Sister Street Fighter (1976)

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

I don't understand people who give a movie like this a low rating because of a few plot holes, or because it's not the paragon of realism. If total realism and an airtight plot were the goals, these movies would lose a lot of their charm and just become the unremarkable action flicks you see so much of nowadays. This movie is a fantasy. And it eclipses many films of its martial genre precisely because it has so many and such creative fantasy elements. And hot chicks, did I mention the pretty girls?OK, if realism were the goal of this movie, the gangsters could all pull out guns and plug sweet Etsuko full of lead. Instead, we get something much more entertaining. We get a mohawked assassin who shoots darts into people's necks, a defrocked priest who shoots armor-piercing arrows out of a gun, seven Thai-boxing amazons with hairy armpits, a police agent who works as an exotic dancer and has a tattoo of a rose on her inner thigh, a karate school that chants its philosophy of mixing power and love to us for a while, and more... And did I mention the most sadistic of all villains? A hedonistic drug lord who sports a Vega-style claw on his hand, tortures Li Long by continually giving him more heroin, tortures Tina by having a gorgeous femme fatale whip her, all the while maintaining a bevy of bathing beauties that let him fondle them at will. It's not cheese, because all the fights are cool, the villains are really truly evil and sadistic. All the exaggerations are done with purpose, like in a painting of Dali.The movie maintains suspense with plenty of plot twists. In a run-of-the mill flick, Tina Long might kill Hammerhead right off the bat. Instead, he overpowers her, and kicks her off a bridge. Some of the dramatic scenes are truly poignant, right out of a Shakespeare play with terser dialogue--the brutal scene in which the old man is forced to betray his own niece, the suffering of Li Long as his sister rescues him!Not the least of what makes this movie great is the abundance of hot girls. Just when you think there's enough to keep you happy, they keep adding more. First there's Tina Long herself. Then there's the exotic dancer--right at the get-go, what more can you ask for? Then there's Emmy. Sometimes the girls even play-fight each other, and then end up hugging. All in all, I think it's safe to generalize that it's much more appealing for straight men to see hot girls kick butt, than brawny guys, and this is something that Quentin Tarantino realizes and capitalizes on.Finally, this movie is clearly anti-drug, or anti-hard-drug, but it clearly rises above propaganda like Reefer Madness, because it portrays the horror of heroin addiction in a quite realistic way. It even weaves this creatively into the film by using heroin as a torture device, a great plot device which I can't recall seeing often in movies.

"Sister Street Fighter" is one of the best examples of the grind-house experience that Quentin Tarantino is always raving about in his movies. (For the record, I caught the original Japanese-language version with subtitles on Showtime early one morning last week, so I didn't have to worry about crappy dubbing.) The movie is a sequel/spin-off of the hugely successful "Street Fighter" films with Sonny Chiba. In Chiba's place, however, is Etsuko "Sue" Shihomi, who I must say is one of the most lethal screen vixens I've ever seen. Along with other high-kicking martial arts movie females, like Michelle Yeoh and Angela Mao (the latter of whom is best known for her role as Bruce Lee's tragic sister in "Enter the Dragon"), Sue Shihomi is not only very beautiful and very young (she was only 18 in "Sister Street Fighter"), but she is a true force to be reckoned with. Like Sonny Chiba before her, she uses a wide range of deft and lethal Karate moves that prove just that: she is a true force to be reckoned with. In "Sister Street Fighter," she plays a female Karate expert who is looking for her older brother after he goes missing while on an undercover assignment for the police involving drug trafficking between Hong Kong and Japan. That's really all there is to the plot and all you need to know. The director, Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, isn't concerned with plot very much, and instead relishes in the intensity of the well-choreographed and executed fight sequences. As I said earlier, Sue Shihomi is a true force to be reckoned with, and she doesn't merely beat up her opponents, she destroys them with every lethal Karate punch/kick combo you can imagine. Fault can be found, however, in that the director seems directly fascinated in showing off Karate, rather than the various other fighting styles on display in "Sister Street Fighter." We also have a variety of weapons styles including kama, nunchaku, sai and three-point staff in addition to the Thai national sport Muay Thai (the "Amazon Seven" women); I just think that it's a little nationalistic to feature all these styles and make it seem that Japanese styles reign supreme over everything else. And you would think that with such diversity, these fighters would be given their due in their fight sequences but they're often defeated too quickly and easily, which if they'd been given their due would have allowed for some much-needed diversity in the fight scenes. But it's a minor annoyance, over all. Although she's not as intense as Sonny Chiba (he does have a small part as a Karate master who helps the Sister out) before her, I recognized in Sue Shihomi the makings of a true star and someone who definitely had some sort of crossover appeal. It's a shame that it seems that she quit making movies and decided to settle down with a family. Anyway, I'm giving the Sister in "Sister Street Fighter" her due; she's a beauty, and a kick - and that is one lethal combination right there!10/10

Note--This review is based on an English-dubbed version of this movie. Usually dubbed movies stink compared to subtitled ones, though this one wasn't bad. The worst aspect of the dubbing was the stupid voice they gave Sonny Chiba in a few BRIEF scenes. It just sounded very wimpy. As for Chiba, there are undoubtedly a lot of "Chiba-philes" out there who will watch this film because it's part of the Street Fighter series. However, be warned, he is barely in the movie at all--appearing briefly three times and amounting to perhaps five minutes on film. I assume either they added Chiba to the film later to cash in on the success of the Street Fighter films or they just paid Chiba for a couple days work because that's all he wanted to do. Regardless, many have unscrupulously marketed this as a Sonny Chiba film, but it really isn't. Plus, what you do see of this great martial artist is far from his best work.So instead, watch this movie just for its merits without Chiba--which it does have in spades. While not among the very best martial arts films, the action is significantly better compared to the average film from Hong Kong from the same time period. And while the story about drug dealers is just okay (it's really just an excuse for all that kicking and crunching), it's also better than the silly plots of many Hong Kong productions as well. Now I am NOT saying the Hong Kong films aren't fun to watch, but many have the most outlandish plots ever to appear in martial arts films (blind assassins, guys with three foot long tongues, fighting gorillas, etc.). SISTER STREET FIGHTER is much more direct and down to earth--with a very conventional plot and setting. What was unusual about this film, and I appreciated it, was the collection of both styles and masters in various styles of martial arts. In fact, during one portion of the film, they freeze the frame to tell you who this master is and their style. A nice touch. However, there were also some real odd-balls among these "greats"--such as the guys who wore black baskets on their heads and the ladies who dressed like Fred Flintstone!!! You have to see them to believe it!My most serious negative is that while the action is good, the lady protagonist's style isn't Chiba's--and she doesn't deliver as many crunching death blows as Chiba--it's more a kinder, gentler version of martial arts. Plus, the plot itself is nothing new and isn't all that engaging. Also, parents take note, there is some nudity in this film as well as the expected violence. Think twice before letting the kids see this one.

A guilty pleasures. A terrible movie, little more than a live-action comic-book. Sets, costume design, editing, acting - all pure dreck. No continuity at all, the heroine appears to be killed off a couple of times in the film, & I can't even provide a spoiler telling how she escapes - because the film never explains how she escapes, she just does! BUT - the martial arts action is fast, furious, & occasionally almost believable; as for Sue Shiomi, she is only one of 2 female martial artists (the other Polly Shaun-Kwan)that I would call CUTE - in a positive sense: it's hard not to like this actress, even if she can't act, she's that appealing, & in an innocent, girl-next-door kind of way. Never a dull moment, & a heap o' fun; but really cannot be rated, even as a genre film - you either love to waste your time on it or you got something better to do. (Beware - although by same crew, not really a "Streetfighter" sequel, & not a Sonny Chiba film.)