(Poul Wildaher) unwittingly thaws the creature, for instance. Orion’s digitally remastered
transfer milks the film’s few vir­ tues to the max, resulting in a much richer entertainment than might be expected. (But still not enough to warrant the video box description, “One of the most exciting horror films of all time!”) The colors are far bolder and more luminous than Pathé Color invested in the original theatrical prints, and there’s a fuller, more luxuriant sound mix as well. “Tivoli Nights” has never sound better! (Gee, is Orion actually taking care to secure the video rights to their classic horror scores these days?) Now if modem technology could only fix the monster, we’d have something! The tape box design makes
use of Reynold Brown’s original one-sheet poster art, which easily outclasses any imagery in the movie itself. The feature is pre­ ceded by trailers for other recent Orion sell-through releases, in­ cluding X—THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES, PANIC IN YEAR ZERO andMARS NEEDS WOMEN. —TL
THE STREETFIGHTER
1975, Samurai Video, $28.50 ppd., 89m 30s If TRUE ROMANCE left you
with an appetite for a STREET- FIGHTER triple-bill, this is the place to start! For years, many have heard how this Martial Arts hit was among the first movies to be slapped with an X-rating for extreme violence (it was subse­ quently cut to receive an “R” rat­ ing for its CIS release), but few have actually seen the film in its original, uncut form. Now, thanks to Samurai Video, we can see exactly what Sonny Chiba was up to, and why he upset the MPAAso much! (FoxVideo’s domestic cas­ sette runs nearly 14m shorter!)
No one has ever accused THE
STREETFIGHTER of being cleverly scripted (or well-dubbed, for that matter), but no one can deny that, in its original form, it con­ tinually delivers the brutal goods. After hitman-for-hire Terry Tsurugi (Chiba) turns down an offer to kidnap a wealthy oil heiress, he runs afoul of the local Yakuza, who don’t realize what they’ve gotten themselves into until it’s too late. Teeth are punched out, throats are ripped open, eyes are poked out, and genitals are pulled off with an unequaled fury, but most impres­ sive of all is director Ozawa Shigehiro’s use of “X-ray” pho­ tography for a cranium crunch­ ing bloodspew! Samurai’s tape is assembled
from a Japanese language source print, synchronized wherever pos­ sible with the English soundtrack; as a result, those scenes which were snipped in the CJS remain in Japanese—which really doesn’t matter, since most of the utter­ ances in these scenes involve the painful screaming of Chiba’s un­ fortunate opponents! As well, the film is letterboxed at 2:1, and the feature is followed by a similarly letterboxed 3m trailer for the film. The tape is packaged in a color wrap-around box with Japanese video box art. —ES
STREETFIGHTER 2: RETURN OF THE STREETFIGHTER
1975, Samurai Video, $28.50 ppd., 82m
Almost 7m longer than the
domestic FoxVideo cassette, this is another excellent Samurai video merging of uncut, Japanese, let­ terboxed visuals and a synchro­ nized English dub track. Although inferior to the original film, the chance to see it in its original uncut form is a pleasure indeed. Sonny Chiba returns as Terry
Tsurugi, who is targeted for elimination by an international crime organization (helmed by the American Mafia) when he refuses to kill a personal men­ tor. Tsurugi’s arch-enemy Junjo (Milton Ishibashi) returns for a second thrashing as well, which is remarkable, considering that his throat was tom open at the end of the previous film! As usual, logic is tossed out the window along with Chiba’s enemies, but in the STREETFIGHTER films, some questions are better left unanswered. While the violence is not as
extreme as in the first film, di­ rector Ozawa Shigehiro still manages a few bloody moments that will cause most viewers to take a second look. The movie’s weakest point is a deliberate attempt to pad itself with flash­ backs to highlights from the first feature, but its energy and outrageousness keeps things moving along. A 3m trailer for the movie precedes the feature, and both are presented in a 2.35:1 scope format. The tape itself comes in a hardshell box with a color copy of the Japa­ nese video box. Let’s hope that Samurai Video completes the trilogy soon with a similar pre­ sentation of SISTER STREET- FIGHTER! —ES
TAM LIN
1971, Video Search of Miami, HF, $27.90 ppd., 106m Also known by the titles
THE DEVIL’S WIDOW and THE DEVIL’S WOMAN, this flirta­ tiously decadent ’60s artifact (filmed in ’68, shelved till ’71) is a virtual Sears catalog of future Hammer heroines, and it has the added distinction of being the only film directed to date by actor/photographer Roddy McDowall. Ava Gardner stars as Mickie Cazaret, an idly rich
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