The title, The Street Fighter’s Last Revenge, doesn’t really refer to anything in the film itself. The Street Fighter is Sonny Chiba. He’s gone for psychotic killer karate man (from the first film, Last Revenge is the third) to suave, romantic ladies man. Complete with a secret room to put on his disguises. He also does disguises now. Last Revenge is often like a cheap James Bond knockoff, but then there’s some fighting and everything’s okay for a while.
Anyway. Chiba doesn’t wantonly kill everyone anymore but he still does get cheated by the criminals who hire him for the odd jobs. Only Last Revenge is more interested in the Chiba the ladies man than Chiba the killer karate man. So instead of fighting his way through the bad guy’s organization, Chiba instead romances the guy’s evil sister (Ike Reiko). It’s a family thing–there’s Ike, smart brother Kitamura Eizô, and stupid brother Shioji Akira.
Except it’s not a Romeo and Juliet thing, Ike’s really always just trying to kill Chiba. Sometimes involving mafia karate man Frankie Black, who has a magic power (really) to cut heavy objects with his mind. Black’s also dressed like a Mariachi. He’s really tall too. So sometimes Street Fighter’s Last Revenge will have this giant white guy Mariachi fighting Chiba.
It’s absurd and bad and awesome at the same time.
Kitamura–the smart brother–has this whole subplot about government corruption where he ends up teaming up with Wada Kôji’s corrupt prosecuting attorney. Wada’s also a karate man, ten years more advanced than Chiba.
Oh. Yeah. In addition to just having straight-forward, usually well-choreographed fight scenes, Last Revenge reduces Chiba’s badassery. He gets his ass handed to him a few times by Wada, with the film unable to figure out how to be sympathetic to Chiba. Luckily he’s a karate man and just needs to visit Suzuki Masafumi for some tips. Suzuki runs a karate school and is a real good guy, not a de facto one like Chiba.
It’s basically an excuse for director Ozawa to showcase some karate. The fight scenes have more jumping than intricate technique.
Though Shiomi Etsuko, as a young karate woman, gets some nice technique showcasing. She’s ten years too young to take on Chiba, or so he says; he’s ten years too young to take on Wada, or so Wada tells Chiba. Not being developed enough in your karate and hitting people with time-delayed fatal wounds are the big script gimmicks. Neither ever feel like anything but gimmicks.
However, it’s cool seeing Shimoi has a fun arc of rejecting Kitamura and family to be an antihero like Chiba. It gives him a protege, whether he wants one or not. There are lots of ladies interested in Chiba–the film’s first subplot involves his message service receptionist deciding she has to track him down because of his sexy voice. It makes his “romance” subplot with Ike all the more plausible.
Not good, but plausible. Even though Ike’s performance as a deceptive femme fatale is probably the film’s best bit of acting. And Ike gets no favors from the script or Ozawa’s direction. Ozawa doesn’t really do the directing performances thing. He’s patient with his composition, giving the actors space and time, but he doesn’t do anything to help them. It doesn’t really matter for any of the guys. But it matters for Shimoi and Ike.
Wada’s a good villain. Not so much to Chiba, rather as a foil in Kitamura’s plans.
So it’s a shame when none of it comes through at the end. Last Revenge has a chance to be this violent but benign martial arts thriller and screws it up so much it’s difficult to remember how or why it got the goodwill to burn.
Mostly it’s because Chiba’s got such a weak part.
Good photography from Yamagishi Nagaki. Decent score. Street Fighter’s Last Revenge is perfectly well-produced, it just can’t overcome a bad script and that script’s temperate Chiba.
ⓏⒺⓇⓄ
CREDITS
Directed by Shigehiro Ozawa; written by Takada Kôji and Shimura Masahiro; director of photography, Yamagishi Nagaki; released by Toei Company.
Starring Sonny Chiba (Tsurugi), Ike Reiko (Aya), Wada Kôji (Takera Kunigami), Shiomi Etsuko (Huo-Feng), Suzuki Masafumi (Masaoka), Kitamura Eizô (Ôwada Seigen), Murakami Fuyuki (Iizuka), Shioji Akira (Ôwada Gô), and Frankie Black (Black).
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