The Row House Cinema will show the 1974 Japanese martial arts movie The Streetfighter (激突！殺人拳) as part of its Four Degrees of Tarantino film series from June 10 through June 16. The Montreal Film Journal provides a summary of the movie that starts Sonny Chiba and that influenced Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films:
There are two intercrossing storylines in “The Street Fighter”, both revolving around Terry Tsurugi, a half-Japanese, half-Chinese man who created a martial arts style combining karate, Chinese boxing and dirty street fighting! A man for hire for anyone who can afford him, Tsurugi helps death row convict Junjou (Makashi Ishibashi) to escape, but when Junjou’s siblings fail to pay him, Tsurugi kills the brother and sells the sister as a prostitute! Sooner or later, this will lead to a confrontation between Terry and a rightfully infuriated Jonjou, but in the meantime Tsurugi also finds the time to get on the Yakuza mob’s bad side by getting in their way as they try to manhandle the heiress of an oil company to sign it over to them. This sounds like a lot of plot, but it’s thankfully rushed through and most of the running time is packed with the most insane, goriest martial arts scenes you’ll ever see!Wikipedia says it was the first movie to receive an X rating in the US due to violence. It last played in Pittsburgh in 2013.
Showtimes and tickets are available on the theater's website. The single-screen theater is located at 4115 Butler Street in Lawrenceville (map).
