Sonny Chiba
Sonny Chiba (千葉真一, Chiba Shin'ichi, born 23 January, 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".
Biography
As a student at Nippon Taiiku University, 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, 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 actor 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.
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
- There was a homage to the special effect used in Chiba's Street Fighter and Hong Kong's The Storm Riders (Feng yun xiong ba tian xia) (1998), where the injuries he gives are viewed like an x-ray, in the climax of Romeo Must Die (2000).
