Review of Return of the Street Fighter (1974) by Dustin D — 20 Apr 2014

The only reason I had heard of The Street Fighter or Return of the Street Fighter was due to the fact that it was referenced in Quentin Tarantinoâ??s script to the film True Romance where Christian Slaterâ??s character talked about loving the film and anything with lead actor Sonny Chiba in it, so when I uncovered a DVD copy of Return of the Street Fighter film I decided not to pass on seeing it.

Clearly a low-budget martial arts film, Return of the Street Fighter has a rough visual and audio quality to it, but it isnâ??t bad enough to make the film intolerable. And plus, it is shot on widescreen unlike many other of the genreâ??s films which proves to be an appealing visual asset.

The negative aspects of the film are essentially all present due to its low budget, but it is to be expected. Essentially, Return of the Street Fighter contains the same weak audio dubbing and generic sound effects used in many films of the genre, as well as the story. But audiences arenâ??t likely to go into a film like Return of the Street Fighter expecting it to be an insightful and moving story. Viewers can only demand some awesome action scenes and possibly some nice scenery, though the latter is of less importance.

My overall opinion of the film wasnâ??t as great as Quentin Tarantinoâ??s, because while I found a certain entertainment value in Return of the Street Fighter, overall the film was rather dull.

I felt like or Return of the Street Fighter was a lot more focused on telling its story than it was on executing fight scenes, which was a problem because I didn't watch the film for its generic story, I watched it to be entertained by some action scenes. I felt like for what it was worth, Return of the Street Fighter simply did not feature enough of them over the course of its mere 85 minute running time. I didn't pay attention to the story in The Streett Fighter all that much and just dug for entertainment with the action scenes, so I wasn't going to do it with the sequel. But somehow, director Shigehiro Ozawa got it in his head that focusing on he story drama was key. It simply was not, the action was key. And had there been more of it, I would have been a lord more impressed with Return of the Street Fighter. It simply lacked enough action to live up to the quality of its predecessor or the name of Sonny Chiba, so it is an unimpressive star vehicle for him and sequel to The Street Fighter.

Due to its low budget nature, certain aspects of Return of the Stret Fighter are laughable, particularly it's poor dubbing and use of stock footage from its predecessor which is dubbed so poorly that it is hilarious. The rest of the film is somewhat superior in the dubbing, though still nothing special.

Return of the Street Fighter simply manages to find success in its action scenes. While the quantity of them isn't exactly sufficient, the quality of them is entertaining. There is enough blood and rough contact in the fight scenes to warrant entertainment for fans of the genre. It isn't all that amazing, but it does the job of entertaining when it is on screen because it is what viewers are hoping for. It delivers on that with the amount of kicks and punches, and it shows off the fighting skills of Sonny Chiba once again. It is all captured well with fairly good cinematography which is edited in time well, and the musical score does its own part as well.

After proving himself in The Street Fighter, Sonny China comes back to kick some major ass once again in Return of the Street Fighter, and while he could use some more action scenes to show off the kind of fight he can put up, he single handily makes the film memorable. Reminiscent of the kind of skills that Bruce Lee had as a fighter and an action hero, Sonny Chiba returns to his iconic role of Shinichi Chiba once again to an awesome result. He dominates the screen with his awesome fighting skills in Return of the Street Fighter, and he makes the titular return a welcome one with his action heroism.

But despite the presence of Sonny Chiba and some entertaining action moments, Return of the Street Fighter wastes its short quantity of action scenes in favour of lacklustre and formulaic storytelling which is the less important aspect in a low budget Kung-fu film yet is more prominent in this film, so it is entertaining in parts but as a whole is a less than stellar follow up to The Street Fighter.