Released for C64 by
Beam Software and
Melbourne House in 1985.
I had two karate games for Commodore 64. International Karate and The Way of the Exploding Fist.
Personally, I thought IK was better what came to the way the moves worked. (But then again, maybe I was just more used to IK's moves.)
Yet, TWotEF was very, very good graphically - even though IK was pretty nice too. It was one of the most beautiful C64 games I've ever played - Last Ninja 2 went easily past it, though, both graphics and sound-wise. Speaking of sounds, TWotEF easily beats IK - it has sound samples. The screams of the combatants didn't sound too good, but the impact of a perfect kick was a joy to ears. *THWACK* *thump*
TWotEF has a lot of interesting subgames: dodging thrown objects, fighting a charging bull, and stuff like that.
TWotEF had an endorsement from Jeoffrey Thompson, a world karate champion, in the packaging backside. The game was programmed by Gregg Barnett¹.
(With games as good as these, I wonder why the heck I thought NES version of Kung Fu Master was so cool? Some things don't make sense later on...)
¹ This may be speculation, but this may be a case of "last letter doubling syndrome" that was going on in the golden age of C64. (A more famous person who did this was Benn Daglish.)