Kaette kita onna hissatsu ken

The third installment of "Sister Street Fighter" is hardly surprising at first sight. Koryu (Etsuko Shihomi) comes to Yokohama to bring a young girl to her mother and soon gets to fight lots of gangsters. Of course they use the child as a hostage, or rather a bait to get hold of Koryu. Of course they believe Koryu defeated, but then she returns alive and kicking. And of course there is a mysterious stranger again... But after 50 minutes or so I realized this is not a bad sequel, it might even be the best one. Etsuko Shihomi, with the experience gained meanwhile, is a much more confident star of the show. "Return of the Sister Street Fighter" shows some of the best locations and even adds something new. The killer with the poor card trick is an obvious homage to Lee Van Cleef in Leone's westerns (the hanging scene on the hill continues that perfectly), while his boss reminds me of an eccentric Bond villain - even making the same mistakes, such as letting the hero escape when he easily could have killed him, or her in this case. I voted 8/6/8/7 for the 4 "Sister Street Fighter" movies.

I had never watched the 1975 movie "Kaette Kita Onna Hissatsu Ken" (aka "Return of the Sister Street Fighter") prior to my first time watching it here in 2025. I had just earlier today watched the 1974 second movie "Onna Hissatsu Ken: Kiki Ippatsu" in the franchise and enjoyed it, so of course I opted to watch the third movie as well.

Writers Masahiro Kakefuda and Takeo Kaneko put together a script and storyline that was a bit vague and bland, especially in comparison to the second movie in the franchise. Don't get me wrong here, because it wasn't a hands down bad movie, not at all, it just wasn't as good as the previous movie. The narrative was a bit too simplistic and lacking elements to make it a more entertaining movie to watch.

The only familiar face on the cast list, for me at least, was leading actress Etsuko Shihomi, as she had been in the first two movies as well. The acting performances in the movie were fair.

The fight scenes in the movie were nicely choreographed and executed. Though I loved the fact that the goons were considerate enough to always jump at Li Hong-Long one goon at a time instead of swarming her.

Watchable, sure, but not as enjoyable as the second movie in the franchise.

My rating of director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi's 1975 movie "Kaette Kita Onna Hissatsu Ken" lands on a four out of ten stars.

If your cup of tea is martial arts action, then this film is for you. It has lots of action, female nudity, more fighting, some ridiculous Japanese character in black-face, fighting on the rooftops, drugs, burning houses, more nudity, more fights; it just goes on and on.

Somehow there is a point to all of this, but it just seems like Sister Street Fighter's Greatest Hits. A thin story about using chemicals to smuggle gold and a friend forced to be the mistress of the kingpin is just an excuse to have fights. Many of the fights are pretty lame, with the loser going down quickly. But, hey, it's great 70s grind-house fun and the hokeyness is just part of that.

Our girl does her forms demonstrations over the opening credits. The story starts on the streets of Hong Kong. Our girl is sent to Yokohama to investigate a person's disappearance. First, there is a street fight. On arrival in Japan there is another street fight.

These opening fights are choreographed to appear as what the audience would expect a street fight to resemble. However, most real fights end up on the ground. Ground fighting was rare to see in early 1970s movies. Otherwise the fights looked good. Another thing, if I arrived at a fight on a motorcycle I would keep my helmet on. In the movies, though, you want to show your face.

Yasuaki Kurata also appears in this movie. He seems to have replaced Sonny Chiba, He offers his service to the bad guys to kill our girl, similar to the last movie. Things get complicated and he ends up stealing the show. He was the best part of this movie.

The third of this series and it is starting to get thin. I still rate it above average for the year and genre.

Return of the Sister Street Fighter is the third and last official entry in the franchise around empathic, resilient and tough martial artist Li Koryu. The story isn't a far call from the first two entries. A friend and police officer approaches Li Koryu in Hong Kong since his sister disappeared when investigating a shady company that smuggles gold by using chemicals. The man gets assassinated and Li Koryu needs to take care of his niece. They travel to Yokohama in hope to find the young girl's mother alive. The protagonist brings the charming young girl to her aunt but she has become a drug addict who quickly betrays them. Li Koryu has to confront a charismatic boss in a wheelchair with an artificial hand who organizes brutal death games between exotic martial artists to find a team of four fighters willing to stop the nosy protagonist from uncovering the company's dark secrets and setting the kidnapped woman free.

The movie has the same elements that made the two previous entries so entertaining. The quirky characters are quite diversified as we meet a sinister villain with a dark secret that could have come from the James Bond franchise and a martial artist who looks like a shady cowboy on one side but also a tormented drug addict forced to betray her own sister and a charming, dynamic and joyous young girl who must witness her family's slow demise on the other side. The locations are once again very interesting and especially the dramatic scenes close to an abandoned mine are quite fascinating and flirt with the western genre. The camera work is precise this time around and the vibrant soundtrack blends in very well.

The main reason why this movie isn't as great as its two predecessors is the fact that the fight scenes are quite brief this time around. Especially the two final duels only last about thirty seconds each when there would have been room for some more climatic duels. The film is also about ten minutes shorter than the other two films and seems to be slightly rushed as if it had been produced on a shoestring budget. The film would have been much better with a more generous budget, extended fight scenes and an additional length between ten to fifteen minutes.

Nevertheless, Return of the Sister Street Fighter is brutal, dynamic, entertaining, quirky and sinister all at once as it will entertain you from start to finish. It isn't the perfect conclusion to a great franchise but a very solid one. Fans of contemporary martial arts movies or action thrillers of the seventies will certainly get their money's worth. The perfect balance between empathic scenes and brutal sequences is the movie's greatest strength and one would have liked to see more movies in this sympathetic franchise and this comment comes from someone who usually dislikes endless sequels, prequels and franchises these days.