Hokuto no Ken

Fun big-screen adaptation of the classic manga and anime series. Much more graphic violence than the TV series could get away with. Most of the popular characters are there with the notable exceptions of Toki and Mamiya. However, Streamline Pictures' dub destroyed any remnants of story in this movie. It makes no sense at all; it never even bothers to explain what the Hokuto Shin Ken style is all about. Even if you don't speak Japanese, rent that version instead. It will still make more sense than Macek's dub.

Hmmmm Fist of the North Star is a tough one. I love the film, because it is essentially an amalgam of popular action films. Ken is essentially a suped up Mad Max/Bruce Lee character, in a Mad Max environment, with the ability to explode heads like a Scanner. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as seeing a Japanese take on films that are essentially foreign makes for an interesting experience. Contrary to popular belief, there is a plot, albeit a fairly straightforward one, but I think that it was definitely sidelined in favour of the graphic violence. This violence is usually the biggest problem for non-fans, as they can't see the humour behind it. The main purpose of Fist of the North Star, in my opinion, is to question the nature of violence on television, as when seen in animation, the most horrific scenes of gore can appear quite funny. Otherwise it's good fun, and Kenshiro is one of the all time Anime greats, a rebel in a world gone wrong. I love Fist of the North star, but it definitely needs to be seen with a pinch of salt.

Mankind has finally destroyed itself and those that have survived find themselves on a barren, dead planet. All men are afraid and this leads to tribalism where strength and power over others is all, leading in turn to cruelty and violence. With this as a backdrop, powerful Fist of the North Star Kenshirô, is left for dead when his equally powerful friend Shin defeats him and takes his lover Julia for himself. Kenshirô somehow survives this and returns to seek justice, aided by fighter Rei, whose sister has been kidnapped by Kenshirô's brother Jagi (who was the one who poisoned Shin against Kenshirô in the first place). Meanwhile Raoh's rebuffed claim to be the rightful Fist has left him bitter and hungry for power with his army and individual powers seeing him grow in strength and power, creating a world of repression that is at odds with the hope manifested in two young children who find themselves under the care of Kenshirô and Rei.

Somehow or other I managed to watch and comment on the live action remark of his famous film/series. That version was pretty poor so I decided to go back to the source material and see how that comes across. Everything opens well, with a visual depiction of a nuclear holocaust that has a real sense of scale and suffering about it and I hoped that it would use this backdrop well. Sadly it doesn't really manage it and, while there are plenty of things to appreciate about the film, it never manages to get away from a key problem – one that you may already have a feel for from my plot summary.

The genre and the approach of the film suggests that a tight plot with a simple narrative would suit it best. However what we get are lots of characters moving around, causing the film to feel a little slow and complicated. It is not that it is hard to follow per se, just that there seems to be a lot of plot and characters for a film that does so little with all of them other than use them to create a convoluted narrative. It is messy and it doesn't bring much to the film than an impression of clutter and mess that it could easily have done without. Those kids and their entire "subplot" could have been cut from the get-go; although calling their material a "sub-plot" suggests that it is a plot worth following which, other than their roles early on as trigger for one character's return, they do not work in any way of interest.

What it does do well though is create some stylishly cool violence and gore. It won't be to everyone's taste but certainly fans of the genre will love it. Technologically the animation has been superseded so will look a little dated but this is not to say that it is "bad" or even "of its time" because certainly does not feel like something that is over 20 years old. The violence is cool even if it is a little silly as well – but this comes with the territory. I loved the scenes of the aftermath of destruction though, these were mostly creative and impressive in their scale. The voice work was also surprisingly solid – often English dubs are awful but, with the exceptions of Julia and the kids, everyone was pretty good.

Overall though this is a solid piece of anime but not the classic that many claim it to be (a look at the 10* reviews here will show you what I mean). The imagination behind it and the delivery of gore is impressive but it is undermined by the passage of time making it less impressive to modern eyes but also the problem of such an unnecessarily cluttered plot that leads to some overly-sentimental nonsense as the conclusion. Worth a look for genre fans but casual viewers will not see the film that the fans are seeing.

I love violence on screen. This movie satisfied that to the extreme. This is the most violent movie possibly EVER released. A lot of people hate this film because it is a blood fest with "no point", but you have to understand, the point of the movie is to MAKE FUN of the whole thing. Now, I'm also a big fan of comedy, and this movie satisfied the comedy WITH the violence! It's genius, because so few people see this. Add to that, an intricate story line that follows through and makes sense. The movie is all about going from big, powerful guys and gruesome death scenes to more and more and more gruesome death scenes and more powerful guys. The writing is excellent (and funny!). Like I said about comedy, the death scenes are made to make you laugh, the writing and speech are designed almost so that you can predict what's going to happen before it does! Then the speech becomes like a punch line. e.g. "A fight to the death, then!" "You're already dead." and "Hey. These belong to you?" You have to watch this movie to know what I mean, of course. Heh heh. the music is good, and the English dubbing is awesome. The voices are perfect. The drawing style is great, too. The huge muscles small heads approach (trust me, it is VERY realistic) is hilarious, yet cool looking. Rent it at Blockbuster video under the animation section or action / kung fu. One gripe: the ending (the last like 2 minutes) sucks. Corny love / regrowth stereotype there.

I have to add, the funniest moment in any movie EVER in the world is in this movie. It is the scene where Shin kills his own trusted commander. PLEASE watch this movie so you can agree with me. The punch line effect of the writing and the animation is so subtle, so superb. I was laughing for hours (slight exaggeration. Slight.) The only thing wrong with this movie is that it is under infinity hours long.

First of all I have to admit I'm a fan of 'Fist of the North Star', what can I say, maybe this movie is not the ultimate in classic, dramatic anime.. but come on, we all need to unwind sometimes.

Those people who often dub this movie as total garbage should realise that Streamline Pictures totally edited most.. ( To be fair, about 80% ) .. of the dialogue and story. This was common back in the day that anime was first coming around over in the West, as Streamline obviously thought.. "Wow, this is too complex for idiots. We should make the dialogue totally different and cliché, and market this as a big violent massacre!" .. which in some situations, you get the picture of this. Streamline Pictures have a reputation of this to be honest.

'Fist of the North Star' or 'Hokuto no Ken' was originally a manga/anime series, it basically chronicled the journey of Kenshiro, or Ken, deep into the dead, barren wastelands of the bleak future, the year 200X in which the world has been devastated by Nuclear War and the world has finally given into pure corruption. The strongest take control, and the weak are picked off like animals, if you didn't actually know, 'Fist of the North Star' was inspired by 'Mad Max' more specifically 'The Road Warrior/Mad Max 2'.

Of course, 'FOTNS' only uses minor elements from the classic movie, the difference between Max and Kenshiro is that Kenshiro is virtually indestructible. He is the practitioner of a sacred Martial Art known as Hokuto Shinken, the fighting skill uses pressure points of the human body, striking these points in a certain method has different effects. Strike a certain combination, you can cure disease or blindness, strike another series however, you can tear a human body apart.

One of the most well-known moves of the Martial Art is Kenshiro's 'One Hundred Crack Fist', in which he performs a combination of lighting fast punches whilst yelling the famous scream inspired by Bruce Lee.. 'A-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta!' To which the victim explodes within seconds. Truly impressive!

This movie is a bad condensation of the entire first series of the anime, it leaves out a lot of the more major characters such as Toki ( Ken's -other- brother who is infused with nuclear radiation. )and Mamiya. For instance, in this movie, and the anime, Shin is established as the major villain, however, Shin is the first real main character to die in the manga. ( He is killed by Kenshiro in the first volume. )

The running order of the plot dramatically changes, Ken fights Jagi -before- Shin, and Raoh is still alive after the final battle, at the end of the movie. While I understand that the whole world of 'FOTNS' could not be put into a movie, this was a little odd. It seemed like a rushed version of the story, which shows at certain points.

The animation was rather good, but the age of the piece does show, the animation is eighties style anime, rather similar to the classic anime movie 'Vampire Hunter D'. However, the art was rather nice, brilliant for the time it was made and the effort put into it all shows off well.

Very graphic violence, and bloody, unrelenting animation. This movie has exploding heads, and bodies ripping apart, this is -NOT- a movie for children. Ironic because the Japanese used to publish 'FOTNS' in Shonen Jump Magazine, a manga comic that a lot of young people have grown up with in Japan. People who hate the sight of blood will probably find themselves physically throwing up.

I've not managed to catch the Japanese version yet, but I had the bad luck of the Streamline Dub. As I mentioned, the entire story and dialogue were changed to make it more appealing to Western audiences.. for instance, the scene in which Rei attacks Jagi's men in the small town and drives a saw into someone's skull..

Rei: 'Silly me, what a foolish mistake..'

Random Thug: 'I've got a splittin' head-ache!'

-Rei drives it further into his skull, killing him.-

Random Thug: 'Uwahhhh ~!'

Rei: 'Better, now?'

What can I say other than stupid? Cliché, stupid dialogue that would not look out of place coming from a lame action movie. Which is basically what Streamline Pictures turned this classic movie into. I liked certain voices, to say the least, Ken, Shin, Rei, Raoh, and the maniacal Jagi were done rather well. Also the Leader of the Fang Clan, dubbed by none other than James Avery! Best known for his voice of Shredder from the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' cartoons, and Phillip Banks from 'The Fresh Prince of Bel Air'.

Glad to see that the familiar, famous catchphrase of 'You're already dead!' remained in this movie. Another classic one-liner involves the huge, obese fat warrior known as Heart exploding into a lot of human matter to the tune of Kenshiro's.. 'Say your prayers, Lard-Ass!'

Heart has a lot of guts.. literally.

Worthy of a night in, or a gathering with some friends, you could also make the Streamline dub into a drinking game, taking a slug each time you laugh at the nonsensical, cheesy dialogue!

At the end of it all I would recommend this movie to people who aren't too serious about what they watch, fans of violent anime, and to a lesser extent, fans of martial arts movies. This is not to be taken seriously, although I might add that it is rather well respected in Japan, and still remains to this day. ( There is a series set during World War II known as 'Fist of the Blue Sky', or 'Southen no Ken', and I hear that a new anime series is also in production. )

Hollywood should snap this thing up and make it into a live-action movie, when I say live-action, I mean better and higher budget than the piece of crud 'Fist of the North Star' movie, starring Gary Daniels.

A classic anime that could've been a -lot- better.