BAMF’s Movie Poster Hall of Fame – THE TATTOOED HIT MAN

Just a reminder—and I’m sure I’ll be saying this from time to time—the BadAzz MoFo Movie Poster Hall of Fame is all about illustrated/painted movie posters that I like. It is not about the quality of the movies. If that was the case, there’s no way I’d be featuring a film like The Tattooed Hit Man, because it is a boring mess of a movie—at least that’s the case of the version I saw, which bored the crap out of me. But I love the poster. It’s pretty rare that you get an illustrated poster for a yakuza movie, as many Japanese posters use photo montages instead of drawings. This is an American release of a Japanese film that I’m sure was released based on the success of the Sonny Chiba Streetfighter movies. The poster credits Bud Sugawara as the lead, but his real name is Bunta Sugawara, star of several of director Kinji Fukasasku’s best films. I wish I could make out the signature on the poster so I could know who did the illustration. The art itself looks more like the cover of a cheap paperback novel that came out in the 1970s than it does a movie poster, but it certainly sells the product. Too bad the product just isn’t that good.