Der Schrecken von Kung Fu

You gotta hand it to Tony Anthony. The man definitely thought outside of the box. Not content with recycled "revenge for a slaughtered family" or "gang of vicious thugs control a town" plots.......he co-wrote & starred in a series of films as "The Stranger", which, coincidentally, no pun intended, got stranger & stranger as they went along.

He..along with director Ferdinando Baldi, brought "Zatoichi" to the Spaghetti West w/ Blindman in 1971... fought against Moors and Vikings in Spain in 1976's "Get Mean",...& ushered in a modest 3d revival w/ 1981's "Comin' At Ya".

This, the third collaboration with Director Luigi Vanzi...."The Silent Stranger" predates a bunch of East-meets-West Spaghetti Westerns, including 1971's "Red Sun", "Fighting Fists of Shanghai Joe" in '72...and "The Stranger and the Gunfighter" in '73.

I was, for the most part, pleasantly surprised...by this Italian/Japanese/American co-production. There's a pretty good script..a mixture of Spaghetti Western violence...a number of well-staged Samurai sword fights which aren't bad at all....nicely done, & a lot of humor.

Plodding through the snow in the Klondike.........The Stranger has a run-in with bandits who are attempting to rob a young Japanese man of an apparently valuable scroll. The Stranger manages to kill the bandits, but the young Japanese man is shot. He tells The Stranger that the owner of the scroll will pay him $20,000 for its return. Entrusted to return this mysterious scroll to its rightful owner, & looking forward to a big payday.. The Stranger and his trusty horse board a ship for Japan. Once there, he discovers that two powerful warlords have been vying for control of a village and both parties claim that the scroll is rightfully theirs. The Stranger realizes that the only way to save his hide....and get his money, is to play both sides against each other.

Yes, this is yet another twist on Yojimbo, ...adding the old fish out of water bit...having a gunfighter battle both with & against samurai in Japan.

A dispute between the American producer and distributor MGM kept it from being seen in USA theaters until 1975. ..seven years after it was produced.

A little "Yojimbo"...a bit of "Ran"...a "Fistful" of other stuff...it's fun.

of the three movies (a stranger in town (dollar between the teeth), the stranger returns (shoot first, laugh last), and the stranger in japan, the stranger in japan has, perhaps, the best production values and, quite possibly, the best acting. from the beginning, i have enjoyed the stranger-a parody of the man with no name-and admired the simplicity of the basic premise of the story: the stranger gets beat up in the beginning, loses his six-gun, and then, revenge bent, kills all the bad guys with a close range weapon. simple, effective, and enjoyable...so much so, that if anyone can tell me where i can buy any or all of the stranger trilogy, i would be grateful... update 11/8/2008: still need to find the stranger in japan DVD (US compatible)...

I admit I have been a major Tony Anthony fan for years. His wise guy American cowboy with the fast gun was known as the Stranger. The Stranger took on large gangs of vicious outlaws in for movies from 1965 to 1975....and he always won! However, he usually rode off in the sunset as broke as ever...and as dirty! In this film, the Stranger wanders to Japan to collect $20,000 for a valuable scroll. Instead of making his fortune, the Stranger finds himself in the middle of a feud between two feudalistic Japanese clans who are terrifying the peasants of Osaka by their bully boy antics. Of course, the Stranger is beaten and humiliated before winning his war!

Ever see "Miller's Crossing"? How 'bout "Last Man Standing" with Bruce Willis? Well, before either of these movies there was "The Silent Stranger". The story leaves a few questions unanswered but for the most part it is intriguing and worth watching. I recommend it if you like either Westerns or Samurai flix. The combination is not as peculiar as you might think.

I originally saw this movie at the weekend double feature drive-in (remember those). Most of the movies they showed were completely forgettable fodder. But when this movie was shown I was blown away. An interesting and unusual story line that I couldn't completely figure out before it happened. I think it was the best movie I ever saw at that drive-in in Andalusia, Al. At any rate when the Internet came along I looked for it so I could watch it again, and share it with my family. It turned out it had been shown on Turner a few times, but wasn't available anywhere for purchase. I just looked on Amazon and its available on DVD and instant view. Its now retitled "The Stranger in Japan", apparently released in 2011. I'm getting it.