Karate Kiba or Bodyguard Kiba (ボディガード牙) is a 1973 Japanese martial arts film starring Sonny Chiba. It is based on an action manga by Ikki Kajiwara. A recut version was released in the United States in 1976 as The Bodyguard, with added footage in the first ten minutes of the film. Bodyguard Kiba was followed by the sequel Bodigaado Kiba: Hissatsu sankaku tobi, released later that same year. There were then three more film adaptations with Takeshi Yamato in the role of Kiba released in 1993, 1994, and 1995 by Takashi Miike at the beginning of his career.

Plot summary

On his way home to Japan, karate master Kiba thwarts a terrorist attack on the airplane. He then gives a press conference, stating he saw the attack as a good opportunity to promote his karate school and announces that he's starting a bodyguard service. He is soon approached by his first customer, a woman who pays him for four days of protection but is secretive about the nature of the threat against herself. Kiba finds himself wrapped up in the international drug trade and has to fight the mafia.

Cast

Home media

On November 20, 2007, BCI Eclipse released the film in their Sonny Chiba Collection DVD set, which also includes Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon, The Bullet Train, Dragon Princess, Karate Warriors, and Sister Street Fighter. In 2024, Eureka released the film as "Bodyguard Kiba 1 & 2", on a 2-Disk Blu-ray. The extras include "The Bodyguard – alternate US version of Bodyguard Kiba".

Sequel

Director Ryuichi Takamori released a sequel, Bodigaado Kiba: Hissatsu sankaku tobi on October 13, 1973. The sequel also starred Sonny Chiba as Kiba Naoto.

In popular culture

The American version of the film opens with a quotation: "The path of the righteous man and defender is beset on all sides by the iniquity of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he, who in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper, and the father of lost children. And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious anger, who poison and destroy my brothers; and they shall know that I am CHIBA the BODYGUARD when I shall lay my vengeance upon them." An altered version of the same passage (substituting "Chiba the bodyguard" with "the Lord"), complete with erroneous attribution to Ezekiel by the character of Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson), appears in Quentin Tarantino's 1994 film Pulp Fiction.