Return of the Street Fighter (1974)

Return of the Street Fighter (1974)
Japanese Title: 殺人拳 2
Translation: Killer Fist 2

 

Starring: Shin’ichi “Sonny” Chiba, Yôko Ichiji, Masashi Ishibashi, Masafumi Suzuki, Hiroshi Tanaka, Claude Gagnon, Naoki Shima, Zulu Yachi, Katsuya Yamashita, Hisao Kôno, Kazuyuki Saito, Sumiko Yamada, George Yirikian
Director: Shigehiro Ozawa
Action Directors: Masafumi Suzuki, Toshio Sugawara, Tsutomu Harada, Reggy Jones, Ken Kazama

The first sequel to the hit The Street Fighter opened in Japanese theaters now fewer than three months after the first movie. Chiba and his crew were indeed working in over time, producing the second sequel and Sister Street Fighter that same year. Return of the Street Fighter is a more pure martial arts film than its predecessor, in that the plot revolves mainly around martial arts in and of itself, albeit with a mafia twist. The film frequently stops dead in its tracks so that different karate masters can demonstrate their mastery of different traditional weapons and kata, or forms. The extreme gore and misogyny of the first film is also toned down, although there are still a few great moments of bloodshed.

We open with Terry Tsurugi on a mission to silence a pair of accountants working for a karate master, Otaguro (Hiroshi Tanaka of G.I. Samurai and Ninja Wars) with ties to the mafia. He takes out the first one by engaging the police in a motorcycle chase across town, where he stops at the American embassy. The police are powerless to arrest him…until he simply walks off the property and turns himself in. Once at the police station, he breaks free, goes into the interrogation room where the accountant is being questioned, and pokes holes in his throat with his powerful karate fingers. The second accountain, who stole a golden Buddha statue from his boss, is surrounded by police near a movie theater. Tsurugi ambushes him, steals the statue, and leaves him for the police to shoot down.

Otaguro is building a huge complex to serve as the biggest martial arts training center in all of Asia. However, he has been facing a lot of scrutiny and criticism from another karate master, Kendo Masaoka (Masafumi Suzuki, playing the same role he did in the first film). Masaoka suspects that Otaguro is extorting money from karate schools all over Asia in order to fund the construction of the school. Helping him in his own little private investigation is his top student, the former cop Yamagami (Naoki Shima). So to deal with Masaoka, Otaguro hires Tsurugi to kill him. To everybody’s surprise, Tsurugi turns down the offer. His explanation is that Masaoka is the only person who understands him and thus he respects the man too much to kill him.

So, Otaguro dispatches his legions of karate assassins to off Tsurugi and his new assistant, the Okinawan girl Boke (Yôko Ichiji of Mirrorman). When Tsurugi proves to be too tough for them, the Mafia steps with their new secret weapon: Tateki Shikenbaru (Masashi Ishibashi), who somehow survived his throat removal from the previous movie.

Despite the fact that the karate master extortion subplot is ultimately a front for your more banal Mafia money laundering scheme, Return of the Street Fighter is a pure martial arts film through and through. All of the assassins are trained martial artists handpicked by Sonny Chiba and company. The story revolves around karate. The film makes frequent detours into segments that have nothing to do with the story, but show off the performers’ talents or delve into some philosophical aspect of karate. You could not replace the fisticuffs with guns and have the same movie.

Whenever an anti-hero becomes popular, there is always the temptation for filmmakers to play down the more bad boy aspects of that character in order to widen his appeal to more general audiences. That happens a little here, although he’s still an autonomous badass selling his services to the shadiest types available. He doesn’t sexually assault anyone or sell people into slavery, but he does shove his assistant around when she gets on his nerves. He also has sex with a willing stranger (Sumiko Yamada), who, in accordance with Dungeons and Dragons laws, is actually an assassin. He breaks her arm and stabs her to death, so that’s a little brutal (although you can argue that she had it coming). The movie didn’t find itself saddled with an ‘X’ rating for extreme violence, but it does feature a bit where Sonny Chiba punches a guy in the back of the head so hard his eyes pop out of their sockets.

The action itself was brought to you by most of the same action directors as before, the main exception being the inclusion of Toshio Sugawara (whose choreography credits include Samurai Wolf) on the team. The choreography style continues to be a mixture of Japanese chambara and Hong Kong kung fu sensibilities, with there being a lot of posturing and strategy before the characters go to blows, at least in the one-on-one fights. There is a great variety of action on display, as masters of the bo staff, spear, nunchaku and kusari-kama (sickle-and-chain) get in on the mix. The best choreography occurs whenever Chiba is facing off with multiple villains at the same time, like at a sauna or during the big finale.  The latter fight features some undercranking, but otherwise is a great-looking brawl. The only false step in the action is that his final showdown with Masashi Ishibashi is a bit of a letdown and resolved too easily; their first fight earlier in the film was a lot longer and more exciting. Rounding out the action cast is choreographer Masafumi Suzuki, who plays Masaoka. He gets to join the action during an assassination attempt at a restaurant. He’s a short, fat man, but he once he starts chopping and kicking with the rest of them, he is as convincing as Sammo Hung was at the same time.