ZA KARATE 3 aka PERILS OF KARATE (1975)

This is the final movie in the absurd but thoroughly entertaining ZA KARATE trilogy starring Tadashi Yamashita as Tadashi Yamashita. At some point between parts two and three, Yamashita underwent surgery to restore his eyesight and is now working as a truck driver to earn money to buy his own dojo. Meanwhile, assholes from all over the globe keep showing up in town to challenge his World Karate Champ title, with the current crop including Crazy Ron from Taiwan, Muhammad Basura (Arab Karate Champion), the Dracula Habu Brothers (Okanawa Midani Style), and the Devil Cross, fighters dressed like Catholic priests who throw razor-lined saturnos and swing crucifixes with retractable blades ("Vatican Cross Style"). And then there's the Black Wolf, played by a totally out of control Donnie Williams, whose reaction to the villain's recap of the first two films is one of the funniest cut-back-to shots I've seen in a long time. The story, such as it is, centers around a new Ryushu Budoukan and the attempts by its corrupt board members to thwart the appointment of Tai Chi Master Chin as the chairman. As with the previous installments, Yamashita's comic relief sidekick Sanpei is annoying as hell, but the fights are still the main attraction and this entry delivers the goods. All in all, ZA KARATE 3 is a satisfying conclusion to a consistently enjoyable series. Oh, and despite what most other movie websites claim, this is not the movie that New Line Cinema released in the U.S. as BRONSON LEE, CHAMPION. That's ZA KARATE, which I reviewed two days ago. This one was called PERILS OF KARATE when it played in Hawaii in 1977.

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ZA KARATE 2 (1974)

Tadashi Yamashita is back as Tadashi Yamashita in the second of three ZA KARATE/THE KARATE movies. He's still blind from getting his eyes burned with a hot poker, which gives him the opportunity to do some of the blindfolded swordsman stunts he was known for at the time (like slicing watermelons balanced on people's stomachs). It turns out he also won that World Karate Championship, a source of rage for martial artists around the world who start flying in to Kyoto to pick fights with him, beginning with the Guillotine Brothers from New Guinea, who attack him while he's eating ramen barely three minutes into the movie (and that's counting the recap and the opening credits). They're followed by Blue Geller (West Germany), Dr. One (Sweden), Killer Samson (USA), and best of all, Bolo Yeung as Dracula Jack (Hong Kong), who's first shown slamming his head through a car windshield, punching a hole through the hood, kicking off the passenger door, and finally -– because none of that was badass enough -– lifting the car with his bare hands. The main plot involves a sword called the Onikirimaru, a national treasure of Japan, which was en route to the US for an exhibit when it was stolen by a gang that's now using it to try and wrestle the Seibu-kai Association away from tournament organizer Master Suzuki. The leader of the gang kills people using a method called “Kishin-Style Hidden-Fist: Fragmentation,” identified in text superimposed over a freeze frame of arterial spray as one victim's ribcage is pulverized. No sophomore slump here, just a lot of fun with more real karate guys in exciting fights with Yamashita, all filmed cleanly and competently. Because New Line bought the first ZA KARATE movie and sat on it until 1978, this one was simply titled KARATE when it opened in Honolulu on October 8, 1975.

ZA KARATE aka BRONSON LEE, CHAMPION (1974)

In this first film in the ZA KARATE trilogy, Japanese-American martial artist Tadashi Yamashita (played by Japanese-American martial artist Tadashi Yamashita) travels to Kyoto to compete in a Budo tournament, hoping to use the $50,000 prize money to save his family’s farm in Ohio. His superior fighting skills anger several opponents including the ruthless Black Tiger, whose underworld managers try to kill Yamashita before the rematch but end up blinding him instead. This is much better than I remembered from my first viewing 35 years ago on the pan-and-scan Warner Home Video tape, mostly because it features real competition fighters of the day and director Yukio Noda knew how to film them in action, eschewing the shaky hand-held camerawork that ruins a lot of the fight scenes in other Toei karate films. New Line Cinema acquired the U.S. rights in 1975 and planned to release it as KAPTAIN KARATE, but the title became BRONSON LEE, CHAMPION once Yamashita's onscreen persona was dubbed with a bad Ohio farm boy accent and renamed Bronson Lee (though he's plainly seen wearing a gi with “YAMASHITA” emblazoned across the back). The New Line version -– which didn't come out until 1978 -– was edited by Jack Sholder and dubbed by future DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE director Joseph Ellison for Simon Nuchtern's August Films. Two sequels followed, neither of which were distributed by New Line, and today most movie websites erroneously claim that ZA KARATE 3 is BRONSON LEE, CHAMPION.