Abundant martial arts action for fans of Sonny Chiba guaranteed here.
1974 was the year of "The Street Fighter", which made Sonny Chiba an international name in the Martial Arts genre. Chiba made three "Street Fighter" films along with two "The Executioner" comedy action movies as a similar character. 1975 was the year when Sonny said goodbye to "Street Fighter Chiba" and hello to "Karate Master Chiba", who featured in "The Killing Machine" and "The "Oyama Trilogy". "Street Fighter Chiba" was a modern 1970s character, while "Karate Master Chiba" operates in post war, American occupation era Japan 1945-52, even if many of the villains still seem to be wearing 1970s fashion styles (Finally we know who to blame, it was all the fault of the post war Yakuza!). Both characters are still loners with a dubious moral compass, however the Karate Master character shows faint and irregular signs of possible reform.
This is the first of the three Oyama films, based on a Manga series, which in turn was loosely based on the life of Karate master Masutatsu Oyama, although the first two movies in the series mainly seem to borrow plot elements from the classic "Samurai Trilogy", starring Toshiro Mifune, which was based on the life of Samurai Musashi Miyamoto, which I have also watched recently. Or perhaps in both cases they are just universal, recurring themes of the Japanese action tradition?
Sonny makes his entrance in typical fashion, looking like a raggedly dressed vagrant, but displaying a defiant, aggressive attitude, munching negligently on a piece of fruit, a more modern version of Toshiro Mifune's iconic scruffy Ronin from "Yojimbo".
He gate-crashes the solemn and orderly ceremony of the National Karate tournament, proceeds to demonstrate his power by breaking a pile of roof tiles, then defeats the tournament champion. He is offered a position as an instructor but instead insolently disparages the tournaments low contact approach to Karate as "dancing" and leaves with the trophy, which he later throws away down some steps, breaking it into pieces.
Next we come to that moment in every Sonny Chiba movie, where the Western viewer is confronted with some form of heinous behaviour by Sonny's character which makes it very hard, if not impossible, to like him, or root for him, during the rest of the movie.
In this case outcaste Sonny is working as a rick-shaw driver when, while waiting for a fare outside a nightclub, he sees an American officer accompanied by a pretty Japanese girl leaving the premises. He recognises the girl. Cue flashback of the girl about to be attacked and raped by three Japanese thugs, only to be saved by Sonny, who kicks their asses for them instead (all good so far...)
Back in the present, the couple get in the rickshaw and Sonny proceeds to take them to a secluded spot, roughs up the officer and chases him off, then rapes the girl...
Afterwards Sonny tells her he was offended that she repaid his earlier rescue by becoming a prostitute for Americans. She explains that, until Sonny raped her, she was still a virgin and only working as an interpreter for the Americans. Sonny is remorseful and falls to his knees begging forgiveness...
The next day Sonny asks her to marry him, telling her that the real reason he raped her was because he loved her...not surprisingly she turns him down. However later she inexplicably relents and spends the rest of the movie trailing around after him, waiting patiently for him to give up his wandering Karate ways, which never happens. This is also very reminiscent of the Samurai trilogy, where, across the three films, a number of women fall for the sexually repressed Toshiro Mifune character without ever getting any real satisfaction from him. Mifune's character never goes further than trying to steal a kiss (unsuccessfully), but maybe that was all that was allowed to be shown in a 1950s Samurai flick and the rest is implied?
Anyhoo, the uncouth Americans capture him, and as punishment for roughing up one of their officers Sonny is forced to fight a big black American soldier, which he does, before beating up the rest in a mass brawl and escaping, all despite being handcuffed the whole time.
He eventually takes on an enthusiastic student and later is rescued from an uncomfortable romantic encounter by an emergency call to save the village from an angry bull. The discussion involved talk of such excruciating topics as "personal feelings" and "love", which Sonny's character is relieved to have any excuse to abandon, even if it means taking on a rampaging adolescent bull (which he succeeds in killing with only his bare hands)
Publicity leads to notoriety, and some Karate academy students question the veracity of the bull fight story within in earshot of Sonny's loyal student, who takes offense and kicks their doubting asses. A chase ensues and eventually he is shot to death before Sonny can intervene.
Which brings us to the second event where Eastern and Western attitudes may diverge. Sonny retreats to a seedy nightclub to drink himself stupid mourning for of his lost disciple. The sleazy club owner attempts to schmooze him, but Sonny is having none of it. Then a bigger meaner gangster, who has just got out of jail, arrives with his henchmen and tells the club owner they are taking over. A fight ensues and the interlopers win, but unfortunately, in the process, one of them spills Sonny's sake... Mayhem ensues, with Sonny taking them all down, climaxing with the head gangster pulling a knife and trying to kill Sonny and instead getting killed himself. (all good so far...)
It's a case of self-defence, so the Police are ready to release Sonny, but the gangster's widow and son are not so forgiving and complain noisily. Sonny is remorseful and falls to his knees begging forgiveness...
Now I'm not suggesting that it isn't sad that the lady has been left a widow and her son without a father but, her husband was a scumbag who would probably have been killed or put back in prison sooner or later anyway, and Sonny killed him in self-defence, so I don't see why Sonny's character should feel any great guilt.
As penance, Sonny goes to find them and toils on their subsistence farm to create a productive field for crops that can support the family. Again this is reminiscent of the Samurai Trilogy, where Mifune's character goes to a village and works in the fields in order to acquire a better appreciation of ordinary peasant life. He learns to understand that there is more of value in life, and worthy of respect, other than purely Samurai sword skills. Part of the process which sees him become a truly worthy and honourable Samurai by the third film. Not sure what Sonny learns, based on the carnage he continues to create during the rest of the movie. True there is one scene where Sonny refuses to fight the former Karate Champion who is seeking a revenge rematch, a sign of moral progress, but thereafter he is soon drawn back into the cycle of violence by his old adversaries.
He encounters a mysterious assassin, who calls himself "Kenki - the Messenger from Hell", and despatches him, then answers the challenge of the boss of the Karate school he offended, kills him, plus his top henchman, and then battles their massed followers to escape from an ambush, and finally grants the Karate Champion his "to the death" rematch and defeats him again, before ignoring the pleading of the woman he raped to stay and walking off into the sunset...
Again these are all plot elements lifted from the "Samurai Trilogy", not the life of Oyama. Toshiro Mifune's Samurai is drawn into an ambush and fights his way out, the final duel with the Karate Master reaches its climax at the edge of a body of water, reminiscent of the final duel on the beach in the Samurai Trilogy, and Sonny leaves alone, as Mifune does in various ways at the end of each movie in the Samurai Trilogy. So apart from his being a proponent of full contact Karate and the dubious legend about fighting bulls (wrestling adolescent bulls to the ground, yes, chopping a horn off with karate blows, not so much) none of the "Oyama Trilogy" films contains much that reflects any actual events of Oyama's life.
The internet says "Oyama greatly credited his reading of The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi (a famous Japanese swordsman) for changing his life completely. He recounts this book as being his only reading material during his mountain training years."
Interestingly Sonny Chiba was a student of Oyama, and Oyama himself actually appears in the first two films of the trilogy.
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