Die Karate-Tiger

I just saw this one last night. I thought it was quite fun in a awful kind of way. It features Sue Shiomi as Tina Long, a female karate expert who goes to Tokyo to find her brother. A cop who has mysteriously disappeared investigating a drugs ring. Lots of fights ensue as she tracks him down. Terrible dubbing(although thats par for the course in this sort of movie). The panning and scanning on the version I saw was horrible, regularly cutting people and faces out of shot that should obviously be on screen. Good fight sequences save it, and at 85 odd minutes does'nt outstay its welcome. Give it a go if you can find it, I liked it.

A fierce female martial arts warrior named Tina Long sets out on a mission to rescue her captured brother Lee Long, an undercover agent now being held prisoner by the very drug smuggling ring he sought to bring down! Meanwhile, the head of the drug smuggling ring has assembled a menagerie of the world's greatest killers, some truly outlandish and bizarre eccentric characters, to protect himself and his interests.

This delivers the goods when it comes to fight scenes, 1970s style exploitation thrills, chase and action sequences and best of all, it takes a surprisingly cool stylish approach, like something out of a comic book splash page, when it comes to introducing its characters.

Where this falters is its mistaken over-reliance on wire stunts for the climactic showdown at the end leading to the most unbelievable and unrealistic fight sequence in the entire film. Also the characters, despite their colorful outer appearance, all remain completely one-dimensional making the film as an whole more forgettable than it might have been otherwise. All in all, this is a good albeit flawed effort.

Sue Shiomi is not only a beautiful and cute woman (she reminded me of Cynthia Khan, and I love Cynthia Khan), but a fast, graceful fighter as well. Sonny Chiba has a limited role, but when he does appear he is in top form. The fights follow a mostly grounded style, although there is some unrealistic high-flying at certain points. The movie has plenty of action, but the plotting, characterization, dialogue, etc. are all nil. Simply put, there is nothing interesting going on in this film besides the fights to justify more than one viewing. Worth noting is also Maltin's review, calling this a "crude concoction of sex and sadism"; I wonder what movie he saw. And a word of advice: if you ever run across the DVD box set "Women Who Kick Butt", avoid it. At least half of the 10 movies included are complete crap, and some have no "femme fatale" action to speak of. "Sister Street Fighter" is easily the best of the bunch, but that's not really saying much. (**1/2)

Note--This review is based on an English-dubbed version of this movie. Usually dubbed movies stink compared to subtitled ones, though this one wasn't bad. The worst aspect of the dubbing was the stupid voice they gave Sonny Chiba in a few BRIEF scenes. It just sounded very wimpy.

As for Chiba, there are undoubtedly a lot of "Chiba-philes" out there who will watch this film because it's part of the Street Fighter series. However, be warned, he is barely in the movie at all--appearing briefly three times and amounting to perhaps five minutes on film. I assume either they added Chiba to the film later to cash in on the success of the Street Fighter films or they just paid Chiba for a couple days work because that's all he wanted to do. Regardless, many have unscrupulously marketed this as a Sonny Chiba film, but it really isn't. Plus, what you do see of this great martial artist is far from his best work.

So instead, watch this movie just for its merits without Chiba--which it does have in spades. While not among the very best martial arts films, the action is significantly better compared to the average film from Hong Kong from the same time period. And while the story about drug dealers is just okay (it's really just an excuse for all that kicking and crunching), it's also better than the silly plots of many Hong Kong productions as well. Now I am NOT saying the Hong Kong films aren't fun to watch, but many have the most outlandish plots ever to appear in martial arts films (blind assassins, guys with three foot long tongues, fighting gorillas, etc.). SISTER STREET FIGHTER is much more direct and down to earth--with a very conventional plot and setting.

What was unusual about this film, and I appreciated it, was the collection of both styles and masters in various styles of martial arts. In fact, during one portion of the film, they freeze the frame to tell you who this master is and their style. A nice touch. However, there were also some real odd-balls among these "greats"--such as the guys who wore black baskets on their heads and the ladies who dressed like Fred Flintstone!!! You have to see them to believe it!

My most serious negative is that while the action is good, the lady protagonist's style isn't Chiba's--and she doesn't deliver as many crunching death blows as Chiba--it's more a kinder, gentler version of martial arts. Plus, the plot itself is nothing new and isn't all that engaging. Also, parents take note, there is some nudity in this film as well as the expected violence. Think twice before letting the kids see this one.

Not only is the movie great for martial arts fans but its also fun for fans of tokusatsu (Japanese science fiction) as its full of tokusatsu actors/actresses. Shihomi, Etsuko played Mari in Kikaida-01. Miyauchi, Hiroshi (star of Kamen Rider V3 and Kaiketsu Zubat, the Blue Ranger in Goranger, Big One is JAKQ, mentor in Ohranger, cop in 3 metal heroes series) plays her brother. She beats up on Oba Kenji (Battle Kenya in Battle Fever J and star of Space Sheriff Gavan) who works for Ishibashi, Masashi who was Iron Claw in JAKQ and the 2nd highest ranking villain in Battle Fever J. The music is even by Kamen Rider composer Shunsuke Kikuchi.