16 April 2023

Review: The Street Fighter Trilogy

Blu-ray: The Street Fighter Trilogy (1974)

The Street Fighter
Return of the Street Fighter
The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge

If you want crazy martial arts action with a regular splattering of blood, then look no further than this Street Fighter set from Arrow Films, it’s one of the most entertaining trilogies you’re ever likely to watch.

Shin’ichi Chiba (credited as Sonny Chiba) plays Takuma “Terry” Tsurugi across the entire 3 movies. Terry is an assassin for hire, but he also has a conscience too, as seen in the 1st movie where he refuses to accept a potential pay day when he finds out that the people wanting to hire him to kidnap a young woman are Yakuza. He instead ends up protecting her from the Yakuza, which also includes a man who has been seeking his revenge on Terry for quite some time.

The sequel once again has him refusing to accept a possible money maker, but this time the return of characters from the 1st movie make things even trickier for him (I don’t want to give away who they are), while the final movie in the trilogy has him on the run from a gang of bad guys AND a mysterious man who can break chains using just the power of his mind…or so he claims.

Filled with some of the most insane martial arts action you could ever hope to watch, the entire trilogy is an absolute joy from beginning to end, with Sonny Chiba bursting into mainstream fame with a plethora of throat gouging, testicle ripping, high kicking, heavy punching moves that keep you glued to the screen as he contorts his face with the sheer effort of focusing his chi before letting rip on the bad guys once again.

The plots are as flimsy as some of the sets, but the acting, direction and constant action more than make up for this, sweeping you along before the end credits roll far too soon.

An essential buy for anyone wanting to add hugely enjoyable movies to their collection.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Brand new 2K restorations of The Street Fighter and Return of the Street Fighter from 2K scans of the original camera negatives by Arrow Films
Newly remastered High Definition presentation of The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge by Arrow Films
High Definition Blu-ray™ (1080p) presentations
Original lossless mono Japanese and English versions for all three films
Optional English subtitles for the Japanese soundtracks and optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtracks
Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Tony Stella

Disc 1: The Street Fighter

Brand new 2K restorations of the original Japanese and American versions of the film from the original camera negatives
Brand new audio commentary by Asian film specialists Andrew Heskins and James Mudge of easternkicks.com
Street Fighting Man, a 30-minute interview with Sonny Chiba
Cutting Moments, interview with director Jack Sholder discussing his role in creating the legend of Sonny Chiba
Original Japanese and U.S. theatrical trailers
Image gallery

Disc 2: Return of The Street Fighter

Brand new 2K restorations of the original Japanese and American versions of the film from the original camera negatives
Brand new audio commentary by Jonathan Clements, author of A Brief History of the Martial Arts
Original Japanese theatrical trailer and U.S. teaser and theatrical trailers
Image gallery

Disc 3: The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge

High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentation of the original Japanese and American versions of the film
Original Japanese and U.S. theatrical trailers
Image gallery

FIRST PRESSING ONLY: Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the films by Mark Schilling and Chris Poggiali.

Review by Dave from discs kindly supplied by Arrow Films via Fetch Publicity.