Return of the Sister Street Fighter (1975) User Reviews

Kurata steals the show

[ckormos1 · 6/10 · 11 January 2020]

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.

Grindhouse action at it's finest

[lastliberal · 7/10 · 5 May 2008]

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.

Morally superior ... or not

[kosmasp · 6/10 · 18 June 2020]

So while the sister (street fighter) is still going strong (no pun intended), we give her a sidekick here (again with the puns), that is morally ambigious to say the least. The enemy of my enemy ... is my friend I guess? Who knows? The screenwriter I reckon should. But in a movie with beatings, nudity and general mayhem, is morality really that necessary? Of course it is, we want to root for good guys/gals.

But the viewers should able to forgive and forget. And the charismatic addition might just be able to pull that off. More insanity ensues, lots of murder and blood, a lot of crazy stuff happening and the sister in peril. She's quite gullible come to think of it (easy to trap her with a phone call that is). Ah well it is what it is

Silly, mindless, and straight to the point

[Jeremy_Urquhart · 6/10 · 4 September 2023]

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.

The Sister Street Fighter Series:Part 3:The Return.

[morrison-dylan-fan · 6/10 · 6 September 2019]

Reading the detailed booklet in the Blu-Ray set,I was surprised to learn that the 4th SSF flick actually had no connection to the rest of the series! This led to me getting set to meet the Sister Street Fighter for the final time.

View on the film:

High-kicking the trilogy, Arrow present a terrific transfer,with the picture having a fitting level of grain, and the chops in the soundtrack played clearly.

After crossing into Pinky Violence for the second film in the series, (also reviewed) returning director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi disappointingly pulls back for a back to basics karate final. Appearing to have a lower budget,Yamaguchi & cinematographer Masahiko Iimura make the most of smaller locations with stylish up-close camera moves giving the setting a tight, confined appearance, clotheslined in smooth panning shots fully displaying each fighting move. Joined by new co-writer Takeo Kaneko, returning Masahiro Kakefuda takes the recurring choruses of the first two flicks, and hits them with a heightened Melodrama cut, as gold smuggler's melt the stealing of a mother/daughter as a carrot to get Koryu into their den. Even when gripping material not performing roundhouse kicks, Etsuko Shihomi shines in her final turn as Koryu,bringing out a excitement in her attempt to protect the mum/daughter, and in performing deadly knock out attacks for the returning street fighter.

The perfect balance between brutality and empathy concludes the franchise on a solid note

[kluseba · 7/10 · 27 June 2019]

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.

Still fun

[Leofwine_draca · 7/10 · 11 January 2021]

RETURN OF THE SISTER STREET FIGHTER is the third and final part of the trilogy, although a fourth, unconnected film (SISTER STREET FIGHTER: FIFTH LEVEL FIST) was to follow. It's a lesser film than its predecessors but as a work of constant karate action it's a lot of fun, with plenty of interesting backdrops for the action and the usual assortment of gangster villains and martial arts experts. The main bad guy is wheelchair bound here and particularly amusing, while Yasuaki Kurata returns from the previous movie and is a welcome presence once again, although he plays a different character. The choreography is slightly sloppier here but the film does the job well enough and Etsuko Shihomi is always a delight.

The best one of the sequels

[unbrokenmetal · 8/10 · 7 February 2009]

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.