Return of the Street Fighter (1974)

Following the success of The Street Fighter, a sequel was quickly rushed out to capitalize on it.  Shigehiro Ozawa is back as director, Sonny Chiba as well as Terry Tsurugi and much violence ensues - just not as much, nor as interesting as the first movie.

This time around Terry is back to his old habits as a man for hire to take care of special situations, with a new companion in Pin Boke (Yoko Ichiji), a street girl that he has taken in.  He again falls afoul of the mafia, this time by siding with his long time friend Kendo Masaoka (Masafumi Suzuki), who has discovered that a head of rival martial arts school is using a phony charity to raise money not for a new martial arts school, but for the Yakuza.

Tsurugi also finds an unlikely ally in Masaoka's son Kaoru, a police officer who has been trying to prove that the martial arts school charity is a money laundering scheme.  When letters with Kendo's name forged on them arise, proving that other heads of martial arts schools around the world have been strong-armed into giving into the charity, it appears that the case is as good as wrapped up.  However, it turns out that the Yakuza are only puppets for American mafia head Don Costello (Claude Gagnon), who aims for his family to take over all operations in Japan.

Again, it is generally a thin plot on which to hang a number of fight scenes, a few of which are quite good.  Despite the eye popping looking laughably fake these days, the rest of the fight at the ski resort is up there with anything in the first movie, and the climax is wonderful as well.  Also, Junjo (Masashi Ishibashi) is back, and is still hungry for revenge.

The problems with this sequel are that it is surprisingly toned down from the first, has too many flashback scenes to fill in time and Pin Boke manages to be an even more annoying sidekick than Ratnose in the first film.  With him it was whining and simpering, with her it is constantly screeching "Terry!" in an extremely high voice.  Again, I don't know if these characters are as annoying in the original Japanese versions, but the dubbed versions make them unbearable.

The other problem is that this one simply isn't as interesting.  Sonny Chiba makes a great anti-hero, and it's great to have him fighting with Junjo, but none of the villains in this are as striking as the first.  There is nothing like the X-ray shot or the fight with the blind swordsmen from the first.  The rushed quality is persistent throughout. 

If you have seen the first, you will want to see this one, but just be aware that it is nowhere on the same level.

Return of the Street Fighter (1974)
Time: 85 minutes
Starring: Sonny Chiba, Yoko Ichiji, Masafumi Suzuki, Masashi Ishibashi
Director: Shigehiro Ozawa

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)

Image
I have to start off by saying I never saw the original Justice League.   I saw Man of Steel , which completely rebooted the Superman franchise after the failure of Superman Returns , and thought it was pretty to look at in the beginning but became tedious during the the final fight.  I was happy with Zod and his crew from the original Superman II , so I didn't think that there was any real need to improve on it.  Henry Cavill was decent in the role of Kal-El, but beyond that there wasn't a whole lot that was memorable.  I remember getting some snide derision for being a "hipster" when, upon seeing the trailers for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , I said immediately that if the advertisement looked liked crap the film was going to be.  Obviously the majority of people who saw the film, including critics, agreed.  Zack Snyder directed both of those films, and it largely set the tone for the DC cinematic universe: lots of brooding, lots of noise and everything just t
Read more

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021)

Image
I must be getting somewhat lucky lately with movie posters that deliver what they promise.  This latest entry in the MonsterVerse promises the first matchup between these two heavyweights since 1963's King Kong vs. Godzilla .  It also promises a world of teal and orange.  Get used to those colors because, except for a few exceptions, those are the only ones that'll be present for the next 113 minutes.  Also be prepared have a remote close so the volume can be adjusted up and down as needed.  With all the money thrown at this it would be nice to be able to clearly hear the dialogue.  Maybe someone has realized that nobody comes to these giant monster battles to hear speeches, but Godzilla: King of the Monsters   had even less plot than this, and I didn't have to sit through a bunch of mumbling or strain to hear what little exposition there was under the soundtrack.  This is quite disappointing as I have been looking forward to Godzilla vs. Kong .  I loved Godzilla: King of t
Read more

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

Image
Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe kind of ended with a whimper instead of a bang.  Sure, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was an important movie for a number of reasons, but most of those had to do with circumstances outside of the MCU rather than pushing the story forward.  Namor the Mariner may figure in to the main plot - whatever that is at this point - in the future, but the important thing was to make a movie that served as a decent tribute to Chadwick Boseman, and by and large it succeeded.  In many ways it was better than the original Black Panther .  Whatever the current Avengers plot may be building up to it probably as little to do with Wakanda or Namor except for another background for a grand Avengers battle.  Instead it appears to be shaping up to involve Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), a character introduced at the end of the first season of Loki as being behind the entire agency responsible for keeping time on track and preventing incursions between universe
Read more