAL - BOTTOM)
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(Brentwood (10 Faces of Sonny Chiba Box) - Region 0 - NTSC - TOP vs. Optimum (The Street Fighter Box Set) - Region 0 - PAL - BOTTOM)
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(Brentwood (10 Faces of Sonny Chiba Box) - Region 0 - NTSC - TOP vs. Optimum (The Street Fighter Box Set) - Region 0 - PAL - BOTTOM)
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(Brentwood (10 Faces of Sonny Chiba Box) - Region 0 - NTSC - TOP vs. Optimum (The Street Fighter Box Set) - Region 0 - PAL - BOTTOM)
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(Brentwood (10 Faces of Sonny Chiba Box) - Region 0 - NTSC - TOP vs. Optimum (The Street Fighter Box Set) - Region 0 - PAL - BOTTOM)
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(Brentwood (10 Faces of Sonny Chiba Box) - Region 0 - NTSC - TOP vs. Optimum (The Street Fighter Box Set) - Region 0 - PAL - BOTTOM)
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Report Card:
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Image: |
Optimum |
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Sound: |
Optimum |
| Extras: | Optimum |
| Menu: | Optimum |
| DVD Box Covers |
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NOTE: Purchases through DVDBeaver's links to Amazon help keep us afloat and advertisement free! |
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| Distribution |
Brentwood Region 0 - NTSC |
Optimum Region 0 - PAL |
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Gary Tooze
Mississauga, Ontario, CANADA |
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Many Thanks...
