Sonny Chiba
Shinichi Chiba (千葉 真一 Chiba Shin'ichi, born January 22, 1939), also known as Sonny Chiba, is a Japanese actor, singer, film producer, film director, and martial artist.His acting career began on television, starring in two Tokusatsu superhero shows, first replacing Susumu Wajima as the main character Kōtarō Ran/ Seven Color Mask in Seven Color Mask (Nana-iro kamen) in the second half of the series then starred as Gorō Narumi/Messenger of Allah in Messenger of Allah (Allah no Shisha). His movie debut and first starring movie role was the 1961 science fiction movie Invasion of the Neptune Men. Later that year, Chiba appeared in the first Kinji Fukasaku film, Wandering Detective: Tragedy in Red Valley which marked the beginning of a long series of collaborations for the two. Over the next decade, he was cast primarily in crime thrillers. He also adopted the English name Sonny Chiba, initially because of his association with a Toyota advertising campaign for a car called the "Sunny-S".By 1970, Chiba had started his own training school for aspiring martial arts film actors and stunt performers known as J.A.C (Japan Action Club). He starred in the Karate Kiba (Bodyguard Kiba), after appearing on the Battles Without Honor and Humanity: Deadly Fight in Hiroshima in 1973. Karate Kiba was the first movie for him about martial arts. Chiba's breakthrough international hit was The Street Fighter (1974), which established him as the reigning Japanese martial arts actor in international cinema for the next two decades.[1][2]
His subsequent projects included such pictures as The Bullet Train (1975), Karate Warriors (1976), Doberman Cop (1977), Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon (1977) and The Assassin (1977). He also occasionally returned to the science fiction genre, in movies such as Message from Space (1978). He began to star also on some jidaigeki such as Shogun's Samurai (1978), The Fall of Ako Castle (1978), G.I. Samurai (1979), Shadow Warriors (1980), Samurai Reincarnation (1981). He was not only actor but also stunt coordinator at G.I. Samurai, Burning Brave (1981), Shogun's Shadow (1989) and executive producer, film director at Yellow Fangs (1990).
Chiba was even busier in the 1980s, doing dozens of movies as well as making forays into television, and with roles in such high-profile adventures as the popular Hong Kong comic-based movie: The Storm Riders (1998), starring alongside Ekin Cheng and Aaron Kwok. His fame in Japan remained unabated into the 1990s.[citation needed]