The Executioner Collection

There were plenty of heir apparents to Bruce Lee’s martial arts crown after his untimely death.  But the one with the most charisma was Sonny Chiba, a former matinee idol who reinvented himself in the ‘70s with and anti-hero attitude and a smoldering stare.  The same year his Streetfighter films propelled him to cult stardom, 1974’s The Executioner proved his flexibility in the genre, leading a team of Charlie’s Angels-style criminals into all-out war against foreign drug smugglers.  More spoof than stunt-heavy action pic, the violence is balanced with sexist Benny Hill comedy and plenty of jokes at the tough guy’s expense.

Koga (Sonny Chiba), trained as a ninja since childhood, is recruited by an underground organization to rid Japan of the criminal element police are unable to handle themselves.   Teamed with an ex-cop turned hitman and comic-relief dojo master, the trio works their way through the best international fighters the Mafia has to offer…with their promised reward money always just out of reach.

 

A fun Suicide Squad karate flick, The Executioner has personality to spare and an undercurrent of perversity likely suggested by director Teruo Ishii, whose previous films like Orgies of Edo and Horrors of Malformed Menweren’t afraid to embrace their weird and wild tendencies.  Here, the plot stays mostly on course as Chiba cracks ribs, pops eyeballs and sneaks a peek up a few skirts.  It’s juvenile in the best sense, full of lowbrow humor and sight gags that Bruce Lee would never have been able to pull off.  

 

The sequel, The Executioner II: Karate Inferno (also 1974), goes even further into comedy territory.  A heist film that finds the team reunited to steal back a missing diamond, Chiba and company trade more jokes than punches, perhaps a disappointment to Streetfighter fans who missed the star’s more ruthless onscreen persona.  But he does pee on the back of a fellow actor to extinguish some flames…so it’s got that going for it!

 

A straight-up good time, Arrow Video’s double-feature Blu-ray set comes with a new audio commentary, 30-minute featurette with interviews explaining Chiba’s rise to fame, trailers, image galleries and reversible artwork.  It’s a guaranteed good night in the home theater!  

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tormented

Image
The west coast always struggled to create a creepy atmosphere on screen.  All that southern California sunshine just doesn’t lend itself to ghostly apparitions or gothic castles.  But  Tormented  (1960) gives it a good try, staging its opening scene in an abandoned lighthouse where blackmail turns into murder - and one cover up leads to another.  Director Bert I. Gordon, better known for his giant-sized - but low-budget - monster movies, works well at this level, turning in a film that delivers small scares but perhaps his most  professional finished product. Tom Stewart (played by genre regular Richard Carlson) is a fairly successful jazz pianist whose impending marriage to Meg Hubbard (Susan Gordon) will put him in an entirely new tax bracket.  Trouble is his old flame, Vi (Juli Reding), isn’t taking this lying down.  After  allowing  her to fall to her death in the opening scene, Tom is haunted by disembodied visions of his ex-lover who refuses to go quietly into the afterlife.  And
Read more

The Cat and the Canary

Image
My favorite directors have always been showoffs:  Hitchcock, DePalma, Spielberg (when he’s feeling frisky) and gonzo auteurs like Sam Raimi.  There’s just something about their cinematic ambition, constantly reminding the audience that, yes, there actually  is  someone behind the camera calling the shots.  And that directorial discontent shines through even in the early days of the medium, such as Paul Leni’s 1927 adaptation of  The Cat and the Canary .  While the rest of the industry was still learning the basics of visual language, Leni fills his frame with tracking shots, POVs and dramatic lighting that set the standard for every spook show to come!  Gathered for the reading of the last will and testament of eccentric recluse Cyrus West,  the potential heirs meet up in his decrepit mansion to discover who will inherit the estate and family jewels.  Predictably there is some petty jealousy when young Annabelle West is named the sole beneficiary…that is, if she can be proved sane afte
Read more

Impulse

Image
William Shatner, for all his ego and arrogance, always seemed comfortable being the butt of a joke.  His career outside of the  Star Trek  franchise was a bumpy road of corny TV shows and enjoyable B-movie dreck.  But he never delivered anything less than 100% “Shatner!”  Like 1974’s  Impulse , a regional drive-in quickie directed by William Grefé ( Stanley, Mako: Jaws of Death ) that casts the once and future Captain Kirk as a psychologically troubled con man whose childhood trauma leads to a string of murdered women.  After dumping the body of his last victim in a Florida canal, Matt Stone (Shatner) is on the prowl for another financial windfall, this time using a phony investment scam to entice Ann (Jennifer Bishop) into a romantic relationship.  But when Ann’s daughter, Tina, is witness to the murder of his business associate (Harold “Chop Top” Sakata), Matt has to clean up his tracks and speed up his escape plan.  That includes silencing Tina…and whoever else gets in his way.   Ta
Read more