Return of The Street Fighter

Second time around and Shigehiro Ozawa has fallen out of love with Chiba's raw prowling physicality, instead choosing to represent this fight sequel in as tight and immediate a way as possible. Fights are claustrophobic, hand-held wails rather than slow paced thumps as Chiba gets another mobster cob-on.

As in the previous film, the notionally mercenary Tsurugi finds himself at odds with his paymaster's evil agenda. It's a wonder anyone still hires him. This time around the money men plan to off roley-poley karate don Masaoka for sticking his nose into a mob buy-out of East Asian fighting schools. Unfortunately for the cash flashers, Tsurugi has a soft-spot for the incorruptible Masaoka - "He's the only man who understands me."

Ozawa tacks on a few of Bond's lifestyle magazine elements, presumably to give the sequel some broader appeal / economic pep. Tsurugi gets to growl at a lady in a lift, naturally she fawns all over him. Pickup sex quickly sours, turning into a nasty near-miss Verhoeven honey-trap. Turns out Tsurugi is also quite willing to sadistically snap the fairer sex into oblivion too. Return of The Street Fighter maintains its prequel's high standard of violence and bodily harm - a prison hit is the stand out - although it never quite exceeds the first film. There's nothing in this sequel to touch The Street Fighter's impromptu castration of a burly rapist.

Return is unfortunately dense with filler material too. Recycled footage from The Street Fighter pops up far too often in the brief 79 minute running time. These transposed scenes play out in their entirety too. Thankfully these second-hand additions include the fantastically pivotal flashback of Tsurugi's Father being executed - this time inspiring Tsurugi to down a bottle of cheap white plonk and spit it all over his body in some kind of demented pre-fight baptism.

Several specialist weapon masters get to show-off their abilities to amp up the antagonism. Each gets a couple of minutes to prove just how deadly their chosen style is against stationary breeze blocks. They look like they could be real trouble for our hero in the singular, never mind as a unit. We needn't have worried. When they eventually clash with our man Tsurugi, he punches their eyes out almost immediately.

Bloated and meandering, Return's saving grace is its dying minutes. Chiba relentlessly dogs the ratty, Mafia don responsible for corrupting Japan's martial arts sanctity. Chiba is not up against an equal this time. His prey is completely unable to defend himself against Tsurugi's unstoppable fury. Faced with a screaming, begging inferior, Tsurugi does what any monster would do - he tears strips off him then hurls his haemorrhaging body onto the cab of a petrol tanker. Said truck spins wildly out of control and explodes, taking the Mafia schmuck and an innocent driver with it. Tsurugi just laughs.