Any film in which Sonny Chiba DOESN'T play the coolest character has got to be worth a look, if only to see who could possibly be more of a bad-ass than he. In The Resurrection of the Golden Wolf, that person is Yûsaku Matsuda, who plays Tetsuya Asakura, a seemingly meek accountant who takes the fast track to success and wealth rather than spending years climbing the corporate ladder; once his office work is over for the day, Asakura whips off his wig to reveal a trendy mop of permed hair, slips on his shades, and pursues a second career as a ruthless, gun-toting criminal who will stop at nothing to make his dreams come true.

This promising premise leads to plenty of exploitative nudity and violence, as Asakura stoops to sexually exploiting his boss's beautiful mistress Kyoko (the scrummy Jun Fubuki), consorts with a gang of drug dealers after a heist leaves him with 100 million yen of unusable notes, and becomes involved in a deadly game of corporate espionage, blackmail and murder. With it's many plot threads, played out over a massive 131 minutes, and so many thoroughly despicable characters to keep track of, this hard-boiled crime-noir isn't always easy to follow, but the good stuff—the gratuitous nookie, the violent shoot-outs, the macho posturing, the topless go-go dancers, the bleak ending—definitely make it worth persevering through any moments of confusion.

I could not prevent myself to think about the Bret Easton Ellis adapted novel - AMERICAN PSYCHO - whilst watching this pretty disturbing feature, in the pure line of what wrote the Japanese author, with his BEAST TO DIE, made one year later. Another nihilist blood thirsty and disturbing, nasty Jap movie, not for all audiences. I love this kind of stuff, but could definitely not watching this every day.

Ultra-stylish film from 1979 features Yusaku Matsuda as a vicious criminal, whose ambitions lead him to a fascinating double life; by day Tetsuya works a boring and unsatisfying desk job at a large oil company. He sports a rather un-stylish haircut and eyeglasses. At night, the glasses come off, and Tetsuya emerges as an ultra-cool and hardened one man terror squad. He becomes a hunter, a wolf that wants out of his cage, (a boring nine to five life,) and to rule the corporate world. He has a plan to marry the daughter of one of the most powerful men in Japan, and he will crush whoever gets in his way! 'Golden wolf' has to be one of the coolest films to come out of the 70's, and Yusaku Matsuda is absolutely brilliant in his portrayal of one of the meanest bad guys in film history. A bad guy who turns out to be not so heartless, as we realize by the films conclusion. Matsuda possesses a wild sexual energy about him, and the ladies are all drop-dead gorgeous here as well. Featuring a memorable soundtrack and endless scenes of unforgettable style and beauty, it is surprising that this one is not more well-known among cult film fans. Featured in "The Sonny Chiba Collection" box set, strangely, as Chiba is barely in the film and he is virtually unrecognizable in his minor role. But the film is presented fully uncut in it's original Japanese language. This crime epic has it all; sex, sleaze, violence, romance, and Italian sports cars. If James Bond was a criminal, he would be Tetsuya Asakura!