Sister Street Fighter

After the massive success of THE STREET FIGHTER, Japanese studio Toei built a new karate series around a female lead, casting a young actress who’d appeared in a cameo alongside her mentor Sonny Chiba in the origin film.

Still a teenager at the time, Etsuko Shihomi exploded onscreen and created a new character type: a tough fighter who was fierce, fearless, good-hearted, and decidedly non-sexualised — a departure from Toei’s typical formula.

Shihomi is the half-Chinese, half-Japanese Li Koryu, who travels to Yokohama to investigate the disappearance of her undercover cop brother. Li discovers a smuggling ring run by a drug lord with his own personal army of deadly fighters, and must penetrate his evil lair with the help of a fellow karate master (Sonny Chiba).

Genre entertainment of the highest order, the SISTER STREET FIGHTER films are a wild ride through some of the best exploitation cinema Japan produced in the 1970s. Funky and over-the-top, filled with wall-to-wall action, and featuring some of the craziest villains ever depicted onscreen, the series embodies female power in a male-dominated genre and is a magnificent showcase for the physical presence and martial arts skills of its lead star.

“How can you resist any film with lines like ‘The lady dragon just attacked our wig warehouse’?” - Mondo Digital