If you ever go to an Alamo Drafthouse, make sure you arrive a half hour before the screening time so you can watch the pre-show. This isn’t a bunch of coming attractions hosted by Maria Menounos. The Alamo folks dig into vaults to find vintage trailers, music videos and movie clips that reflect the theme of the feature film. When I saw Cocaine Bear last year, they ran footage from a movie where Sonny Chiba (The Street Fighter) was fighting a bear. I snuck out my cellphone to find what movie this was from. The title was appropriately enough Karate Bearfighter. Sonny Chiba is one of the few people who I’d give believe could take on a bear. The actual footage of them tussling looked really bad with huge pixel issues. I hoped that in the wave of Sonny Chiba films coming to Blu-ray, someone would upgrade this masterpiece of man vs ursine. Eureka! Entertainment did more than release a Blu-ray of Karate Bearfighter. They double teamed the movie with Karate Bullfighter for Beast Fighter: Karate Bullfighter and Karate Bearfighter.
Karate Bullfighter (1975 – 88 minutes) has Masutatsu Oyama (Sonny Chiba) come down from the mountain to compete in the first karate tournament since World War II. While everyone else is in their nice white gi outfits, Oyama is in a ragged blue outfit that looks extremely punk. The organizers of the tournament don’t want this savage to win, but the final match doesn’t go to the judges for a score. Oyama is the champ. The backers want him to be part of their system, but Oyama wants nothing to do with them. He views their karate as a form of dancing. His legend grows when one day a bull gets loose at a seaside market. Oyama rushes to the calamity and saves a baby from getting gored. When no one else shows up, Oyama truly takes the bull by the horns. People doubt his power and think the incident was staged. After an fight at a bar, everyone knows his brand of karate is deadly. Can he handle the burden of being a killing machine?
This fatal event leads to a bit of soul searching for Oyama. This is not the unrepentant character Chiba played in The Street Fighter. He’s got a bit of a heart and conscious. Although don’t worry that Chiba becomes a softie. The last reel of the film is all about Chiba dishing out the pain. If you’re watching the English dub, you’ll notice the more emotional scenes don’t have English dialogue. The distributors didn’t think the audiences in the West wanted to see a guilt-riddled Chiba. The grindhouses just wanted to run movies where he’s all about beating everyone down. Chiba reunites with Masashi Ishibashi his rival from The Street Fighter movies. The duo goes another round on the big screen.
Karate Bearfighter (1975 – 87 minutes) opens with a karate demonstration led by the real Masutatsu Oyama. The drama begins with Oyama (Sonny Chiba) practicing at a dojo until he’s revealed as the man who used karate to kill. The master (Ishibashi) and most of the students don’t want to practice with a guy that might put them into a coma. A few stupid students jump Oyama outside the school and learn a heart lesson in how easily their bones break. The pressure is getting to be too much for Oyama. He gets drunk at a Ramen shop and finds himself being befriended by a Yakuza boss. He becomes a bit of an enforcer at their nightclub operations as a super bouncer. He has a huge fight with a U.S. soldier that gets him in trouble with the mobsters. He retreats to the country to get his head straightened out. When trouble happens, he gets a strange offer to fight a recently captured bear. He had already taken out a bull. Shouldn’t Oyama be able to handle the ferocious teeth and claws?
While they used a real bull for part of the previous fight; the bear is always a guy in a brown furry bear suit. The guy in the suit doesn’t get too campy in his fighting style. There is a sense that he’s chopping away at the costumed bear from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. Director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi does a lot to obscure the fight so that bear doesn’t look quite as obvious. The bloody battle is entertaining and you don’t have to worry about how they treated a real bear on the set.
Karate Bullfighter and Karate Bearfighter are the first two parts of a trilogy. The third installment Karate For Life is featured on The Sonny Chiba Collection: Volume 2. Oyama doesn’t battle any animals in the finale. His main opponents are the animalistic men that he faces during his pro wrestling career.
If you were turned on by the clip of Sonny Chiba fighting the bear before Cocaine Bear, you’ll be excited to see the whole film and the previous entry. Beast Fighter: Karate Bullfighter and Karate Bearfighter (Collector’s Edition) has Sonny Chiba prove he’s got a death punch that can take out any creature that challenges him.
The Video for both movies is 2.35:1 anamorphic. The 1080p transfer was made from the movies original film elements. They look so much better than whatever source the Alamo used for the clips. This upgrade in resolution also will make it easier to spot the stunt bull and bear in the fights. The Audio is Japanese LPCM 2.0 mono on both films. Only Karate Bullfighter has an English LPCM 2.0 mono track. Both movies are subtitled in English.
Audio Commentary on Karate Bullfighter by Mike Leeder and Arne Venema has them excited to talking about the movie. They joke about how the opening of the karate fighter training on the beach feels like Chariots of Fire’s big scene. They talk about this is no-holds-bar Karate that’s about inflicting pain and not “dancing.” One of them interviewed Masutatsu Oyama so he relates his time with the Master. They bust myths when they appear in the film. They get into the history of the “banning” of Karate during the occupation period. They give background on regular Toei actors including Sonny Chiba’s brother (Jirō Yabuki).
Audio Commentary on Karate Bearfighter by Mike Leeder and Arne Venema is fine listen. They get into the cross-cultural adaptation of karate in Japan. Best moment is when they go into the long emotional scene where the little kid chases after a train carrying Sonny Chiba. They question how fast the kid is to maintain that speed on gravel.
In Search of the Ultimate Truth (20:34) is a video essay by Johnathan Clements about the legend and reality of Masutatsu Oyama. The karate champ had his life turned into a manga and anime before arriving into the life action version with Sonny Chiba in the role. Clements gets into the history of what Oyama did during the times captured on film. In order to promote the film, Sonny Chiba went to a karate tournament and walked off with hardware.
Alternate Opening Credits (2:14) from when Karate Bullfighter was retitled “Champion of Death” in English speaking markets.
Original Theatrical Trailer (2:54) opens with Sonny Chiba chopping open a glass Coke bottle.
Champion of Death TV Spot (1:00) lets us know an army of Karate killers is preparing to take on Sonny Chiba.
Original Theatrical Trailer (3:02) has Sonny Chiba taking on an entire dojo before facing the bear.
Booklet has an essay by Eddie Falvey on Masutatsu Oyama and Sonny Chiba.
Eureka! Entertainment presents Beast Fighter: Karate Bullfighter and Karate Bearfighter – Collector’s Edition. Directed by Kazuhiko Yamaguchi. Screenplays by Norifumi Suzuki, Nobuaki Nakajima & Masahiro Kakefuda. Starring Sonny Chiba, Yumi Takigawa, Mikio Narita, Katsumasa Uchida, Kenji Imai, Nenji Kobayashi, Eiji Gô & Yutaka Nakajima. Boxset contents: 2 movies on 2 Blu-ray discs. Rating: Unrated. Release Date: June 25, 2024.
