Garouden Part 8   Returning for Kajiwara
Channel: William Ong
Date: 04/06/2019

Garouden (餓狼伝) is a series of Japanese martial arts novels by Baku Yumemakura. This is a 1995 live action adaptation of the first novel that was published in 1985.

The story is about Bunshichi Tanba, a man who fights to prove his strength to himself. He enjoys defeating fighting champions and celebrities on the street and through dojo crashing until he stumbles into a pro wrestling dojo known as Toyo Wrestling. Unfortunately, there he's defeated by one of the dojo's trainees and forces himself to improve before seeks his rematch.

The novels were known depict real life martial arts as realistically as possible while also entertaining.

The movie is interesting for its featuring of sambo (a martial art rarely depicted in film at all, with some references to Victor Koga, the first Japanese sambist) and includes cameos by Pro Wrestling Fujiwara-Gumi (at the time) and future Battlarts wrestlers as members of the Toyo Wrestling Dojo.

Starring:
Kenji Yamaki (real life Kyokushin karateka, multiple time champion, one of the few people to complete the 100-man kumite, and founded his own school; Yamaki-ryu karate)  as Bunshichi Tanba (main protagonist).
Yoshiaki Fujiwara (legendary pro wrestler and trainer) as Kawabe (the Toyo Wrestling trainer).
Yuki Ishikawa (PWFG wrestler and Battlarts owner) as Toshio Kajiwara (the wrestler who beat Tanba and wants a rematch with)
Hirotaro Honda as Isamu Kono (the sambist)
Kunihiko Shimizu as Ryuji Kubo (the thug karateka who becomes allied with Tanba).
Ren Osugi as Hijikata (the Yakuza enforcer with the sword)
Kojiro Hongo as Soichiro Izumi (the master of Takemiya Ryu Jujitsu)
Taro Ishida as Haguro Yusuke (Hijikata's boss)
Masafumi Ishibashi as Shozan Matsuo (the master of Hokushin karate, the bearded old man with the weights)
Minoru Toyoshima as Tatsuya Ogata (Kubo's former karate sensei)
Shun Shibata as Tsutomu Himekawa (Shozan Matsuo's student, secretary and the guy who spars with Soichiro Izumi and later appears in a suit)
Sekine Sachiko as Yuka Tashiro (the girl Kono drops off and picks up)
Hiroshi Okouchi as Aizawa Hitoshi (one of Kubo's karate friends)