Posts Tagged ‘Sonny Chiba’


Wolfguy: Enraged Lycanthrope

June 4th, 2010 | article by | No Comments »
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company: Toei Films Tokyo
year: 1975
runtime: 86′
director: Kazuhiko Yamaguchi
cast: Sonny Chiba, Etsuko Nami,
Kani Kobayashi, Yayoi Watanabe
writer: Kazumasa Hirai
cinematography: Yoshio Nakajima
music: Hiroshi Baba
Not available on home video

Hard-nosed reporter who never does any reporting Inugami (Sonny Chiba) just happens to be the last of a tribe of werewolves, making him not a ravening beast at the night (and day) of the full moon, but giving him an old-school Wolverine-like self-healing ability as well as superhuman strength and agility on these nights. One non-full moon night, Inugami stumbles over a panicked man running through the city streets screaming something about a tiger and a girl named Miki. Before you can say “Very peculiar, Watson”, an invisible force rips the guy to shreds.

That – and the vision of a tiger – is certainly bizarre enough to get Inugami interested. With the help of his journalist colleague and friend Arai, the reporter soon discovers that the victim was once part of a rock band known as the Mobs, four charming guys who raped a singer named Miki Ogata (Nami Etsuko?). They didn’t only do the deed for kicks, but also because their yakuza-controlled management asked them to, to “teach Miki a lesson”.

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The Golden Bat

July 1st, 2008 | article by | No Comments »
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a.k.a. Ogon Batto
Toei Co. Ltd [1966] 72′
country: Japan
director: HAJIME SATO
cast: SONNY CHIBA, HIROSHI NAKATA,
cast: ANDREW HUGHES, REIKO KASAHARA

Poor young Akira – after spending night after night star gazing and single-handedly discovering that the planet Icarus is on a collision course with Earth, no one in the grown-up world believes him. The police think he has an overactive imagination and the astronomers at the local observatory simply refuse to take his claim seriously for no reason other than that it sounds silly. Just when Akira’s day can’t seem to get any worse, a group of sunglass-and-suit donning henchmen show up and drag him to an isolated chateaus in the Japanese Alps.

There he discovers something he never though possible – an uber-cool super lab funded by the UN under the cover name of the Pearl Institute and existing, seemingly, for the sole purpose of spying on amateur Japanese astronomers, building fantastical weapons (the Super Destruction Beam Cannon!), and saving the Earth from threats like, say, renegade planetary bodies under the control of evil spacemen. After a brief introduction to the facility by Dr. Yamatone (Sonny Chiba!), Akira agrees to join forces with them. The first order of business is to complete the Super Destruction Beam Cannon by locating appropriate material from which to fashion a lens.

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