To see the impact that the arrival of Sonny Chiba had upon American audiences in the 1970s, you need only watch the trailer for his 1976 film The Bodyguard. A rising chant of “Viva Chiba!” accompanies images of Sonny doing various bad-ass things until the chorus raises into a frenzy. At the time Chiba was (along with many, many others) being touted as the spiritual successor to Bruce Lee – despite being Japanese – but his films showed off a very different kind of appeal. Chiba was later deified by Quentin Tarantino in his script for True Romance, as well
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