Sunday, May 2, 2010

Review: Street Fighter's Last Revenge (1974)

I really don't know what to say about this film. I haven't seen a whole lot of kung fu movies, and well, this film was entertaining, but my god was it stupid. I mean, what the hell was the point of the master of disguise thing? He never does anything useful with it. And since this was the third one in the series and I hadn't seen the first two, I just sort of assumed that maybe it was something that made more sense in the context of one of the other films, but no, apparently this was a new addition to the Stree Fighter movies. Huh?

And the plot was insane! So, this guy records a conversation between himself and a corrupt politician in which the politician lists in great detail all of the ways in which he is corrupt. He then, I don't know, sends the tape to himself, but decides to hire Sonny Chiba to intercept his own men delivering stuff to himself for... no reason. And then he decides not to pay Sonny Chiba anyway. What? Why didn't he just, I don't know, keep the fucking tape in his fucking office? What was the point of any of the film?

And why the hell was it that some stupid pencil-pushing beaurocrat could beat Sonny Chiba in a fight? What the hell was that about?

But the fight scenes were pretty awesome, and some of the cinematography was surprisingly inventive (although I haven't seen many kung fu films, so maybe it was standard, I don't know). And there was this one scene in which Chiba answered the phone in just the most badass way possible. He was doing vertical situps, the phone rings, he walks on his hands over to near were the phone is, does a forwards roll and - in mid roll - kicks the phone off of the wall. Once he finishes the forward roll, he catches the phone and just acts like nothing happened. It was one of the best things I have ever seen. Sonny Chiba is a dude.

Also - there is an American guy in a sombrero who shoots lasers. It was pretty great.

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