A) What is that distinctive sound called when you open your mouth, shake your head from side to side very rapidly, and make that "I’m just plain baffled sound"?

B) What the fuck is this shit? This is packaged as a Sonny Chiba Double Feature, while Hattori Hanzo himself is only seen in a brief cameo for the first film (the second film just flat-out sucks)!

Disc One

Fighting Fist (1992) - Directed by Sonny Chiba
A very John Woo-inspired crime drama that closely resembles something I would have ordered from Video Search of Miami back in the early 90s and thought was cool then (of course, I know better now).

Fighting Fist is about as cheap as cheap gets: an assassin screws up the lives of all of his old friends when he crosses the wrong gang. Soon, everyone is getting killed (some interesting dismemberments here, kids - worth watching for that, I guess) and there’s some really bad accompanying Casio keyboard music which would have rivaled the latest King’s Quest CD-ROM game of the time. One character uses the ol’ switchblade shoe weapon first introduced onscreen in From Russia With Love and Sonny Chiba shows up for all of two minutes (seriously) and received credit for directing (although the IMDb once listed Casey Chan as the director). Shogo Shioya, Sibelle Hu, Kar Lok Chin are the actual top-billed actors.

Despite the occasional interesting scene, this movie should mainly serves as evidence that Sonny Chiba is much better when he actually has a budget to work with or doesn’t team up with Hong Kong filmmakers (it was a co-production… just like the next film… enjoy).

Disc Two

Soul Of Bruce Lee (1974) - Directed by Yukio Noda
I honestly have no idea what the devil is going on throughout this incomprehensible mess of a movie. It opens with some warriors gunning down a woman. Her son vows to kill them all then goes to a karate school and grows up to be Sonny Chiba. Next, the school’s master decides to give us a little exposition in the form of voiceover narration - shortly before he is killed by another pupil, that is (this all happens within the first two-minutes of the film).

Yes, the director knew that this movie was going to be so utterly un-figure-out-able that he opted to kill off the narrator early in the film, no doubt to spare us from any more confusion. A few other characters manage to give us a little back-story here and there (like the mother of two guys that are somehow connected… somewhere), but all it does it cause one to raise an eyebrow in bewilderment.

The main villain’s name is Samuan… which, in the English version, sounds like "Someone". This in itself causes many unintentional laughs: "Someone’s on the other side of the island. I understood him."

Sure, this Japanese/Hong Kong co-production stinks to high heaven, but there are some amazing lowlights to look out for including Bronson Lee’s dubbed voice turning Southern about halfway through the movie; a music bed that sounds so lumpy and warped I’d swear that the mattress needs to be turned; gratuitous scenes of Sonny eating things; the grand scene of Sonny electrocuting himself whilst hooked up to wires and wearing a diaper; Bolo Yeung just kind of shows up and disappears whenever he damn well pleases; an evil Cheech Marin-looking guy who has such poor peripheral vision that he somehow fails to notice a good drug dealer (!) walk right in front of him to push the receiver down on his phone (a scene that was staged, acted, filmed, and edited so badly that it literally had me in tears from laughing); Bronson Lee using his own arm as a bow; and Sonny going up against four weird assassins that act like monkeys (which spawns an entire subplot about monkey magic or some such nonsense).

Best of all, the movie has absolutely nothing to do with Bruce Lee: it’s a Bruceploitation film in name only.

Presentation

Disc One
Not only is Fighting Fist something I would have ordered by mail back in the day, it looks like the kind of quality I would’ve received. The source material here is obviously from video (and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the movie was shot on video to begin with - it’s hard to tell for sure, though) but it’s still rather watchable. The movie is presented in a 1.85:1 widescreen ratio (it looks a bit cropped in place) and the soundtrack is Japanese 2.0. Non-removable English Subtitles are on hand (they’re non-removable, but they’re not burned-in).

Disc Two
As if to add a little more salt on the second feature’s wound of confusion, the viewer is actually given a choice which cut of Soul Of Bruce Lee they want to watch: the English dubbed print or the original Japanese dialogue version with English Subtitles. The English language print is the better-looking of the two (which isn’t saying much): it is cropped from its original 2.35:1 widescreen presentation down to a cropped 1.85:1 and the overall appearance of the film is rather unappealing (which of course, is the preferred way to watch an absolute oddity like this). The Japanese language version is roughly three minutes longer, somewhat colorless, and it is cropped down even further to 1.66:1 and boasts optional English Subtitles (why not just the same, better-looking print for both audio tracks and splice in the almost 3 minutes of additional Japanese footage with subtitles?).

It is interesting to note that the credits for the Japanese version are from the English cut while the English print utilizes Italian language credits with a German title card. Go ahead, try and figure that one out!

Please note the dreaded "Please Note" disclaimer located near the bottom of the back cover which states "Every effort has been made to find the best possible source material for this DVD. Unfortunately, these films has been lost for many years and these recently discovered prints are the only known surviving elements available." Not only did they suddenly switch to Engrish for the second sentence (read it again… it should read "have" instead of "has"), but they also forget to include the words "that our budget allowed".

Neither title is anamorphic. Frown.

Extras
Both discs include the same Rarescope Promo (4:41) that I’ve seen so many times now that I would almost opt for not buying another Rarescope title (that doesn’t mean I won’t - I’m a glutton for punishment - but I do think you could spice up the Special Features department, Rarescope.

The Bottom Line
If it’s the only Chiba DVD you can find, make sure to watch the second film first (but be warned: it’s bad, too - so if you actually have any taste, avoid this whole two-disc set). Otherwise, stick to Shadow Warriors, the Street Fighter series, or Timeslip instead.

		Sonny Chiba Double Feature...
2		Feature - Recommended for kung-fu film masochists only (or Rudy Ray Moore).
2		Video - Amazing what you can find when you raid those VHS bargain bins, isn’t it?
2		Audio - It’s like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad all over again (up and down, up and down).
-		Extras - Blinkity blank.

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