DVD Review: Sonny Chiba Action Pack

Sonny Chiba is a verifiable international film legend. You talk to any self-diagnosed film geek and mention the name Sonny Chiba and they will very likely tell you when and where the first time they watched Street Fighter was. The man could put bums in seats in a theatre. Proof in the pudding comes in a 3-disc collection of classic action films starring the Chiba; Virus, Golgo 13 and Bullet Train. The promise of three films starring the Chiba with plenty of action is very appealing. So how do Ronin Entertainment and BCI Eclipse do with their Sonny Chiba Action Pack?

Virus was directed by the late Kinji Fukasaku and is the uncut International version. All 2 hours and 38 minutes of it. Cripes it was long and unnecessary. However, it is poignant considering the focus on diseases such as Avian Influenza and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. We’re on a slow path to self destruction and films like this remind us of where we have been with Black Death and Spanish Flu and where we are headed with Bird Flu and Mad Cow Disease. There just wasn’t enough Chiba, or action with Chiba in it.

Golgo 13 was a fantastic romp. It just oozed that 70s camp and cool. Chiba was more in his element in this one as the assassin Golgo 13, hired to eliminate a drug lord in Hong Kong. Hot on his trails are the police and the game of cat and mouse begins. Very, very cool.

Then we reverted back to not enough Chiba and not enough action with Chiba in it with Bullet Train. If it didn’t serve as inspiration for SPEED you could have fooled me. A bullet train is armed with a bomb and will go off if the train lowers it speed, unless a ransom is paid. Ken Takakura plays the bomber in this film and his presence is massive! Chiba plays a nervous bullet train driver. Not so cool or massive.

Calling this the Sonny Chiba Action Pack is a bit of a fallacy. The only true Sonny Chiba film out of the bunch is Golgo 13. In the other two Sonny is merely part of an ensemble cast and is clearly overshadowed by some serious talent the likes of Ken Takakura and Tetsuro Tamba. Please don’t get me wrong. Chiba is a legend in his own right but in Virus and Bullet Train he gets maybe a total of 10 minutes screen time.

I praise Ronin Entertainment for pulling together what they have. From the insert include with the DVDs they explain the source of each film and its premium. The International version of Virus has never been seen in the U.S. The English dub track on Golgo 13 was cleaned and restored. And, the version of Bullet Train was the U.S. theatrical version, which is dubbed and just adds to the camp and fun of the movie. Ronin admits they tried to get the Japanese version in the set but space was limited. Dang. All three films look excellent and the images are clean and crisp. All three films were digitally restored and look great. Sound quality varies per film but that had to be unavoidable. Apart from Bullet Train the other two films include both English and Japanese audio.

Ronnin Entertainment and BCI Eclipse promise something big with their 3-dsic collection, Sonny Chiba Action Pack. They promise Sonny Chiba. They promise action. And they promise it in a pack. They were close. Oh Sonny is definitely there. And the action is there too. Sadly, I would have liked to have seen both spread out a lot more over all three discs instead of just one. There is hope however. Judging by the trailers that fill up space left over on each DVD it appears that Ronin is going after the Toei catalogue and bringing a lot of samurai and costume epics to their library. There is more Chiba and Tamba on the horizon and that has me as giddy like a little school girl. Titter.