Hold on to your ancestral daisho, because The Challenge (1982) is the Greatest Movie EVER!
Click on the movie poster or the title above to download our review of the film, featuring the Internet’s Oli “ShinInvidNinja” Bulmer.
Review in a Nutshell: A pulpy action film with an unusual amount of talent behind it, The Challenge (1982) is ultimately more violent and ambivalent and less Orientalist than other examples of “gaijin-sploitation” from the same time period.
The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast 
Some odd connections between some films you mentioned here: Scott Glenn was in The Keep the year after this. The Keep was directed by Michael Mann, who would next direct Manhunter, an adaptation of Thomas Harris’ second novel, Red Dragon. Harris’ first novel, Black Sunday, had already been adapted by John Frankenheimer. Scott Glenn’s best known role may be as Jack Crawford in the adaptation of Harris’ third novel, The Silence of the Lambs. The sequel, Hannibal, was directed by Ridley Scott, who directed that other American-in-Japan movie you mentioned here, Black Rain (although it seems more like a Tony Scott movie), as well as that other 80s box office disappointment, Blade Runner.