Tracing the Influence: Retraced Edition
Tag: Ashura
Ashura / Secret Commando title screen (1986) 🔗
This Sega title has the distinction of being both a properly licensed Rambo tie-in (in North America) as well as a Rambo rip-off (in Japan and Europe). But while the latter two versions don't have the lovingly pixeled movie poster pose the US release proudly features on the title screen, they still grabbed some photos from throughout the movie for reference. (They only use various vaguely Southeast Asian looking buildings for the images in between stages where the licensed one has more John Rambo, though.) Interestingly, the characters were redesigned for the Japanese original to give them a more unique look, but in the later European release they were turned (back?) into proper clones. In turn, only the Japanese version also features Sly's body on the box cover.
Ashura cover (1986) 🔗
While this game was released in the US as an actual Rambo game, the same isn't true for this Japanese version, so this is absolutely an illegitimate use of Stallone's likeness. I'm almost convinced the left guy isn't taken from the same movie (which is odd, given how deliberately the game borrowed from it), or it might have been a really obscure still only found in some contemporary Japanese magazine.
