Sonny Chiba
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Sonny Chiba, real name Shin'ichi Chiba (千葉真一 Chiba Shin'ichi, born January 23, 1939 in Fukuoka, Kyushu, Japan) is a martial arts actor, regarded by many as "the Bruce Lee of Japan" and hailed by Quentin Tarantino as "the greatest actor to ever work in martial arts films."
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Biography
As a student at Nippon Sport Science University (Nippon Taiiku Daigaku), Chiba trained for the 1964 Summer Olympics Japanese gymnastics team, but a hip injury from his part-time job in construction work put an end to his gymnastics career. He then decided to devote his energies to martial arts, studying under the World Karate Grand Master Mas Oyama Koncho, who he later portrayed in Champion of Death (Kenka karate kyokushinken) (1975).
He has starred in more than 125 films for Toei Studios and has won numerous awards in Japan for his acting. He has black belts in several martial arts, including a 4th-dan in Ninjutsu and is founder of the Japanese Action Club (JAC), that aims to raise the level of martial arts techniques in Japanese film and television. He lives in Los Angeles, in the United States with his second wife, and is the father of martial arts actor Juri (Julie) Manase from his first marriage to Japanese actress Yoko Nogiwa.
Career highlights
Chiba's most famous film in the West is The Street Fighter (1974), known for its brutally graphic violence, such as when he rips out a man's vocal chords and dangles the parts in front of the camera. It spawned two sequels and even a spin-off entitled Sister Street Fighter.
Jidaigeki are a Chiba specialty. He played the lead role in three series under the title Kage no Gundan, starring as Hattori Hanzo in the first series, and as successors to Hanzo in the sequels. The JAC provided many of the extras in these series.
In recent years, Quentin Tarantino has reignited Western interest in Sonny Chiba. In the cinema scene in True Romance (1993), where Clarence and Alabama meet for the first time, they watch Street Fighter and its sequels. Tarantino gave Chiba a role in his blood-soaked revenge opus Kill Bill (2003) as Hattori Hanzo, a sword-maker, who is in retirement as a sushi chef, that "The Bride" goes to see. He was also a fight choreographer (Kenjutsu) and technical advisor for swords in the film.
Trivia
- In Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994) Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) quotes from Ezekiel 25:17, which was shown in beginning of Karate Kiba (1974).
- In the climax of Romeo Must Die (2000) there was a homage to the special effect used in Chiba's Street Fighter, where the injuries he gives are viewed as an x-ray.