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(Chiba in Hepcat in the Funky Hat, 1961)
Chiba tribute - part 1/3
I couldn't help but to write a very small tribute to Chiba's career.
While Chiba is best known abroad for his karate films, there is so much more to him. Before becoming a karate hero, he was a popular idol in the early 60s when he appeared in detective films, youth dramas, war films, science fiction films, and superhero adventures. He debuted as an actor in the television superhero series New Seven Color Mask (1960) where he played the lead role, made his first film appearance in Police Department Story: Alibi (1961), and landed his first starring role in the Western influenced Wandering Detective: Tragedy in Red Valley (1961), which was Kinji Fukasaku's directorial debut.In the first three years of his film career alone, Chiba appeared in 36 movies! Among my favourite Chiba performances from the "Early Years" are an enthusiastic but naí¯ve little brother in Fukasaku's gangster film Gang vs. G-Men (1962), a pacifist painter in the war drama The Navy (1963), a cheerful gymnastics teacher in the youth drama / musical film Here Because of You (1964), and a young man who becomes a political assassin in Sadao Nakajima's gripping true account Memoirs of Japanese Assassins (1969). A special mention goes to the superb Army Intelligence 33 (1968), a mixture of war time film noir and action, in which Chiba plays a suave spy first tasked with stealing secret information from a foreign diplomat, and later sent on a jungle commando mission.
Chiba rose to stardom with the phenomenally popular detective / spy TV series Key Hunter (1968-1973). Chiba played one of the detectives alongside Tetsuro Tamba. He was also in charge of designing the action sequences and performing several death defying stunts, such as climbing out of a speeding car's window and grabbing on to a small air plane while it's taking off. This series is what Chiba is best known for among many older Japanese people, and what also led him to establish his own film school, Japan Action Club in 1970. Key Hunter marked the beginning of the 2nd phase in Chiba's career, “Modern Actionâ€. He would follow Key Hunter with films like the 4 film Yakuza Deka series (1970-1971), Jail Breakers (1976), G.I. Samurai (1979) and Adventurer Kamikaze (1981), which were full of crazy stunts similar to what would later be seen in Hong Kong Cinema in the 80s.
(Chiba in Yakuza Deka 4: No Epitaphs for Us, 1971)
Chiba was also a seminal figure in the gritty "Crime Films" of the 70s. He was a bearded avenger in Yakuza Wolf (1972), whose visual approach was influenced by both Japanese films and spaghetti westerns, particularly Sergio Corbucci's Django. Chiba made one his very best films with the skilfully written thriller A Narcotics Agent's Ballad (1972), in which he plays an undercover cop infiltrating a drug syndicate. Another drug themed film, Tokyo-Seoul-Bangkok Drug Triangle (1973), filmed in Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong and Japan, saw him act opposite Nora Miao. But the real game changer was Hiroshima Deathmatch (1973), which saw Chiba portray a villain for the first time. Originally cast as the main character, a last minute casting change placed Chiba in the boots of the film's barbaric villain, now recognized as the foundation for Chiba's later anti-heroes in films like The Street Fighter (1974) and Okinawa Yakuza War (1976). The latter featured Chiba as a karate-obsessed, out of control yakuza psychopath. One of his most charismatic turns was however playing a beard-faced gangster boss afraid for his family's safety in Okinawa 10 Year War (1978).
Chiba's biggest international success came with the “Karate Films†from 1974 onwards. Chiba had been pushing martial arts in films before, but there was a lack of domestic demand, and a lack of domestic talent. With JAC in full swing by 1973, and Chiba having found reliable collaborators such as martial arts master turned actor Masashi Ishibashi (first collaboration in Key Hunter, followed by Bodyguard Kiba 2 in 1973) and Etsuko Shihomi (stunt double in Bodyguard Kiba 1, actress in Bodyguard Kiba 2), the gang was finally together. Fast forward till Dec 1973, and Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon opens in Japan (it was the first Lee film distributed in Japan, with the rest to follow in 1974-1975) to a phenomenal success. Suddenly, the demand was there! Chiba was already in the middle of filming The Street Fighter (1974), which would hit the screens just 5 weeks later. The following year would see the introduction of excellent historical biopics from Karate Bullfighter (1975) to Killing Machine (1975) and the superbly written gem The Defensive Power of Aikido (1975), which starred Chiba's brother Jiro. But Chiba's most exhilarating film may be the absolutely brilliant noir / action / sci-fi / werewolf mashup Wolfguy (1975) which remains the only movie I've watched three times during the same day in theatre.
(Return of the Street Fighter, 1974)
After action and gangster films waned down in the late 70s, Chiba found perhaps his biggest calling in “Jidai Gekiâ€. The massive ninja epic Shadow Warriors (1980-1985), in which he plays Hattori Hanzo, may be the best know abroad, however, his greatest role was portraying the one-eyed ninja Yagyu Jubei in film, on television and on stage. The incredible 39 episode Yaguy Clan Conspiracy (1979-1980) series may be the greatest work in Chiba career. He had already played the same character in Fukasaku's Shogun's Samurai (1978), and would return to the role in Samurai Reincarnation (1981). Chiba also delivered a heartfelt performance in Fukasaku's excellent 47 Ronin tale Swords of Vengeance (1978), and appeared in the same director's exhilarating samurai pop idol epic Legend of the Eight Samurai, starring Hiroko Yakushimaru and Hiroyuki Sanada.
All this is just touching the surface on Chiba's incredible career, not to mention his many roles from the 90s to present day. All the career phases mentioned above contain many, sometimes dozens of more noteworthy films, not to mention TV productions such as the awesome Kazuo Koike manga adaptation Modern Witch Tale (1973) in which Chiba plays a 300 year old which and assassin for hire, and badass karate / action / drama series The Bodyguard (1974), which co-starred Etsuko Shihomi. Speaking of whom, Chiba also found time to tutor several future super stars. Etsuko Shihomi was a big Chiba fangirl who applied to JAC as a teenager. The judges failed her (“no boobs, looks like a boy, no potentialâ€) but Chiba vetoed the decision and took her in. When Angela Mao dropped from Sister Street Fighter, Chiba proposed Shihomi as the replacement! Hiroyuki Sanada was an even earlier acquaintance: he played the son of Chiba's character at the age of 5 in the three very entertaining Game of Chance period yakuza films in 1966-1867. Sanada would later enter JAC and become a major star in the 80s (before which he briefly appeared as "young Chiba" in Teruo Ishii's madcap karate film The Executioner, 1974).
(Left: Chiba and Hiroyuki Sanada. Right: Chiba and Etsuko Shihomi)
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