Paul Magne Haakonsen Granted this movie is old, actually one year older than me, then it is actually not all that outdated. How so? Well, because this movie was essentially just an hour and twenty minutes of Sue Shiomi beating up everyone she met while going from A to B.The storyline was so weak and translucent that it was almost non-existing. Lee Long has been imprisoned and kept in a drug-induced stupor, and it is up to Lise to free him. That was the storyline.For a martial arts movie from 1974 I suppose the fighting was good back then, but for today's standards and in comparison to what is seen in movies now, then it bleaks and is not noteworthy.The sounds in the movie were just hilarious and outrageous, fully exaggerated beyond anything even remotely realistic, as it was in so many other older martial arts movies. I suffered through a horrible English dubbed version of the movie. Anything dubbed instantly drops in entertainment value in my opinion, and the DVD didn't even have audio options to switch to the original language."Sister Street Fighter" (aka "Onna hissatsu ken") is a movie enjoyable primarily for hardcore fans of martial arts movies from ages past.

pcernea-1 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.

MartinHafer 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.

Space_Mafune A fierce female martial arts warrior named Tina Long sets out on a mission to rescue her captured brother Lee Long, an undercover agent now being held prisoner by the very drug smuggling ring he sought to bring down! Meanwhile, the head of the drug smuggling ring has assembled a menagerie of the world's greatest killers, some truly outlandish and bizarre eccentric characters, to protect himself and his interests.This delivers the goods when it comes to fight scenes, 1970s style exploitation thrills, chase and action sequences and best of all, it takes a surprisingly cool stylish approach, like something out of a comic book splash page, when it comes to introducing its characters.Where this falters is its mistaken over-reliance on wire stunts for the climactic showdown at the end leading to the most unbelievable and unrealistic fight sequence in the entire film. Also the characters, despite their colorful outer appearance, all remain completely one-dimensional making the film as an whole more forgettable than it might have been otherwise. All in all, this is a good albeit flawed effort.