Sonny Chiba's 10 best movies: Remembering the Japanese action film legend, who died of coronavirus complications aged 82

The impact of the global pandemic continues unabated with the sad news that Japanese action star Shinichi “Sonny” Chiba has died from Covid-19, aged 82.

In a career spanning six decades and close to 200 film and television roles, Chiba was one of Japan’s biggest stars and continued working right up until his death.

Fans of contemporary Hong Kong cinema will probably remember him playing the villain Lord Conqueror in The Storm Riders (1998), an effects-heavy martial arts movie.

A black belt in six different disciplines, including karate, judo, and kendo, Chiba originally planned to be a professional athlete, before a back injury forced him to change career paths.

He opened his own training school, Japan Action Club, for aspiring action stars and stunt men, choreographed many of his own movies and counts Hiroyuki Sanada among his former students.

Chiba’s best decade was the 1970s. He found international fame as the eponymous star of 1974’s The Street Fighter, as well as its numerous sequels and spin-offs.

His character, a morally ambiguous karate expert and mercenary, did battle with a wide array of gangsters, drug dealers and dirty cops in a series of ultraviolent showdowns.

Chiba’s brawler, gruffer and meaner than Bruce Lee ’s on-screen persona, was embraced by audiences whose appetites had been whetted by the late Hong Kong star.

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In recent decades, Chiba enjoyed a career revival thanks to Quentin Tarantino.

The American director referenced him in his screenplay for True Romance (1993), in which Christian Slater’s fanboy protagonist attends a Street Fighter triple feature, and hails Chiba as “the finest actor working in martial arts movies today”.

Tarantino later cast Chiba in Kill Bill: Volume 1 (2003) as legendary swordsmith Hattori Hanzo, named after Chiba’s character from the 1980s television series Shadow Warriors.

To mark his death, we recall 10 of our favourite Sonny Chiba movies.

1. Invasion of the Neptune Men (1961)

In his first starring role, Chiba plays a scientist-turned-superhero who helps fend off an alien invasion in this black-and-white tokusatsu cheapie.

Derided by some for its modest budget and clunky dialogue, the film is imbued with a delightfully wholesome quality absent from much of Chiba’s canon.

2. Battles Without Honour and Humanity: Hiroshima Death Match (1973)

For the second chapter of Battle Royale director Kinji Fukasaku’s “ripped from the headlines” crime opus, Chiba sports aviator shades and a floppy fedora to play the wildly unpredictable son of a yakuza boss.

Although only a supporting character, Chiba’s frenzied performance eclipses those of the film’s hero, Kinya Kitaoji, and series star Bunta Sugawara.

3. The Street Fighter (1974)

Chiba found global recognition in Shigehiro Ozawa’s action classic, the first film to earn an X rating in the United States solely for its violence.

The film spawned two sequels as well as the Sister Street Fighter spin-off series, but none can match the original for bone-crushing, throat-gouging mayhem.

4. Wolf Guy (1975)

A bizarre, genre-bending oddity that blends supernatural horror with high-kicking karate action, Chiba is at his wild-eyed best as the sole descendant from an ancient clan of werewolves, who investigates a string of savage murders in contemporary Tokyo.

Every bit as deranged as it sounds, Wolf Guy is a bona fide cult classic.

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5. The Bullet Train (1975)

Two decades before Keanu Reeves hit big with Speed , Chiba plays the conductor of a high-speed shinkansen bullet train who discovers there is a bomb on board that will detonate if the train slows down.

More an ensemble disaster movie than a straight-up action film, The Bullet Train is nevertheless a non-stop thrill ride.

6. Doberman Cop (1977)

Riffing on Clint Eastwood hits Dirty Harry and Coogan’s Bluff, Chiba reunites with frequent collaborator Fukasaku for this hugely entertaining fish-out-of-water thriller, in which his uncouth Okinawa cop heads to the big city, and proceeds to tear it apart, investigating the murder of a young island prostitute.

7. Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon (1977)

Sonny Chiba comes to Hong Kong in this exotic and fast-paced co-production, the second big-screen adaptation of Takao Saito’s iconic manga.

As legendary hitman Golgo 13, Chiba arrives to kill a notorious drug lord, which sets him on a collision course with Ga Lun’s hard-nosed Hong Kong cop.

8. Shogun’s Samurai (1978)

Fukasaku’s thrilling period drama is a lavish tale of betrayal and intrigue in the upper echelons of power.

Chiba reprises his role as royal fencing instructor Yagyu from the TV series The Yagyu Conspiracy, and received his sole Japanese Academy Award nomination in the process. He would play the part again in 1981’s Samurai Reincarnation.

9. G.I. Samurai (1979)

A big-budget time-travel action adventure that raises poignant questions about the nature of war, Chiba stars as a JSDF lieutenant who is transported, together with his men and military equipment, back in time 400 years, where they become embroiled in a bloody feud between rival warlords.

10. The Triple Cross (1992)

This late-career highlight, and final collaboration between Chiba and Fukasaku, follows three ageing crooks on one final heist, who inevitably turn on one another when their plunder proves insufficient.

Gritty, pessimistic, and brimming with nostalgia, the film resonates with the same world-weary irony as those of Ringo Lam at his best.

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This article was first published in South China Morning Post.