Kaette kita onna hissatsu ken

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.

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.

While in Hong Kong, the female martial arts expert, "Koryu" (Etsuko Shihomi), is informed by an undercover law enforcement agent named "Sho Tokki" (Xiang De-Ki) that his sister, "Shurei" (Akane Kawasaki), has been kidnapped by a criminal organization in Japan, and he requests her assistance in rescuing her. During their conversation, they are attacked by some goons from that very organization, and Sho is killed right in front of Shurei's young daughter, "Rika" (Chieko Onuki). With Rika by her side, Koryu travels to Yokohama and, after handing Rika over to Shurei's sister, "Reika" (Miwa Cho), she heads off to a nightclub to talk to a young lady named "Suzy Wong" (Izumi Shima) who might have more information on where Shurei is being held. What Koryu doesn't realize, however, is that the boss of the criminal organization knows all about her plans, and he has hired several assassins to resolve her meddling in his affairs. Permanently. Rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this third film in the "Sister Street Fighter" series pretty much follows the same general pattern as the other two, with only a few basic changes made to differentiate them. For example, all of them involve a criminal organization kidnapping someone, but their primary raison d'être varies. In the first film, it was illegal narcotics; in the second film, it was diamonds; and in this film, it is gold--different characters for the most part, but the same overall plot, more or less. That said, since it was somewhat more polished than the first film in the series, I have rated it slightly higher than the first one and on par with the second movie.

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.

Kung-Stu(pid)

I had some fun watching it though, and it's helped by being only 77 minutes long. It's the kind of barebones action movie where whenever someone's not fighting, they're talking about the fact that soon, they're going to start fighting.

This is never a bad thing. But I guess the thing with this third Sister Street Fighter movie is that the action, though plentiful, isn't of a particularly high quality. I know Shaw Brothers set a high bar for non-stop martial arts movies from the 60s and 70s, but the choreography and editing on offer here just isn't particularly great.

But there's still entertainment to be had. And frequent ho-hum action is much better than infrequent ho-hum action. Plus it's hilarious when a little girl gets involved with a fight early on, and she hits one bad guy with next-to-no force with a small bag or something, only for him to react like he's actually just been hit by a train.

Go in with low expectations, and expect something mindless, and I think it's possible to have a good time with this.