Hokuto no Ken (1986 movie): Difference between revisions

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An animated feature film version of ''Fist of the North Star'' was produced by Toei Animation, which premiered in Japan on March 8, 1986.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0142371 |title=Hokuto no ken (1986) |publisher=Imdb.com |date= |accessdate=2008-09-14}}</ref> The movie was intended to be a big-screen treatment of the manga, and avoid the watering-down of violence that came with the TV series. An English-dubbed version produced by Streamline Pictures was first released in 1991 in the USA and 1994 in the UK and Australia by Manga Entertainment. A New Zealand release was never scheduled by Manga Entertainment so it never had an official release there.

There were two endings produced for the film. The original ending shown in the theatrical version has Raoh emerging victorious over Kenshiro, but sparing his life, leaving him to protect Lin. An alternate ending was produced that end the fight in a draw, which is the ending featured in the VHS and Laserdisc releases of the film in Japan (although, the 1995 film comic adaptation depicts the original ending). All the international cuts feature the original ending. The reason for the change in ending has never been officially revealed, although it is believed that fans were unsatisfied with Kenshiro losing the final fight.

The 2008 Japanese DVD release of the film features the theatrical ending as a bonus feature, but only on the first print run. Because the revised ending was produced on a different film stock, it did not undergo the same remastering treatment that the rest of the movie did (including the original ending), resulting in a drastic drop in visual quality when the scene is played (on the 1:40:45 time mark).

 

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[[File:Hokuto No Ken Movie - Uncut scenes from the Italian VHS (High Quality)|thumb|425x425px]]

A number of the film's violent scenes, particularly those involving close-ups of human decapitations and butchering, were toned down through the use of discoloration or a rainbow blurring effect in most versions of the film including the original Japanese release. This is evident in one of the preview trailers, which features a shot of Rei slicing the head of one of Fox's henchmen without the blur.

 

Currently, no fully uncensored version of the film has ever been released and it's not known for certain if an uncensored version was ever shown in theaters. However, the Italian dubbed version, released on VHS in 1993 by Granata Press and re-released in 1996 by Dynamic Italia, included a select few scenes unedited:

* The scene when Shin engraves the seven wounds on Kenshiro's chest (as well as the later flashback of the same scene when Kenshiro is resting in Lin's village) has no discoloration when Shin is making the wounds with his fingers. There's also no cloudy blur in the shot when Shin lifts his bloodied finger next to his face.

The other scenes of violence, including the aforementioned head slicing shot with Rei, are still blurred out in the Italian version. A fan-edit was released online which inserts all the known uncensored scenes into the 2008 remastered version.

===Credits===

The 1991 English dubbed version by Streamline Pictures is the only international version which features credits in its own language, rather than simply retaining the Japanese credits, crediting not only the original Toei Animation staff, but also the cast and crew who worked on the English dub. This suggests that Streamline Pictures had access to clean versions of these animated sequences to create their own credits. Despite this, no credit-less versions of these sequences were ever released publicly.

! Elder [[Ukoku]]

! [[Jūji Ken Nunchaku|Nunchaku Thug]]

* The animators studied human anatomy to make the deaths look realistic.

* [[Heart|Mr. Heart]] is referred by the name "Elephant" (エレファント) on the character model sheets and early promotional materials.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://razorsharp.blog.fc2.com/blog-entry-442.html|title=「北斗の拳」で美しいと言えば… (Razor Sharp)}}</ref> This planned name change was presumably done to go along with the animal motif of [[Fox]] and [[Jackal]], who were rewritten to be [[Jagi]]'s henchmen along with Heart. However, he retains his original name in the finalized film.

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