Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Wolf Guy

Collapse
X
Collapse
  •  
    Ian Jane
    Administrator

  • Wolf Guy



    Released by: Arrow Video
    Released on: May 23rd, 2017.
    Director: Kazuhiko Yamaguchi
    Cast: Sonny Chiba, Rikiya Yasuoka, Jí´ Haruki, Kyí´suke Machida
    Year: 1975
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Movie:

    Kazuhiko Yamaguchi's 1975 action-horror hybrid Wolf Guy (also known as Wolf Guy: Enraged and Wolf Guy: Enraged Lycanthrope) debuts on disc for the first time thanks to the efforts of Arrow Video. For those who haven't seen the film before (it's been available on lousy bootleg copies sourced from what was presumably a TV broadcast for some time now), it stars Sonny Chiba - the bad man from Japan himself - as Akira Inugami, the last in a line of werewolves. Rather than run around in the night and murder random people, he instead uses the powers he gets from the moon to take on bad guys.

    Early in the story, an unseen entity is responsible for a series of gory, brutal murders. We first see this happen when some poor bastard, a musician, runs through the streets of Tokyo screaming about a tiger, only to be torn to shreds in front of some confused onlookers by…. nothing visible to the human eye. Before he dies, he mutters something about a curse and someone named Miki.

    When people start making noises about a ghost tiger on a killing spree in the city, Akira decides to start investigating. His quest takes him deep into the heart of the Japanese criminal underworld with some help from a reporter named Arai. When his snooping uncovers the details of an aspiring chanteuse named Miki, he starts to put two and two together and when a couple of other members of the band to which the first victim was involved turn up dead, well, the trail is hot! See, Miki was involved with Fukunaka, the son of a business tycoon, got her into hot water which led to her being raped by a crazy gang of leather-clad lunatics. She was also to be managed by a man named Manabe. The rape infected her with syphilis and led to her try to take her own life. When Akira and Arai are attacked by gangsters, they know they're getting close to sorting it out - and once they find Miki, singing at a strip club and clearly a drug addict, they start to realize that the anguish she's experienced has somehow given her the ability to summon some sort of ghost tiger to kill on her behalf! Akira tries to help her as best he can, but before you know it they're both kidnapped by clandestine government agents that want to use her as an assassin and drain him of his lycanthrophic blood!

    Fairly zany stuff by anyone's standards, Wolf Guy sees Chiba in fine form, scowling his way through the seedy side of Tokyo taking on all comers, be they tough guys looking for a fight or foxy ladies looking for a romp in the sack! Chock full of hyper stylish violence, colorful gore, completely gratuitous (and fairly graphic) nudity and hefty doses of general sleaze, this film bounces from one genre to the next with little regard for tonal stability or logic, but God damn it all if it isn't a whole lot of super trashy fun. Chiba is in full on pimp mode here. No lady can resist him, no man can take him. While he never actually 'transforms' into a werewolf he doesn't even need to (he gets powers from the full moon but doesn't actually turn into a literal wolf). He's tough enough as it is, and with his unruly, bushy eyebrows and curly hair he looks feral enough to pass. Anyone with even a passing interest in his work should check this out. He's fantastic in the fight scenes and delivers the crazy tough talking dialogue with complete and utter conviction.

    Production values are solid even if it looks like this was made on a modest budget. The fight scenes are nicely staged and let Chiba strut his stuff, while the camerawork uses all sorts of crazy angles and gels to create some pretty wild and very colorful compositions. The effects work, almost all of which is related to the film's pretty high gore quotient, is handled well and hey, you've got to love that funky seventies scuzz rock score to which the whole thing is placed. If the ending feels rushed and maybe not so well thought out (clearly they were trying to setup a sequel that never materialized) everything else about the picture scores pretty high marks.

    Video/Audio/Extras:

    Wolf Guy arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video on a 50GB Blu-ray disc with the feature itself using roughly 21GBs of space. Framed at 2.35.1 widescreen and presented in AVC encoded 1080p high definition from a transfer that was 'remastered in high definition and supplied for this release by Toei Company, Ltd.' The picture quality here is good, but a little short of reference quality. Still, compared to the grey market/bootleg versions that have made the rounds in certain circles over the years, it's a revelation. The image is quite clean showing very little print damage while color reproduction is pretty decent and black levels just fine. Detail is a bit soft in spots, though this could have to do with the photography employed during the shoot. Skin tones look natural enough and the image is free of any obvious digital tinkering like sharpening or noise reduction.

    The Japanese LPCM Mono soundtrack is clean, clear and free of any hiss or distortion. Optional English subtitles are included that are easy to read and free of any typographical errors. The score comes through with enough emotive strength that it perfectly accentuates the more intense scenes of the film, but it never buries the performers and neither does the foley, nor do the sound effects. As far as older mono tracks go, there's nothing to complain about here.

    Extras on the disc start off with an exclusive fifteen minute video interview with the man himself, Sonny Chiba, who speaks not about making Wolf Guy but about how he got his start in the film industry. Entitled A Life In Action Vol. 1, here Chiba notes that he was basically typecast as an action star and that he's advised his son to hold out for different roles, but he then goes on to talk about his work with the Japan Action Club and the Japan Stunt Club, telling some interesting stories about working alongside Sue Shiomi and Hiroyki Sanada. Also on hand is a ten minute video interview with director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi titled Movies With Guts. Here he talks about some of the early projects he was involved with before becoming one of Toei Studios' leading action and exploitation directors. He share some stories from various shoots and then talks about his working relationship with Chiba, making not only this picture together but quite a few other classics as well. Last but not least, in B-Movie Master producer Tatsu Yoshida spends eighteen minutes in front of the camera. He too talks about working for Toei, how he got his start in the film business and working on various genre pictures for the studio including Wolf Guy and a few others.

    Rounding out the extras on the disc is the film's original theatrical trailer, menus and chapter selection. As this is a combo pack release the clear Blu-ray flipper style case also holds a DVD version of the movie that has the same extras on it as are found on the Blu-ray disc. Also included inside the case is some reversible sleeve art featuring a newly commissioned piece by Wes Benscotter on one side and the film's original Japanese one sheet on the reverse. The first pressing of this title also comes with an illustrated full color insert booklet that contains an essay on the film and the manga that inspired it written by Patrick Macias and a second covering some Japanese action/horror movies by Jaspar Sharp.

    The Final Word:

    Wolf Guy is wild, trashy fun - a great mix of action, horror and sleaze that's well put together from a technical stand point and that features a fantastic turn from Sonny Chiba in the lead. Arrow has done a really nice job bringing this one to Blu-ray/DVD for the first time, presenting it in nice shape and with some great extras too.

    Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!









































    • Paul L
      #1
      Paul L
      Scholar of Sleaze
      Paul L commented
      Editing a comment
      I hadn't seen this before, though I'd read about it, and I absolutely loved it. There's too much story for a 90 minute film, but it's so much fun. I'd love to read the manga on which it's based.
    Posting comments is disabled.

Latest Articles

Collapse

  • Hot Spur (Severin Films) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Severin Films
    Released on: April 30th, 2024.
    Director: Lee Frost
    Cast: Joseph Mascolo, Virginia Goodman, John Alderman
    Year: 1969
    Purchase From Amazon

    Hot Spur – Movie Review:

    Director Lee Frost and Producer Bob Cresse's film, Hot Spur, opens in Texas in 1869 with a scene where a pair of cowboys wanders into a bar where they call over a pretty Mexican waitress and coerce her into dancing for them. She obliges, but
    ...
    03-22-2024, 11:53 AM
  • Death Squad (Mondo Macabro) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Mondo Macabro
    Released on: April 9th, 2024.
    Director: Max Pecas
    Cast: Thierry de Carbonnières, Jean-Marc Maurel, Denis Karvil, Lillemour Jonsson
    Year: 1985
    Purchase From Amazon

    Death Squad – Movie Review:

    Also known as Brigade Of Death, French sleaze auteur Max Pecas’ 1985 film, Death Squad, opens with a night time scene outside of Paris in the Bois de Boulogne Forest where cars pass by a small gang of transsexual
    ...
    03-22-2024, 11:46 AM
  • Roommates (Quality X) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Quality X
    Released on: February 28th, 2024.
    Director: Chuck Vincent
    Cast: Samantha Fox, Vernoica Hart, Kelly Nichols, Jerry Butler, Jamie Gillis
    Year: 1982
    Purchase From Amazon

    Roommates – Movie Review:

    Directed by Chuck Vincent and released in 1982, Roommates opens with a scene where a young woman named Joan Harmon (Veronica Hart) gets a hotel room with an older man named Ken (Don Peterson, credited as Phil Smith),
    ...
    03-15-2024, 01:10 PM
  • Night Of The Blood Monster (Blue Underground) UHD/Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Blue Underground
    Released on: March 26th, 2024.
    Director: Jess Franco
    Cast: Christopher Lee, Maria Rohm, Dennis Price
    Year: 1970
    Purchase From Amazon

    Night Of The Blood Monster – Movie Review:

    Directed by Jess Franco, The Bloody Judge (or, Night Of The Blood Monster, as it is going by on this new release from Blue Underground) isn't quite the salacious exercise in Eurotrash you might expect it to be, and while it
    ...
    03-15-2024, 01:07 PM
  • Phase IV (Vinegar Syndrome) UHD/Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Vinegar Syndrome
    Released on: March 26th, 2024.
    Director: Saul Bass
    Cast: Nigel Davenport, Michael Murphy, Lynne Frederick, Alan Gifford, Robert Henderson, Helen Horton
    Year: 1974
    Purchase From Amazon

    Phase IV – Movie Review:

    Saul Bass’ 1974 sci-fi/thriller Phase IV is an interesting blend of nature run amuck stereotypes and Natural Geographic style nature footage mixed into one delicious cocktail of suspense and
    ...
    03-15-2024, 01:02 PM
  • The Bounty Hunter Trilogy (Radiance Films) Blu-ray Review
    Ian Jane
    Administrator
    by Ian Jane


    Released by: Radiance Films
    Released on: March 26th, 2024.
    Director: Shigehiro Ozawa, Eiichi Kudo
    Cast: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Minoru Ôki, Arashi Kanjuro, Bin Amatsu, Chiezo Kataoka
    Year: 1969-1972
    Purchase From Amazon

    The Bounty Hunter Trilogy – Movie Review:

    Radiance Films gathers together the three films in Toie Studios’ Bounty Hunter Trilogy, starring the inimitable Tomisaburo Wakayama. Here’s how the three movies in this
    ...
    03-13-2024, 11:30 AM
Working...
X