Strongest Karate

Customer Reviews:

Competition footage from 1974.......2005-02-25

This is realy a dokumentary on the first world open karate championship 1974. Although it was primarily a competition for the kyokushin style of karate, a few practicioners of other arts and karate styles was invited.

We get to follow a few kyokushin karate practicioners from the US with hopes of winning the competition. It was first released in the USA so I guess they tried to make it more attractive to the US audience. They dont realy appear much once the competition starts though.
In USA, this movie was originaly named "Fighting black kings" (named so since most of the american fighters were black), but that name has been abandoned in this rerelease, in favour of the more appropriate and internationaly used name "stongest karate"

Bruce Lee does not appear in this movie, he is not even mentioned in it, and I guess someone added his name to the description on the box (and later on the amazon description) because he was well known back then, even though he had nothing to do with the competition. They also added a lot of other crappy "information" on the cover that had no connection to the movie, that thankfully was left off the amazon description.

What does appear is a lot of interesting competition fighting.
The fighting style is what nowdays is known as the knockdown karate rule system that is used in many styles (basicaly it involves fullcontact bare knuckle, no punching the face but kicking the head is allowed, win by knockout or repeated knockdown), but since this was the first time it was ever tried, most fighters are very inexperienced with it.

All in all I recommend this video to people interested in kyokushin karate history, or people who want to see full contact, bare knuckle competition from long ago.

There is no story, there is no bruce Lee, there are no matrix -like techniques, there are no instruction of karate, there is only vintage competition footage. And knockdown karate has improved in quality a lot since this early competition.

But it is still interesting and fun to watch.

What a shame!.......2004-12-27

Good-day Martial Artists,

I was given this DVD (Strongest Karate) because I do Martial Arts myself; I used to do Kyokushinkai, but decided to change karate styles because of conflicting politics. I found this DVD very surprising as it doesn't show you the footage it says it will on the DVD cover. It promises to show you a man fighting a bear! What a load of crap! There was nothing! It promised a man driving a 5 inch nail into a wooden board! What a load of crap! There was nothing! All it shows is arrogant Americans telling us how they are the best because they have stolen all the masters from Japan!! IDIOTS!!! Really think Japan is going to give up their best? In the finals, it was Japan VS Japan! The champion of the tournament was JAPANESE! Makes you think? Anyways, as agreed with the one review this is not a DVD to teach you karate! It's just a documentary to tell you all about Kyokushinkai. What's up with breaking boards? Wooden boards don't hit back! Do you want arthritis by the age of 30? I think not? anyways I know that this review is very negative, but don't get me wrong I have allot of respect for other Martial Art styles because after all we all come from the same original place! It is set in the 70's or 80's and as one stupid reviewer put it, the karate footage that will be taught to you hasn't changed much! How could it change at all? Karate is thousands of years old! IDIOT! What you see in the DVD is what you will be taught if you walk into any karate school anywhere in the world. Be careful buying this DVD I don't recommend it! There is so much more out there on the net to buy! Well, take care all of you who do the Martial Arts! It doesn't matter what Martial Arts you do! Take pride in it and you will never fail! Practice doesn't make perfect! Perfect practice makes perfect! So practice perfectly in whatever style you do and you will succeed! I wish you all well!

Brad ( bradkzn2004@hotmail.com )

Introduction to Kyokushinkai Karate.......2004-01-01

This is a good introduction to the fighting aspect of Kyokushinkai karate. It in no way attempts to address the other styles of karate, and its almost as if, this documentary does even know of the existance of other styles. Apart from this strange omission, this is a good introduction into the fighting aspect of Kyokushinkai karate. It focuses almost exclusively on competition footage and some training that is undertaken to get to competition level.

This video is dated, perhaps late 70's to early 80's, but that is of little consequence, because the fighting aspects of this style have not really change that much.

This is not a training video. Its goal is to show you competition footage.

Do not get this video if you are interested in learning more about a style other that Kyokushinkai.

Customer Reviews:

Dissappointing from Rick Young.......2007-09-01

Well this was a shame, Rick has a good rep and abilities but this DVD dissapoints badly. Its shot in a single frame camera angle, the moves are a little rushed with inadequate explanation of the terms and concepts involved. Fuller explanations in english, technique breakdowns and some free sparring demo's would have improved this a lot, all in all I would say don't bother with it

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