The Street Fighter - English Dub (1974) ***1/2

You kind of have to admire a movie with a protagonist as ruthless as Sonny Chiba's Takuma "Terry" Tsurugi in 1974's The Street Fighter. The film makes no bones about the fact that Terry (in the English dub) is a bastard (though he does have a few, um, tender moments) and his over the top mean-mugging is endlessly enjoyable. The plot is a bit hard to follow and honestly not that interesting, and even the fights are a little sloppy, but Chiba's physicality and the sleazy exploitation factor are what truly sell the picture. 

The Street Fighter was one of the first commercially successful films for distributer New Line Cinema and also notable for being the first film to receive an X-rating in the US for violence alone. Toei really capitalized on the success of TSF—amazingly cranking out two sequels (Return Of The Street Fighter and The Street Fighter's Last Revenge) plus two (out of four) of the Sister Street Fighter spinoff series films (Sister Street Fighter and Sister Street Fighter: Hanging By A Thread) all in the same year!