Search - The Ten Faces of Sonny Chiba 10 Movie Pack on DVD

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Francisco Cortes | San Juan, Puerto Rico USA | 08/14/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"At LAST!!The full review of this DVD is here, NOW LET'S GET STARTED!!This DVD contains, interactive menus, five DVDs, trivia games, DVD dictionary and Sonny Chiba's bio.The Movies:1- Street Fighter: Widescreen (in big black boards). The only movie with the optional japanese language track. This is the best film of the ten movies. High quality of the 70's.2- Legend of the eight Samurai: Standar. The worst movie ever except for the beautifull chick princess, Sonny Chiba is not the main character and poor special effects and fight choreoghrapics. Low quality of the 80's.3- Return of the Street Fighter: Widescreen (in big black boards). A great sequel to Street Fighter. High quality of the 70's.4- The Bodyguard: Standar. Not a very good movie. Medium quality of the 70's.5- Street Fighter last Revenge: Widescreen (in big black boards). A superb sequel to Street fighter. High quality of the 70's.6- Shogun's Ninja: Widescreen (in small black boards). Good movie but Sonny Chiba is not the main character. Medium quality of the 80's.7- Sister Street Fighter: Widescreen (in big black boards). Good movie but Sonny Chiba is not the main character. High quality of the 70's.8- Dragon Princes: Standar. SO-SO movie and Sonny Chiba is not the main character. Medium quality of the 70's.9- Samurai Reincarnation: Standar. Bad movie and terrible cinematoghraphic but Sonny Chiba is the main character. Low quality of the 80's.10- Karate Warriors: Standar. Terrible cameras but is the only movie that Sonny Chiba use the slow motion in his fights and he also use the sword witch it make him more cool. Extremly low quality of the 70's.MY name is Shingetta and my e-mail is [email address]BR>If thera are any questions then I will be glad to answer them.
Sayonara, adios, goodbye."

Viva Chiba!

B-Movie Nightmares | Sparks, NV United States | 03/06/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The bad news: like all of these Brentwood cheap DVD releases, the movies here are transfers from videotape so they're not the cleanest prints you could hope for.

The good news: you're getting 10 Sonny Chiba movies for a dirt-cheap price, all the Street Fighter movies are letterboxed, and the most important movie on here (Street Fighter) looks pretty darn good. Anyone familiar with Tarantino films will get a kick out of recognizing some pretty obvious influences, too.

Street Fighter: Definitely one of the best martial arts movies ever. A level of brutality never before seen in action movies rated this one an "X" when it first hit the theatres. Chiba is cold, heartless, and just plain baaaaaad. He's out for the money, so stay out of his way. Moves along at a breakneck pace, if you've never seen it, prepare to be blown away.

Legend of the Eight Samurai: Come on, people! Not even close to the worst movie ever; in fact I rather enjoyed it. The only drawback was Chiba didn't play the main character, but he did have a good supporting part. Basically a Japanese fantasy/adventure/ghost story, lots of fun and it even has a little gore. Lighten up!!

Return of the Street Fighter: Chiba returns as Terry Tsuguri. As you would expect, the sequel can't hold a candle to the original. It takes much longer to get going, and has too many flashback sequences from the first film. Thankfully, there are a couple memorably sick scenes of violence near the end to make it well worth your while.

The Bodyguard: You can tell this was made to cash in on the success of the Street Fighter films and Chiba's short-lived U.S. popularity. His character, actually named "Sonny Chiba," serves as a bodyguard to protect a woman from Mafia vengeance. Chiba is his usual badass, charismatic self. Also, the opening titles use the same quote from Ezekiel 25:17 that Samuel L. Jackson said repeatedly in Pulp Fiction.

Street Fighter's Last Revenge: By this time, the ruthlessness and brutality of the series was taken over by 70's flashiness and comic relief. At one point Chiba poses as a vampire, and one of the main villains dresses like a Mexican mariachi! The plot concerns a formula to manufacture cheap synthetic heroin, and there's enough comic-book action to keep things moving along.

Shogun's Ninja: Kill Bill fans will note the presence of a character named "Hattori Hanzo." Again, a supporting role for Chiba, but there's lots of samurai and ninja-style action, much of it being acrobatics up in the trees. You could do much worse.

Sister Street Fighter: Unfortunately, Chiba only appears in a handful of scenes. Sue Shiomi, who is featured in several of the movies in this set, fights quite well as his female counterpart. His character goes by Sonny Chiba in this film also, rather than Terry Tsuguri, which takes away from the continuity of the series. Some jittery parts also, due to the weak video transfer.

Dragon Princess: The weakest movie in the set, but still worth watching. Chiba has a beautifully bloody scene in the very beginning, but again it's Sue Shiomi, playing his daughter, who's the star of this film. Above average martial arts, but if you read the plot description on the DVD case it's obvious whoever wrote the packaging didn't ever watch the film.

Samurai Reincarnation: More supernatural happenings, you can classify this one under "samurai ghost fantasy/drama." It ended somewhat abruptly, which led me to believe this was part of a larger series maybe?? Kill Bill fans note: after an elderly swordsmaker finishes crafting Chiba's new weapon, he says "if you encounter God, God will be cut."

Karate Warriors: Really bad sound on this one, I had to turn the TV up almost all the way. Chiba gets the lead role here, playing a money-hungry mercenary reminiscent of his Street Fighter character. He plays two rival crime rings against one another, and, unexpectedly, shows his soft side at the end in what was probably the most sentimental moment in his acting career.

To sum it all up, if you're a fan of Sonny Chiba this is a must purchase. If you're not familiar with Chiba but like martial arts movies, do yourself a favor and expose yourself to some top-of-the-line action. Sure the picture could be better, but let's face it, it's cheap and it gets the job done.

"

Unmissable martial arts classics

Holden Banky | 04/01/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"STREETFIGHTER - possibly the greatest martial arts film ever conceived, Sonny Chiba is the bad ass to end all bad asses and this film is a perfect example of what makes so many people (including, and most famously, Quentin Tarantino) love him. You'll barely have to sit through ten minutes of exposition before you get to the next fight scene, and, considering their raw, undeniable quality, ten minutes is nothing. Ending almost perfectly with a gorgeous on-the-brink-of-disaster final fight - in the rain no less! - this is practically non-stop greatness. A+RETURN OF THE STREETFIGHTER - lacking any kind of real originality or fresh ideas (it's basically a remake of the first) ROTS still is a primo martial arts film with some of the most awesomely visceral fight scenes ever, including a massive fight which pits Chiba against twenty-something hard-as-nails, and armed, gang members. B+STREETFIGHTER'S LAST REVENGE / SISTER STREETFIGHTER - where the first two films tried to hold onto some kind of plot (however cliched) and sense of reality (even if that did involve being able to jump off cliffs, into shallow water, and survive) these two films (filmed simultaneously, I believe, which would account for Chiba's only having occasional, but always cool, cameos in SISTER) have no grip on anything. In LR Chiba is suddenly turned into a kind of M:I/007-style agent (when the heck did that happen?) with access to a mini-cupboard full of gadgets, including face masks, while in SSF a random woman, who had now taken over Chiba's position (why?), is charged with foiling a drug scheme involving cocaine-laced wigs (I can't decide whether this is the greatest idea in the world, or the worst). LR gets points knocked off for turning Chiba into a vaguely uncool caricature (but, it still is Chiba) but both feature, again, some class action fight sequences, including one in SSF, where the lead character is killed off, only to have her be brought back a couple of scenes later. "I thought you were dead" "Nope". C+ / B---------------------------------PICTURE: although it's not the best in the world, it's fine, you can tell what's going on and the prints haven't aged that badlySOUND: only English dubs are available (the Japanese language track for SF has no English subtitles) they're passable and seem to keep the original soundtrack (which is great in the case of SF, which has a kick ass theme). Occasionally bad lip-synching, but that's all part of the funEXTRAS: static text biographies and completely random WB cartoons thrown in for good measureCONCLUSION: The STREETFIGHTER series is, for any martial arts fan, completely unmissable and this seems to be the best package - $20 is an absolute bargain - just consider the rest of the films as nice little extras. One to skip, (or watch, if you happen to be a masochist), is Kinji (BATTLE ROYALE) Fukasawa's LEGEND OF THE EIGHT SAMURAI, possibly one of the absolute worst films ever, not even a giant killer centipede can save it. A+---------------------------------(warning: these films, unlike bruce lee's flicks, are not for kids as they are ultra-violent, even by today's standards, and rife with sex/nudity)"

Buckets of blood or at least red paint

Holden Banky | 11/19/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The 10 DVDs in this collection are very uneven in quality. The Streetfighter movies have the best quality of the group. The samurai movies are not so hot (sorry Sonny, Toshiro Mifune you aren't). But at this price, its good fun and worth it just for the Streetfighter movies. My favorite scene in 'Return of the Streetfighter' is when Sonny whacks a bad guy in the head and the baddie's eyes pop out of his head (my teenage sons found this particularly hilarious)."