Once upon a time I knew a Moroccan fellow who pronounced "ultimate" "yuletimate". This is the only mispronounced adjective I can apply to "The Street Fighter", or "Gekitotsu! Satsujin Ken", which is pretty much a Shadowrun movie about a physad. In this film Sonny Chiba would probably have Killing Hands S and that power that lets you break barriers and stuff if you act constipated before striking. Sonny Chiba's character is also entirely mercenary and accepts shady jobs from organized crime groups.

The good news is that apparently "The Street Fighter" has passed into public domain, or at least so claims the person who is putting the whole film up on YouTube. Should you wish to watch the film legally (assuming the thing about public domain is correct) all you have to do is load up all 9 parts in YouTube, starting with part 1 here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uc-uN0yXeY&feature=user

I watched the film this evening and I have to say that I was more emotionally moved than I'd been by a film in a long time. I think that intellectually I ignore special effects and such and instead latch onto the emotion behind the film. That's why I love Asian pulp cinema so much; because Asian pulp cinema is often predicated on what has been designated by some as "oriental voluntarism", or the common Asian idea that overwhelming willpower and self sacrifice can overcome any obstacles. This idea is very popular in Asian cinema and whenever I see it, regardless of how improbable the plot or how inferior the special effects may be compared to Star Wars episode 1, I get emotionally pumped up. I feel like I bypass what I actually see and instead instinctively try to intellectually analyze what lies behind the film in terms of ideas expressed or cultural values. And in terms of possible ideas to express in film few can trump oriental voluntarism in terms of intensity. And "The Street Fighter" has this in spades, along with honorable East Asians (i.e. Japanese and Chinese) and deceptive and dishonorable white guys.

I also like the Sonny Chiba portrayal of martial arts. I think I'm different than the general public on this count. The general public seems to like how things are flashy and acrobatic nowadays which is why Jackie Chan and The Matrix were so popular. Again, I really rather dig the ideas propping up or inspiring the script. So, for example, I really liked American Ninja because the martial arts fights were essentially portraying the theory side of classical jujitsu, whereas I got the sense that most movie viewers didn't quite grasp that but just dismissed the fights as looking fake. Likewise, probably most modern movie viewers would dismiss most Sonny Chiba fight scenes as looking fake, but for me they exemplify the old Japanese idea of "ikken hisatsu". That's not to say that "ikken hisatsu" is at all realistic or relevant to contemporary fighting, but rather that the idea of the super powerful ultimate Zen mastery punch that makes your teeth erupt out of your mouth or causes you to writhe on the floor for an extended amount of time emotionally affects me. Culturally and in the abstract it's an expression of masterful hypermasculinity. Thus, even though it is cheesy and unrealistic on the screen, I get goosebumps when I watch it and "automatically" register the cultural subtext.

I belive that I'm different from most people in this regard. Most people listen to music because they like it on a vague emotional or heuristic level. I often listen to music whether or not I like it based on some internal logic of whether or not I should listen to it. For example, I sometimes listen to the classic song "Brown Eyed Girl" because it references the transistor radio hobby which was popular in decades past, which in turn causes me to classify this song as having historical significance and therefore is something I ought to hear from time to time. I like to abstract things first and then enjoy them.

Likewise, I really think "The Street Fighter" is a classic film everyone should watch at least twice since it references and articulates Japanese ideals of masculinity and violence from a certain period of time.

So Sonny Chiba is real ??

Sounds like a made-up name referenced by various pieces of Cyberpunk fiction, which is what I always assumed it was [being far too lazy to do any actual research].

Thanks for the heads up, I'm off to get a YouTube Grabber and d/l the film

In some countries at least, watching a stream but not downloading it (saving to HD) is not illegal even if the movie is not public domain.

Hattori Hanzo before he was Hattori Hanzo.

That movie is also available for like 4 dollars double packaged with one of the sequels.

Amazon.com is a great place to find these things as many third party discount DVD vendors have accounts set up there.

Or Wal-Mart, much as I hate the bastards.

I've got a multidisc compilation from them that has all three Street Fighters and a couple other things as well. Also a very good three disc Bruce Lee compilation. Both were $5.

Or maybe they were on sale for "2 for $5" I forget.

Anyway, that much awesomeness for that little money is akin to stealing, though not quite as fun.

But yeah, spectacular fake martial arts sequences are cool in their place, but most times the real stuff isn't much to look at. It's like the world series: You get the two best teams playing each other, their skills cancel each other out, and what you get is 9+ innings of strikeouts, with the occasional moment of awesomeness when someone fucks up enough to let the other guy's skill show--even then it's usually over before you brain can figure out what it just saw.

Granted, the Street Fighter series does have it's occasional totally bullshit move, but it's nice to be able to focus on the story and the characters without getting distracted by all that shiny intricate dancing. (with fists)

Love the part where the brother and sister that hired him come to complain about how he handled the job and try to weasel out of paying, and Sonny ends up throwing the brother out a window.