Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #129895 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-01-01
• Rating: X (Mature Audiences Only)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 91 minutes

Customer Reviews

Street Fighter: One Of The All-Time Best Martial Arts Films
Often confused with the 1994 martial arts video game movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, this martial arts cult classic was one of the first movies in cinematic history to earn an "X" rating because of violence. Chiba is kung-fu assassin, Terry Sugury, who is hired by the Yakuza for an extortion plot. Using a series of excessively graphic moves, Terry takes out all comers. If you enjoyed the early films of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, you will probably want to check out Chiba, who many consider to be their Japanese equivilent. This film was followed by three other sequels though none quite live up to the action in this one. This one is right up there with "Enter The Dragon" as one of the very best martial arts films of all-time.

Great Film for a Small Price
I won't go into too much detail about The Street Fighter as a film. I enjoyed it and feel that any fan of the martial arts should add this title to their collection. The fight scenes are -- in a word -- BRUTAL.

But instead of going on about the merits of the film, I will instead review The Street Fighter as a DVD. The picture quality is amazingly clear considering the film is so cheaply priced. There's even a Japanese language track in addition to the competent English dub. However, the DVD Audio Set-up menu incorrectly refers to it as Chinese. Also, the Japanese voices do not sync with the mouth movements and there are no subtitles, so watching the film in its original language is a chore even for those who do understand Japanese. There are some other extras on the DVD which seem out of place and irrelevant, but they do add to the "value" of such a budget priced disc. All in all, I recommend this particular DVD edition of The Street Fighter

Sonny Chiba is the Man!
I first became interested in this film years ago when I saw a clip from it in True Romance. And the praise given to Sonny Chiba in Quentin Tarantino's script is right on. Sonny China is a bad mother!

The plot of this film is typical to the martial arts genre. Basically Chiba, who plays Terry, is caught up in a Mafia situation that allows him to do a lot of fighting. What makes this film so much fun is how charismatic Chiba is. His character is very dark and very much the antihero. Director Shigehiro Ozawa does a fantanstic job conveying the action which makes the film that much more enjoyable.

When The Street Fighter was originally released in the United States it was given a "X" rating because of the graphic violent content. Today some of the bloody deaths are still hard to watch. This is a martial arts classic and anyone who is interested in the genre should see this movie. Sonny makes it worth it.