Watch The Street Fighter For Free

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Sonny Chiba was mostly a cult star for years until he appeared in Quentin Tarantino's "Kill Bill" as a sword-maker (I'd never heard of him until then). Of course, fans of martial arts movies knew Chiba for movies like "Gekitotsu! Satsujin Ken" (called "The Streetfighter" in English).Without a doubt, the 1970s were known for martial arts movies -- along with disco -- and this movie is a prime example. Chiba plays Takuma Tsurugi (called Terry in the English dubbing), a martial arts master who has to come to the rescue of a kidnapped heiress. That's the official plot, but there can be no doubt that the flick's main purpose is to show off every imaginable move, with some scenes slowed up just so that you can see the action. I wouldn't put the movie in the same class as "Enter the Dragon", but even so, it's some of the most fun that you can have watching a movie. I hope that Sonny Chiba gets to appear in more movies!

I guess I am not the only one to rank THE STREET FIGHTER with the best action movies ever. I have seen it after its sequel, RETURN OF THE STREET FIGHTER, and found it even better. Well, having liked so much the sequel, you can imagine how I enjoyed the original movie! The characters are many, the settings are picturesque and colorful, the pace is fast. The fights are always interesting and spectacular. In this first installment ,they had the guts to maintain Tsurugi as a genuine anti—hero. Shigehiro Ozawa finds the right tone from the very start, handling well the side plots. The score is so dynamic and cool, it's a pity it was not used more in the movie.Tsurugi is a cruel mercenary, a Ronin who deals with a story of revenge, kidnapping and dirty affairs. Tsurugi is employed by a young man and his sister to rescue their brother from the gallows. Tsurugi does the job; his employers turn up to be penniless ,and Tsurugi insists being paid. The man whom he rescued from the gallows seeks to murder him because Tsurugi has had a fight with the former's brother and the brother did loose his life.

The Streetfighter remains one of the defining films of the Japanese martial arts, "grindhouse", "chop-socky" era from the 1970s. It's one of the titles that made Sonny Chiba famous and features really impressive high-level karate.But the film isn't light-hearted, nor is it made humorous by its dub (as is the case with the contemporary Shaw Bros. films of the time). It is violent, gritty, misogynistic, and a bit racist. It explores gritty underworld elements: drug trafficking, sex slavery, contract killing, etc.The plot revolves around Terry, an underground mercenary in modern Japan, who is forced into a life of crime (presumably) for being half-Chinese in a racist, conservative society. He is offered a job to rescue a wealthy oil baron's daughter-heiress after she is kidnapped by Yakuza. The way the events transpire and the plot develops is actually pretty solid for a "B" movie, and here Street Fighter stands far above its sequels or genre contemporaries.Terry as a character is complex and depressing. He is angry and violent and completely unsympathetic to others, but he is the one we are supposed to connect with. Many people who cross his path are perhaps more upstanding people but are killed either because they are in the way of his contract jobs or because they are not as equally driven by hatred.Sure, maybe it's a character study or a commentary on Japanese society in post-World War II. But that's only in hind-sight and even if so, it's just icing. The premise of the movie is to create a situation for Sonny Chiba to kill a bunch of violent criminals while on commission. But this is okay, because the acting is good, the martial arts are real good, the music is catchy funk-inspired rock and enka from the '70s, and the plot maintains your attention throughout.

Sonny Chiba puts the "K" in "Karate", "Kick Up", "Knock Out", and so many other words that is too long to list. In "The Street Fighter", Chiba plays Taguma Tsurugi aka "The Street Fighter". Swift, lethal, effective, and downright bad to the bone. He takes on a lot of bad guys with the simplest blows known to man, no other fighter could match him. However, there's one man who could think can take on and kill the super fighter. Not a chance. Ever villain that took on the Street Fighter met their painfully fast ends at his hands. One fighter gets his voice-box crushed by Terry, and the man who ordered the showdown hates dirty tricks when one of the henchmen shoots the fighter, he killed the gunman. Most villains would laugh at this predicament. What gives? Anyway, this movie is amazing, I heard talks about it, and it was a must see movie! 4.5 out of 5 stars!