The Challenge

An American boxer named Rick is hired to carry a sword into Japan, not realizing that the delivery is part of a long-running feud between two brothers, Toru and Hideo Yoshida. One brother has followed the traditional samurai path, while the other has become a powerful businessman. The dispute centres on a pair of ancestral swords, symbols of clan authority that both men claim. Rick is drawn further into their conflict, undergoes samurai training under Toru, and takes his side, while also growing close to Toru's daughter, Akiko.

The Challenge was directed by John Frankenheimer, the tenth of the eighteen films he directed in chronological order, arriving between Prophecy and 52 Pick-Up. The screenplay is credited to Ivan Moffat, John Sayles and Richard Maxwell, and the picture was produced by Robert L. Rosen and Ron Beckman. Scott Glenn plays Rick, with Toshirō Mifune as Toru Yoshida, Atsuo Nakamura as Hideo Yoshida, Donna Kei Benz as Akiko and Clyde Kusatsu among the credited cast of twenty-four. It is a co-production between the United States and Japan, running 109 minutes.

Released in July 1982, the film performed modestly at the box office, taking about four million dollars worldwide. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.2 from roughly three thousand votes, while on TMDB it stands at 5.9 from a much smaller number of votes. A critics' rating of 5.3 from seventeen reviews places it below both audience scores.