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Tsurugi (Sonny Chiba), the leading freelancing thug & karate fighter is
this time around hired by a karate school led by Otaguro (Ko Tanaka) to kill 2
of its accountants turned traitor & retrieve a stolen Golden Buddha that
will be used to finance the All Asian Martial Arts Center, a task that Tsurugi
of course fulfills with ease (even if he has to get himself temporarily
arrested at one point ). But once the Golden Buddha is back, Otaguro still
senses a traitor among the martial arts schools: Master Masaoka (Masafumi
Suzuki, also in the first Street Fighter
film), & he wants Tsurugi to kill him ... which Tsurugi outright refuses,
out of respect for a fellow martial arts master (!) - but that makes Tsurugi a
risk himself since he could turn traitor or even worse, change sides. So
Otaguro decides to have him killed & sends any number of karate masters
after him to attack him, be it in the mountains, a spa or whatever place they
see fit to do so, but of course Tsurugi defeats them all with ease ... but then
he meets his old enemy Shikenbaru (Masashi Ishibashi - also the first Street
Fighter film), who does indeed defeat Tsurugi, at the climax of their
fight pushing him into the canalisation & leaving him there to die ... But
Tsurugis don't die that easily, as he has a sidekick in young Boke (Yoko
Ishiji), who tenderly cares for him & nurses him back to health. Meanwhile
though the mafia, who was behind Otaguro's organisation, has effectively taken
over, shooting Otaguro in the process, & his successor, Don Costello
(Claude Gannyon) takes a firmer approach to the whole affair, simply shooting
Master Masaoka & his associates to get rid of opposition (Masaoka survives
though, if barely). But as if that wasn't enough to make Tsurugi mad, Don
Costello also has Tsurugi's sidekick Boke kidnapped & killed. Now Tsurugi
knows no stopping, fighting his way through the mafia's headquarters &
taking on & defeating martial arts masters by the dozen, & finally
duking it out with Don Costello atop a moving tanker, but jumping off just
before the thing crashes & explodes ... & Don Costello with it. Of
course, in pure relentlessness & brutality, Return of the Street Fighter
is no match for its predecessor, instead its opting for a more traditional
story of warring martial arts schools ... not that it would make all that much
of a difference since the plot is little more than a hanger for all sorts of
fight scenes, some of which are rather inventive. So, on the plus side the film
ofers plenty of action at a reasonably fast pace, however, the longer the movie
lasts the more episodic it seems, with litle room for development (plot- or
character-wise) of any sort, which after some time makes the film a bit
meaningless. Still, as a mindless actioner, it is some fun to watch.
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