Karate, the Hand of Death

With junk like this, it's easy to see why the chop-sockey movement didn't start sooner! The lead actor obviously has no martial arts skills whatsoever-- not that I expected a white guy to know much about karate back in the early 1960s. This crude, cheap, B/W features a scene of a few Japanese martial artists in their gi's, working out. One of these guys should have been the hero; then maybe there would be a decent fight or two.

I was really disapointed when I tried sitting through this garbage. I was optimistic at first and was quite intrigued to see what an old American martial arts movie might be like. But despite the title, the filmmakers go out of their way to avoid showing martial arts scenes (i.e. a guy faces a couple opponents, but instead of fighting, he faints; and thus, another cop-out!), and when they do, it's usually just the usual ineffective hand-chopping common in American 1960s movies. All that's lacking was "hi-ya!".

The true story behind hands of death was that it was a military intelligence front in Japan monitoring the communist party. The back story is fascinating and the people involved in this movie should be contacted before they are forever gone. Robert Sandstrom aka Richard Sloan was the producer of this film. His wife Rie Segura had a brief role at the end of the film. While the film itself is poorly written, the fact that the US went through the effort to set up a film production company in Japan is fascinating. While Argo was about setting up a fictitious company, this was an actual company that produced motion pictures. Today we might wonder why, but back in the 60's, the Cold War was a perceived threat that justified spending this much of our resources on such a venture. This is truly a big story that someone should someday tell to the rest of the world.

I'm giving this DVD a 7, not for the main feature, which is not a very good film. It also is not the worst martial arts film ever, and is probably worth viewing at least once for novelty value. It is most notable for being the first American made film with "Karate" in the title, and one of the first American films ever with any type of martial arts in it.

No, it is the "co-feature" that makes the DVD worth purchasing. Titled "The Incredible Martial Arts Mayhem Kung-Fu Trailer Show," it is merely a compilation of trailers for dozens of martial arts and kung-fu movies from the Sixties and Seventies. Lots of great viewing and non-stop action on showcase here, and a great primer for those unfamiliar with the genre. If you like martial arts films, or compilations of film trailers, then this DVD most DEFINITELY belongs on your shelf. There's over two hours of cool trailers on this thing! Recommended.