Preface:
Kids these days talk about Jojo like it's the manliest, baddest ass, GARest thing there's ever been. Don't get me wrong, Jojo is a lot of fun- but there's always that one that came before, and boy does Fist of the North Star kick some ass.
Warning: not for weak, weenie men.
You want a 30 foot tall guy getting kicked through TWO mountains?
You want brutal, bloody violence, countless decapitations, man openers, vertical splits, exploding heads, dismemberments, disembowelments, and more?!
Ken even karate chop drops a skyscraper on his head and his face just plows through it, opening a path for him to walk through, which he follows up by punching a 25 foot tall ridiculously musclebound man once, and his head explodes into a gushing fountain of brain matter, 15 gallons of blood, and cranium and spine fragments everywhere.
Talk about sick nasty, and DEFINITELY in the good way.
Artwork and Animation: 8
Let's be straight here, FOTNS is old as dirt. It's like the Epic of Gilgamesh of anime- ancient, kickass, and stars a bunch of inordinately huge, burly dudes kicking the shit out of everyone and everything! Yeah, the blood sprays like a busted pressure washer, and sticking your fingers and fist through someone's chest like hot butter is way out there, but this cheesy goodness is just too tasty to pass. It looks old, but the animation was super solid for the time (this came out two years before Akira), and still holds up well.
But when you see Ken literally kick a 40 foot tall fat man's rippling fat rolls so fast that it whips them up into a whirlpool of lipids, sucks down on itself, and allows him to punch a hole straight through the guy and makes his head explode... WHO EVEN CARES?!?
Sound and Voice Acting: 9
IT'S USELESS AND I'LL SAY IT AGAIN: HOKUTO NO KEN IS INVINCIBLE!
HUUUUUURAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
ATATATATATATATATATATA!!!!! AAAAAAAATAAAH!
(also the soundtrack is awesome)
Story and Characters: 6
Okay- the weakest part of a movie about guys who can disintegrate cities and mountains with only their fists? The adaptation.
The only thing that's even more impossible than the scenario described above is adapting 109 anime episodes and 240 chapters of anime into a single two hour movie. It just can't be done. However, did Toei ever mash as much annihilation and obliteration as they could in? Yes.
We lose a lot of characterization that just couldn't fit in the space of the movie, but it's not for a loss. When you've got Bruce Lee X stupid piles of steroid pills X Kung Fury ka-ra-te, you've got half of Kenshiro. He's the successor to the fighting style "Hokuto Shin Ken", or "The Divine Fist of the North Star", and will become the hero who kicks every dude with a mohawk, neon colored hair, of inordinate height, capes, or leather vest's ass to ensure the wasteland of 19XX is just inhospitable instead of inhospitable and lethally hazardous.
Enjoyment: 10
It's so 80's- the sound, the look, the macho man feel. It's larger than life, unapologetically violent, and in your face, and boy does it ever curb stomp weak, shrimpy ninnyboys. The muscle rules in the wasteland, and Hokuto no Ken has enough for everyone to be an Olympic weightlifter.
Overall: 8
"You want a piece of Uncle?" - Uncle
