Gekitotsu! Satsujin Ken is the story of Terry Tsurugi (the legendary Sonny Chiba). Terry isn’t a hero. He doesn’t have a heart of gold. He’s a mercenary, an assassin and a deeply unpleasant human being who lives in a world of pure, unadulterated machismo.

When a wealthy oil magnate dies, the Yakuza tries to hire Terry to kidnap the billionaire’s daughter, Sarai. Terry demands a king’s ransom. The Yakuza says no and tries to kill him instead. Big mistake. Huge.

Terry decides to protect the girl out of spite and greed, leading to a non-stop gauntlet of severed limbs, crushed windpipes and a climax on a rain-slicked ship that defines the word overkill.

The Street Fighter is pure, uncut 1970s grindhouse. It’s loud, it’s sweaty, and it has a fuzz-guitar-and-horn soundtrack that will make you want to buy a leather jacket and punch a wall. Chiba doesn’t just fight; he animalistically snarls, gasps, and hyperventilates before exploding into violence. If you’ve ever wanted to see a man’s teeth knocked out in slow-motion X-ray vision or an actual eyeballs-ripped-from-sockets moment, you are in the right place. In fact, the X-ray shot of a skull being crushed was achieved using a medical skeleton and some creative lighting. It became a staple of the franchise and was later homaged in games like Mortal Kombat.

If Terry Tsurugi sounds familiar, you probably remember Clarence and Alabama watching a Chiba triple-feature in True Romance (written by Quentin Tarantino). Tarantino later cast Chiba as Hattori Hanzo in Kill Bill.

The first film to receive an X-rating in the U.S. for just violence, which led the newspaper ads to scream NOTICE: The MPAA has rated this film unsuitable for viewers under the age of 17 because of its extraordinary fight sequences.

There are two sequels, Return of the Street Fighter and The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge, as well as the Sister Street Fighter spinoff series. There was another spinoff, Kozure Satsujin Ken, released in America by Silverstein Film under the title Karate Warriors.

Beyond its influence on Mortal Kombat, The Street Fighter would obviously be a major source of inspiration to Capcom. Their fighting-game franchise, Street Fighter, was originally going to feature a protagonist named Terry Sugury, but that name was changed in favor of Ryu and Ken. SNK would use the name Terry character in Fatal Fury: King of Fighters and with a character named Takuma in Art of Fighting 2.

This movie has a hero — kinda, we cheer for him — who rips another man’s dick clean off.

You can watch this on Cultpix.