Tag Archives: Shin’ichi Chiba

A young criminal joins a yakuza family to kill the gangsters who beat him up Read More »

Based on a true story. In 1915, a mountain village in Japan was attacked by a giant bear, dubbed “Red Spot”, who terrorized the villagers for days Read More »

Sonny Chiba plays the character referred to as “Mr Soh”, who is based on the true life founder of Shorinji Kempo, Doshin So. Mr Soh has been acting as a secret agent in Manchuria during the Japanese occupation. Read More »

Saigo no Tokkotai (The Last Kamikaze) is set in the final months of World War II, when it was increasingly obvious that Japan was going to lose the war. Read More »

A squadron of Japanese Self-Defense Force soldiers find themselves transported through time to their country’s warring states era Read More »

The film is packed with nice stunts throughout, but the screenplay could be better. After escaping the prison Chiba teams up with a bunch of thugs, who design prison escapes for money. Unfortunately trust and loyalty are unknown concepts to these men who take turns deceiving each other. The endless “who’s-cheating-who” game has been done better in other films, and sometimes the writing is downright sloppy: when a carefully planned escape operation fails, Chiba simply steals a fire engine and drives away without anyone noticing! It also feels that director Kosaku Yamashita, who made his name with yakuza films, was a bit out of his element here. However, even with these weaknesses it’s an entertaining action comedy which compares favourably against some of the later, similar Yasaku Matsuda films like Execution Game (1978) and No Grave for Us (1979). The focus is on stunts and comedy.
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