Blu-ray Review: The Executioner Collection

Blu-ray Reviews, Reviews, Top Story

Sonny Chiba exploded in 1974. After appearing in dozens of films for Japan’s Toei studios since 1961, Chiba found himself an international superstar that year with the release of The Street Fighter. The film had Sonny play the ultimate screen badass as he smashed skulls and ripped off a guy’s private parts. Sonny was vicious and quickly embraced. Audiences didn’t have to wait long for the next installment since the studio put out Return of the Street Fighter, The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge and Sister Street Fighter in the same year. Maybe for Hollywood action heroes, four epic films would be enough in one year, but Sonny had two more on the marquees around the world with The Executioner and The Executioner II: Karate Inferno. Every other month, people could drop by the movie theater to watch Sonny Chiba bust bones. Now the last two films are getting double featured in The Executioner Collection.

The Executioner (86 minutes) united Chiba with director Teruo Ishii. The director behind Shogun’s Joy of Torture, Orgies of Edo and Horrors of Malformed Men wasn’t delighted that Toei wanted him to make a formulaic martial arts film. So Ishii didn’t. He made a film that’s a bit comic and extremely grotesque when it comes to the action. In one scene a guy gets flipped and farts when he hits the floor. Another scene has a guy hit so hard that his eye budged out of his sockets in a bloody mess. The story is rather simple three killers are brought together to hijack a massive Yakuza drug deal involving a foreign ambassador’s daughter as the mule. Koga (Chiba) has been trained since birth by his grandfather to be a ninja. But the kid wanted to go indie rather than finish up the old man’s endless lessons. Takeshi Hayato (Sailor Suit and Machine Gun‘s Makoto Satō) is an ex-cop who doesn’t care about the law anymore. Ichiro Sakura (Graveyard of Honor‘s Eiji Gō) is a pervy martial artist who mainly wants to hook up with Emi (The Street Fighter‘s Yutaka Nakajima) who is coordinating the operation. The mission is high stakes. Even with the odd tone shifts, Ishii doesn’t screw the audience over. He knows we’ll stick around as long as Chiba starts dishing out the chops and kicks on numerous goons. He pulls off quite a few Ninja skills during his battles with the mobsters. You get both the Japanese and English versions of the film.

Executioner II: Karate Inferno (86 minutes) was not what Ishii expected. The Executioner proved to be a hit and Toei wanted him to team up with Chiba for a second time. They reunite the band as if they’re a criminal Mission: Impossible squad. Koga (Chiba) tries to go straight by joining the paratrooper of the Japanese Self-defense squad (they weren’t allowed a proper army after World War II). They’re recruited for a less criminal job. Turns out an heiress has had her priceless jewel and daughter kidnapped. The insurance company wants to keep this situation quiet and avoid calling the police. They hire Chiba and his crew in hopes of saving the child and keeping from paying out a cool billion to cover the Jewel of the Pharaohs. Turns out there’s a bit more going on than a straight kidnapping and jewel heist. The action in the sequel gets amped up including Chiba fighting on a netting that’s dangling from a hot air balloon and an elaborate plan involving a small plane and rescuing the jewel from a high-rise office building. Chiba doesn’t have quite as many fighting scenes as in the first entry. The big beatdown is saved for the finale. There are so many little odd touches by Ishii to make this less straight forward than an episode of Mission: Impossible. He gives a film a bit of character and lets Sonny have a few comic moments before ripping the liver out of his victim. It seems Executioner II: Karate Inferno was a bit too odd to be imported to America which explains the lack of an English dub track.

The Executioner Collection really delivers with this double dose of Sonny Chiba showing off his mad Ninja skills. Ishii proves he can put his own signature on action films. Both films are a bit of a tone shift from his Street Fighter flicks that came out earlier in 1974, yet they deliver on the action and brutal fights that Chiba could deliver. Pull the trigger and get The Executioner Collection.

The video is 2.35:1 anamorphic for both movies. The 1080p transfers let you see all the expression Sonny Chiba puts on his face during a fight scene. The audio is LPCM Mono Japanese. You hear all the chops and bodyblows from Chiba. There’s an English dub track from The Executioner. Both movies are subtitled in English.

Audio Commentary by Chris Poggiali and Marc Walkow starts with them explaining where the ocean rocks in Toei’s logo were filmed. They go deep into all the elements of the movie and how General McArthur dictated an element of Japanese cinema.

Sonny Chiba, Karate King (29:51) goes into the actor’s career with Grady Hendrix, Tom Mes, Chris Poggiali, Marco Joachim and Seiji Anno, from the band Guitar Wolf. They talk about how in Japan, Sonny Chiba did so many different kind of films from drama to comedy. But in America, he was all about action. They talk about how Chiba wanted to be an Olympian and entered a college to focus on gymnastics. An injury caused him to rethink his career goals and he got into acting at Toei. We see how he went from TV shows to cinema stardom. They talk about how The Executioner didn’t come out in America until 1978, but it was still a hit.

Original trailers gallery includes The Executioner in Japan (2:40), The Executioner in USA (1:53) and Karate Inferno (2:25). The USA version reminds us that Sonny Chiba is back and ready to poke out eyes.

Teruo Ishii Filmography is 11 text panels of his extensive career.

Image galleries for The Executioner and The Executioner II: Karate Inferno includes about four dozen press photos and posters

Arrow Video presents The Executioner Collection. Directed by Teruo Ishii. Screenplays by Teruo Ishii & Shinichi Hashimoto. Starring Sonny Chiba, Makoto Satō, Eiji Gō & Yutaka Nakajima. Rating: Unrated. Boxset Contents: 2 movies on 1 Blu-ray Disc. Release Date: January 10, 2023.

Joe Corey is the writer and director of "Danger! Health Films" currently streaming on Night Flight and Amazon Prime. He's the author of "The Seven Secrets of Great Walmart People Greeters." This is the last how to get a job book you'll ever need. He was Associate Producer of the documentary "Moving Midway." He's worked as local crew on several reality shows including Candid Camera, American's Most Wanted, Extreme Makeover Home Edition and ESPN's Gaters. He's been featured on The Today Show and CBS's 48 Hours. Dom DeLuise once said, "Joe, you look like an axe murderer." He was in charge of research and programming at the Moving Image Archive.