Return of the Sister Street Fighter (1975)

It’s more of the same urban brawling and grindhouse excess as Etsuko Shihomi returns for a third and final outing as Chinese-Japanese karate crime fighter Koryu Lee. (A year later she starred in SISTER STREET FIGHTER: FIFTH LEVEL FIST, a final series entry in name only.) Director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi recycles and repackages just about everything from the two previous SISTER STREET FIGHTER movies. The only significant changes are that Shihomi gets a new fighting sidekick and the exploitation factor is turned down a notch.

Once again Koryu is given a reason to travel from Hong Kong to Japan to help a friend in need by battling an eccentric crime boss. This time, Sonny Chiba’s real-life brother Jiro appears just long enough before expiring to hand off an adorable little girl named Rika who becomes the ward of Koryu as she attempts to locate and deliver the child to her mother.

A humorous scene appears early on where Shihomi is battling thugs on a pier. Although probably no older than eight, this gangly kid gets in on the action by swatting her little purse and stepping on fallen thugs. She’s no screen fighter, but is a decent child actress who shows more personality than a lot of her adult costars.

Japan Action Club member Mitchi Love makes her screen debut as Koryu’s old karate competition chum who shows up just in time to help crack a few baddie skulls. She drops off the radar through most of the film and it’s a shame she isn’t used more. Love exhibits solid entry-level screen fighting and I like the idea of Shihomi with a young sidekick. When she is around, it adds a fun manga element to the film and its action that seems appropriate. Love didn’t appear with Shihomi again, but did go on to star in the costumed superhero TV series J.A.K.Q. DENGEKI TAI (1977), the forerunner to the MIGHTY MORPHIN’ POWER RANGERS.

The rest of the plot could be easily interchanged with any other in the series without much notice. The crime boss sends his goons to dispose of Koryu and a few victims and villains die along the way. Koryu finally gets caught, is unwisely left for dead and effortlessly recovers to finish her mission.

There are fewer oddball villains this time, but enough to maintain the campy series formula. The crime boss has an artificial left hand made of gold and likes to wear white fishnet shirts. Series punching bag Masashi Ishibashi returns mean as ever and decked out like a pimp. He gets pushed aside by Yasuaki Kurata who returns as a new character after teaming with Shihomi in the last film. He’s less friendly towards Shihomi this time initially. The two get to fight each other in an extended match that starts in a train yard and ends on a bridge. But Kurata eventually reveals his true intention to kill the crime boss for obscure reasons and teams up with Shihomi.

Clocking in at only 77 minutes, RETURN OF THE SISTER STREET FIGHTER is a short grindhouse actioner that zips by with its threadbare plot, comic book characters and karate scenes that are fun, but rather simple. The whole production feels a bit rushed, from script to shooting. Or maybe that’s just my impression because everything looks so familiar. Regardless, it’s still entertaining to see the standard goofiness intact and Shihomi looking more attractive than ever with fine-tuned screen fighting skills, busting up bad guys yet again.