Blu-ray Release: Beast Fighter: Karate Bullfighter & Karate Bearfighter

By
Laurence
– July 20, 2024Find Others: Blu-ray, Movie, New Release, NewsGet More: , ,

Blu-ray Release Date: Available now
Price: Blu-ray $38.81
Studio: Eureka/MVD

The inimitable Sonny Chiba (Bodyguard Kiba) stars in Karate Bullfighter and Karate Bearfighter, two spectacular martial arts movies from 1975 that are based upon the real life of Masutatsu “Mas” Ōyama – the fabled bull-slaying karate master who trained none other than Chiba himself.

In Karate Bullfighter (aka Champion of Death), a karate tournament is crashed by an enigmatic martial artist calling himself Ōyama (Chiba), who arrives in tattered rags and beats all who dare challenge him. But Ōyama’s entrance into the world of karate has unforeseen consequences, and soon he is fighting for far more than sporting victory. Then, in Karate Bearfighter, Ōyama is expelled from the karate community for refusing to pull his punches. With no where else to turn, he takes a job with the yakuza after running into Kimura (Hideo Murota), who Ōyama once knew as a fellow member of the Imperial Japanese Air Service before he turned to a life of crime. Ultimately, though, Ōyama has no more respect for his superiors on the streets than he did in the dojo…

Directed by Kazuhiko Yamaguchi (Sister Street Fighter), Karate Bullfighter and Karate Bearfighter were adapted from the popular manga series Karate Baka Ichidai by Ikki Kajiwara, which ran from 1971 to 1977 and chronicled the life and legend of Mas Ōyama.

Eureka Classics presents both films for the first time ever on Blu-ray from new restorations of the original film elements by Toei.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

  • 1080p presentations of both films across two Blu-ray discs, from new restorations of the original film elements by Toei
  • Original Japanese mono audio
  • Brand new feature length audio commentaries on both films by action cinema experts Mike Leeder & Arne Venema
  • In Search of the Ultimate Truth – Brand new video essay by Jonathan Clements, author of A Brief History of the Martial Arts
  • Original theatrical trailers

Buy or Rent Beast Fighter: Karate Bullfighter & Karate Bearfighter

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About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.