Roaring Fire - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Roaring Fire

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:

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Movie
Roaring Fire is one of the first few releases for Arrow’s fledgling “sub label” known as Toy Robot Video. A subsidiary of Arrow that was designed to take the more cult and “fun” films that they had access to, and put them all out with some nifty special editions. And after Arrow central released 1980s Shogun’s Ninja, I was ecstatic to see 1981’s Roaring Fire come to Blu-ray for the first time. To my KNOWLEDGE, I don’t think it has ever gotten a Blu-ray release in the Western hemisphere, so color me tickled pink to see it show up on my doorstep last month.

I’m just going to say this right off the bat. Roaring Fire is absolutely NUTS, blending elements of Japanese comedy with traditional martial arts Karate chop socky, and a little bit of a James Bond spy thriller thrown in for good measure. It starts out with Hiroyuki Sanada’s character getting shot to death in London, only for the camera to shift over to the wild west of Texas, where his unknowing twin brother Joji is being raised by his dying “father”. But it turns out that daddy dearest actually kidnapped Joji as a child and fled with him to the states, but now that he’s dying, his “father” gives him a bombshell. He actually was from a highly wealthy family in Japan whose real father and mother had just died, and his twin brother had vanished in London. Now it’s up to him to come back to Japan and find out what happened.

And what happened is every bit as crazy as you could imagine. When he gets back to Japan, Joji meets his sister and uncle who welcome him back in the family. But things are more than just a little bit off as Joji notices that his dear Uncle doesn’t seem to be as innocent as expected. And as the film progresses we find out that good old Uncle has his own plans for the family, which don’t include Joji and his sister either

This is a bonkers film, bouncing around willy nilly between Benny Hill type comedy, straight forward Karate, and a spy thriller at the drop of a hat. And for the most part, it just WORKS. The comedy can be a bit overly goofy at times, but the high speed Martial Arts more than makes up for it I genuinely forgot just how good of a martial artist Hiroyuki Sanada was in his younger days, before he switched over to playing Samurai films and other works that didn’t require him to pull out the Jackie Chan style stunts and kicks. And Sonny Chiba’s addition as the interpol agent trying to capture Joji’s uncle is fantastic. Sadly he plays more of a sidebar character than he did in Shogun’s Ninja, but that final fight near the end showcases Chiba’s martial arts skills in ways that he couldn’t on Shogun’s Ninja.

Rating: Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:
Roaring Fire is presented in its original 1.85:1 theatrical aspect ratio and the TOEI reamster doesn’t look too bad. It’s not great, but certainly not as bad as expected when I saw the initial trailer. From what I can gather the source materials for this one aren’t in the greatest shape, and I’m assuming they used a “taken from the best surviving elements” approach and did the best they could. And while it certainly COULD be better, I will say this. The image is extremely filmic and organic, without any major signs of digital manipulation or severe degradation. Detail levels are good, but never super wild, and colors look pretty good. The orange/red blood pops the most, as does the blue sky, but other colors tend to be a bit muted (such as the yellow shirt or the rusty red scarf that Joji wears in the old west portion of the film. Overall it has a dusty and sort of soft look to everything, with grain that spike and clump here and there, but in the vast majority of things looks very solid. The long and the short of it is, this is a good enough looking film, but being that this is a non Arrow overseen transfer, but a TOEI one, I’m not shocked that it doesn’t look pristine.


Audio:
I was surprised to hear how pleasant the Japanese 2.0 Mono track was though. There’s some mild harshness in the upper registers, or with some “biff pow” type sound effects, but other than that this is a fairly straight forward and clean sounding mix. Dialog is good (though a tad boxy at times) and sound effects and the 70s style score comes through nicely. Scuffles and fisticuffs add the most depth to the mix, but there’s some really cool panning effects that happens as the bad guys shuffle around in some of the fights.


Extras:
• NEW - Audio Commentary with film historian Brian Bankston
• NEW - Fire-storm!, Japanese film critic Akihiko Ito on Sonny Chiba, the man, the actor, the legend
• NEW - A Roaring Success, critic James Mudge (easternKicks.com) offers a retrospective on Roaring Fire
• NEW - Wrestle with Fire, pro-wrestling critic and film writer Chris Lines on the life and times of Abdullah the Butcher
• Theatrical trailer & TV Spot
• NEW - A Buffet of Comedy and Action, critic Clément Rauger discusses the secrets of Roaring Fire

Final Score: ​

Roaring Fire is bat crap crazy, blending elements of zany comedy, straight forward revenge, and a spy thriller that somehow is hilariously fun. I’m not a fan of Japanese comedies outside of my Anime, but this was a blast to watch. I was a tad sad to see Sonny Chiba play a sidebar character with only one real fight (and wow, he absolutely shines as a Karate master. Even the younger Hiroyuki Sanada couldn’t keep up), but he and Hiroyuki reuniting after doing Shogun’s Ninja was a treat. The audio and video are solid, and the extras just as good, making this a very desirable package for anyone wanting to grab it on its first domestic Blu-ray release.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Hiroyuki Sanada, Sonny Chinba, Etsuko Shihomi
Directed by: Norifumi Suzuki
Written by: Shinsuke Inoue, Masakazu Shimura, Norifumi Suzuki
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 AVC
Audio: Japanese: DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono
Subtitles: English
Studio: Toy Robot Video
Rated: NR
Runtime: 95 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: September 8th, 2026

Recommendation: Fun Watch