Fist of the North Star was a huge deal when it came out here in England, selling over 60,000 VHS tapes and being second only to Akira in terms of total manga sales at the time. That's quite an achievement for Manga Entertainment's first ever manga release here.
I saw it all the time of sale as it was pretty ubiquitous but I never watched it at the time, not for any specific reason really but the cover didn't appeal to me as it seemed to be a stupid generic beating up film and that genre had kind of died in the 80s. After snubbing it for so long, I decided to finally give it a watch. Was it any good, even without the rose tinted lens of nostalgia attached?
Starts off with a narration outlining the Yin and Yang of the Universe and how the world was destroyed by a nuclear holocaust. You expect a devastated world to appear but then, as the opening credits roll, you get a 5 minute montage of beautiful imagery and landscapes of our recognisable gorgeous world.
At 5 minutes, we see that there is a nuclear holocaust in 199X and the world as we know it is destroyed as we see the poor huddled masses ripped apart by the nuclear wind. There now exists a survival of the fittest with the poor and weak and the strong headbangers.
Into this world we meet Ken, The Fist of the North Star, a powerful warrior who is betrayed by Shin, the Fist of the South Star. After his beloved Julia is taken as a prize, Ken is thrown into a chasm, believed dead. However, he comes back and, like the Littlest Hobo, goes from town to town fighting hoodlums and protecting the weak and innocent. Along the way, we meet his Iago-like brother, Jagi, who was the one to turn Shin by lying to him of Julia's love for him, and his eldest brother Raoh the Conqueror who wants to rule mankind as a God.
Watching this nearly 40 years after it's release, I can say that it is a proper old skool bits-to-the-wall manga. There is claret everywhere as heads exploded and limbs are sliced off using chi. It's very entertaining and, whilst not highbrow or arty, it is very effective for what it is; a man going through hell to find his one true love. What the manga shows is that families are very complex is alls I'm saying.
Overall, I liked the movie and didn't feel it wasted my time. There are definitely worse ways to spend nearly 2 hours.
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