Onna hissatsu ken: Kiki ippatsu

Sister Street Fighter: Hanging by a Thread is the second film in the martial arts franchise about the empathic, resilient and tough lead character Li Koryu. This time around, the movie doesn't feature actresses or actors from the Street Fighter franchise that helped kickstart this spinoff series that would turn out being as great or even slightly better than the original series. This entry is the franchise's emancipation and easily proves that versatile actress Etsuko Shihomi can stand her ground all alone.

The story isn't a far call from the first entry but neither this franchise nor Sonny Chiba's Street Fighter films stood for particularly creative plots. Li Koryu is asked to find a former classmate who got kidnapped and is forced to be the mistress of the boss of diamond smugglers who surgically implant the precious stones into the buttocks of Chinese prostitutes. To make matters worse, Li Koryu's own sister is linked to the criminals and forced to betray her sister. Li Koryu however gets assisted by a mysterious stranger who is initially hired as a hitman tasked to kill her but has his own hidden agenda.

The film is on par with its solid predecessor. The story is entertaining, fast-paced and quirky. The fight scenes involve more hand-held camera sections which adds a new touch to the series. The characters are eccentric, memorable and unique. The locations are fascinating as fight scenes take place on a rolling train, in an abandoned stadium and even on logs on the water. It's the most brutal movie in the franchise that involves some graphic scenes that conveniently spice things up from time to time. The funky soundtrack underlines the film's dynamic touch at the pulse of the wild seventies.

This movie is entertaining from start to finish and will appeal to anyone who likes contemporary martial arts films or quirky action thrillers from the seventies. The movie has aged rather well thanks to its charismatic protagonist and modern camera techniques. It's one of the few examples when the sequel is as great as its predecessor.

With its funky 1970s music score and outrageous fighting sequences, 1974's "Sister Street Fighter: Hanging by a Thread," a sequel to "Sister Street Fighter" which had been released earlier that same year, is an interesting if not entirely successful follow-up to the previous film. It is worth noting that the sequel concerns the return of Koryu Lee (Etsuko "Sue" Shihomi), a half-Japanese/half-Chinese Karate powerhouse who travels from Hong Kong to Japan to investigate the disappearance of a wealthy man's young daughter. As she digs deeper into the mystery, she uncovers a deadly diamond smuggling ring and the powerful gangsters behind it. Directed by Kazuhiko Yamaguchi (who also directed the first film), the fights are fast, furious, and bloody - everything a good Karate film from Japan should be. One of the reasons the film works so well is because of the performance and fighting prowess of Etsuko Shihomi. A student of Japanese martial arts sensation Sonny Chiba's action school, Shihomi more than holds her own against the numerous baddies standing against her. She's also very easy on the eyes - yes, she is quite a cutie! But don't let that fool you: she can kill you twice before you knew what hit you. It's interesting to note that some bad guys make the mistake that just because she's a girl, she can't fight, or she's weak, or both. Well, as "Sister Street Fighter" and this film prove, anyone who makes that assumption is sorely mistaken, and you'll wind up on your back on the floor unconscious for making such an arrogant assumption.

8/10

Koryu (Etsuko Shihomi) flies from Hong Kong to Tokyo in order to rescue a hostage, but the gangster boss keeping that hostage has many skillful fighters. The summary of "Sister Street Fighter"? No, the summary of its sequel, although that reads exactly the same. The second movie copied the first, while the producers carefully kept everything that probably was responsible for its success. A few tiny differences I'd like to sum up: The gangsters smuggle diamonds instead of drugs this time. Etsuko Shihomi wears a much nicer costume in blue and gold (later: red and gold). There is more hand-held camera which can be annoying on the big screen. And there is some additional sadism, for example when the girls who smuggled diamonds under their skin are cut open like cattle by the butcher (no excuses, please - anesthesia were available in 1974), there is a horrifying scene when Koryu's sister is tortured, also when Koryu kills one bad guy by nailing his pair of glasses to his head. Nothing for Sunday afternoon television, I'd say. Anyway, the first movie was better and less predictable. I voted 8/6/8/7 for the 4 "Sister Street Fighter" movies.

While I was not particularly impressed with the 1974 movie "Onna Hissatsu Ken" (aka "Sister Street Fighter"), I still opted to give the 1974 follow-up movie "Onna Hissatsu ken: Kiki Ippatsu" (aka "Sister Street Fighter: Hanging By a Thread" a fair chance, as I had the opportunity to watch it here in 2025.

The storyline in the movie was good, and I actually enjoyed what writers Masahiro Kakefuda and Norifumi Suzuki delivered here way more than I did what they delivered for the movie prior to this one. I was genuinely entertained throughout the course of this movie.

The acting performances in the movie were good. The only familiar face, though, was Etsuko Shihomi.

The sounds during the fight scenes were pretty laughable, some punches and kicks almost sounded like the archetypical richochet sound of bullets in Western movies. While the fight scenes themselves were nicely choreographed and executed, then those awful sounds just added an unnecessary comical layer to the scenes.

My rating of director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi's 1974 movie "Onna Hissatsu ken: Kiki Ippatsu" lands on a five out of ten stars.

Never mess with the Sister (Street Fighter). But I guess bad guys will be bad guys and kidnap people. Everyone thinks they'll get away with it. Not if the Sister has anything to say ... kick about it! I reckon after the first one was so succesful, they thought let's keep this going. In the same year nonetheless.

And you have similar ingredients. Many bad guys, a lot of fights, blood and nudity. Selling points you say? Well who's going to argue with that? I hope nobody, that would be akward. Doesn't mean you personally have to like those things. It's just what a demand there is out there. So much so, that even with obvious mistakes like a very visible arm, that is being cut off, is actually "hidden" under the shirt of one actor. And yes you would have seen it, even if I didn't tell you (likely). This heightens this to a different degree of crazy mental ... and that is what you get. The movie is not confusing anybody or lying about what it is