1975's Karate Bullfighter, released in North America theatrically the same year under the title Champion of Death perhaps to cash in on the tournament fight scenes that highlight the film, is a loose adaptation of a part of Matutatsu Oyama's life story. Oyama was Chiba's Sensai which makes him a fitting choice to play his real life teacher in the first of three big screen adaptations of his life story. The film takes its name from the legend revolving around Oyama in which he apparently proved his fighting prowess by killing full grown (and glass bottles – something he would demonstrate on screen again during a press conference in The Bodyguard) bulls using only his bare hands and his karate skills.

The film begins with Oyama arriving at a local fighting tournament dressed in rags. The locals think him a vagrant but this doesn't stop a local karate entrepreneur from wanting to groom the young man into something more. Unfortunately, he blows it when he gets wasted one night and kills a man who probably didn't really deserve such a fate. To make up for his heinous deed, Oyama leaves the competitive karate scene and heads out to the country to restore his honor by helping out at the farm of the family of the man who he just killed.

Oyama attempts to live a peaceful life and to put his rough past behind him, focusing on the farm and trying to do the right thing, stopping along the way to fight a bull who is running rampant through the town. His past catches up with him however, when a team of trained killers show up at the farmhouse to avenge the dead man's death. Oyama is forced to defend himself and ends up returning to the world he once disavowed, to prove his worth as a karate master.

While Chiba is given more to do in this film than just run around and kick ass (something that he's very proficient at), the action scenes are definitely the high points in the film. Chiba had worked with director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi and he knew how to make Chiba look good on screen. While he spends much of the film brooding over his regretful past and stewing in his misery, he's never less than an extremely imposing figure and when he busts loose and busts out in the final act of the film, even though we know it's coming, his character becomes a behemoth, a larger than life fighter using his skills to the best of his ability.

Not only are the tournament scenes fantastic – Yamaguchi proves he knows how to film a fight scene, making everything look, sound and feel simply savage in this film – but the Oyama versus rampant bull scene is one of those pivotal moments in Chiba's career that defines him as a fighter. While the marketing team for the film used this image to promote the film with some very colorful one sheets (one of which proudly adorns the walls of my home), the artists rendition of Chiba killing the huge animal cannot do justice to the film where Chiba relieves the beast of its horn in a flurry of bright red arterial spray. The man who fights like an animal single handedly defeats an animal, somehow bringing the film full circle in a scene that, while totally unrealistic in the way that it is portrayed and done with some rather low budget looking special effects, somehow manages to seem one hundred percent appropriate for the film and its lead.

Video:

Previously released as a completely barebones DVD from United American Video under the title Champion Of Death, the film was improperly framed on a transfer that suffered from bad compression artifacts and constant print damage. Adness' newly re-mastered 2.35.1 anamorphic release presents the film in its complete uncut form in its proper aspect ratio restoring some noticeably absent picture information on the left and right side of the frame. Print damage is almost completely non-existent and aside from a very natural looking coat of grain the image is very clean and highly detailed.