Hai!Karate roars back again with another flick for your viewing pleasure. This time we take it to Tokyo, Japan with a flick from 1974, The Executioner! This film from Toei stars the brawling legend himself, Sonny Chiba! Also in the cast are Eiji Go, Yutaka Nakajima, Makoto Sato and Yasuaki Kurata. Teruo Ishii is in the director's chair.
The Executionerstarts out with the
former police commissioner of Tokyo, Mr.
Arashiyama(Ryo Ikebe) and his niece, Emi
(Nakajima)set out to create a team to
fight crime. A team of highly skilled
criminals. The trio is comprised of Ryuichi
Koga(Chiba),a ninja turned private eye and
enforcer for hire, Takeshi Hayabusa(Sato),
a former police detective turned assassin
and Ichiro Sakura(Go), a karate expert and
top-notch pervert supreme. These three are
then tasked to take down a Yakuza big by
the name of Mario Mizuhara who is set to
enlarge his drug empire outside of Japan.
Pretty simple, yes? But that's the only
simple thing about this flick. As the three
meet after Koga breaks Sakura out of a
prison death row, it turns out Arashiyama
resigned due to a botched bust of a drug
mule for Mizuhara that left six cops dead.
And their supervisor, Hayabusa, fired. All
together, the three are in this job until
the end, with a little help from Kurata.
The entire picture is a barrel of utter
batshit comedy, violence and action. I'll
say it again: BATSHIT. Because in some
instances that just fits. The first time I
saw this flick I was thrown for a loop 10
minutes in. To start with, Ryuichi's ninja
training and then his rebellion against his
grandfather over joint dislocation? An ill
sequence due in no small part to Chiba's
excellent skill, being a 4th dan master
of ninjutsu. It gets into the violent very
quickly with Hayabusa's first appearance
though. First off, dude enters a bedroom
and interrupts a crime boss basically deep
in a game of hide-the-salami with a young
lady. After the boss pays him six million
yen NOT to kill him, three more than his
original contract, Hayabusa murders him
anyway. And then proceeds to smash the
dead guy's woman RIGHT NEXT TO HIS BODY.
He's also got this crazy, Richard Widmark
laugh that makes you laugh with him and
then stop because you realize how wild he
really is. As for Sakura, he's basically
the perverted comedy relief. His facial
expressions alone make him look like he'd
be the type to get thrown out of a women's
dressing room with a mirror in his hand.
The chemistry is a solid one, and that's
what keeps you interested in the midst of
all the violence. And it wouldn't be a
Sonny Chiba flick without it. There are a
couple of moments where it is not for the
squeamish. And one or two moments where
it just gets out of control. (Look at how
the trio go after the Yakuza henchmen IN
THEIR BEDROOMS.) There's also a great deal
of sex and nudity. This is the time where
Japanese cinema wasn't just crossing the
line as far as that went, but literally
tearing it to shreds. The "pinky' era was
firmly built from the mid 1970's.
Teruo Ishii played a hand in this matter.
It's been said that Ishii hated working on
martial arts movies, preferring to work
on films with dark themes and a bit of
erotica involved as well. Some refer to
him as the father of the ero-guro
style, or 'erotic-grotesque' in Japanese
cinema during this time period. There are
flashes of that in The Executioner
but nothing on par with his other films.
The action is frantic but magnetic. It's
a plus to see ninjutsu and karate at work
on the same side in this film. A lot of the
fight scene choreography is due in part
to Chiba and the Japan Action Club which
he founded in 1970 for stunt actors. (A
lil bit of trivia for you - the younger
Ryuichi Koga we see in the beginning of
the flick? None other than Hiroyuki Sanada.
This was his first motion picture role.)
Yasuaki Kurata also got to do some of the
choreography, which made for another good
change of pace as far as style was involved;
he involved more of a back and forth whereas
with Chiba there was sheer force and brutal
conclusions. All in all, the film makes
for some good entertainment even if there's
moments that make you go 'WTF'??(Like the
one scene with the lone brother and his
lady - they didn't have to do him like
that.)It got enough success to have a
sequel quickly filmed and released so that
says something. If you want some real
knockdown drag out martial arts action
Chiba style one afternoon, check out
The Executioner. And mind the
splatter.
Rating: 4 Dragon Punches out of 5
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