Well, against the ostensible general tide of opinion I must say that I wasn't a particularly huge fan of the original film that this follows. In fact, for me at least, the only saving grace it boasted was in its violent excesses – the majority of which were saved until the final third of its running time. From reading many of the other reviews on this site, it furthermore seems indicative that the exact said graphic violence is the principle reason that most other reviewers have awarded the flick such lofty marks.

Interestingly and conversely, this sequel actually tones down the blood letting somewhat and apparently as a result didn't hold quite as much appeal it would seem. Well, that's what I'm assuming at least.

From my own perspective however, whilst this sequel is indeed bereft of much of the old red stuff a flying, I would say that it actually surpasses the original in pure entertainment value by far. The martial arts sequences are far superior this time around including some rather nifty Kobudo weapons displays throughout. Also Sonny Chiba is on much better form here to – just check out the awesome sequence near the start of the film in which our protagonist allows himself to be taken to a police station in order to silence a witness. He makes his escape by kicking the bars out through the wall and leaping through the subsequent hole from a few stories up!

Another scene of amazing note involves our hero punching some poor chap so hard in the back of the head that his eyeballs literally pop out!!! (some great utilisation of ping-pong balls there!) It's also great to see the return of a supposedly deceased character from the first flick who returns here with the intention of exacting his revenge upon our hero.

To be quite honest, there's only one negative I can think of in this flick and that is the ill advised inclusion of Chiba's 'side-kick' (the first film also suffered the indignity of including one to!) who in this instance is a veritably annoying chick boasting ridiculous looking pig tails and who furthermore, has a rather unfortunate propensity for warbling along to crappy music (badly at that!)

Aside from this minor gripe though, overall, this proves to be a tremendously entertaining affair throughout and is well worth tracking down!

Sonny Chiba returns as Tsurugi, slightly more well-mannered here as befits a film that is neither as gory or as good as the original. The plot is straightforward - Tsurugi upsets the mafia, they send hordes of goons to kill him, he kicks their asses. The film has plenty of fight scenes that are still intense and brutal, but tones down the level of animal rawness... it does offer us a bit of nudity in exchange, but frankly it's no substitute for a guy getting his genitalia ripped off in a fight.

Still, it is pretty entertaining and the fight scenes are still impressive.

Warning! SPOILERS to this film and the predecessor "Gekitotsu! Satsujin Ken" aka. "The Streetfighter"! I once read a review, comment or ad (I cannot remember which it was) which very aptly described Shigehiro Ozawa's original ""Gekitotsu! Satsujin Ken" aka. "The Streetfighter" of 1974 as "the most mother****** film ever made". This sequel, "Satsujin Ken 2" aka. "Return of the Streetfighter" which brings back Sonny Chiba in his most career-defining role of the body-part-ripping karate-killing-machine Tukuma Tsurugi, is maybe just not quite as 'mother...' as its predecessor, but its still pretty far out there, and another proof that Sonny Chiba is the most bad-ass of bad-asses.

This time, the hired Karate-Assassin Tsrurugi is assigned by the mafia to execute a victim by ripping out his vocal cords. When he later refuses to kill the respected karate-master Kendo Masaoka (Masafumi Suzuki) for the mafia, Tsurugi is put on a hit-list himself. As anybody who has seen the first part knows, however, Tsurugi is not the guy the mafia, or anybody else, would want to mess with...

Sonny Chiba is (as always) fantastic, both in his unequaled martial arts skills, and in his role as one of the most supremely bad-ass characters in the history of motion pictures. Tsurugi is slightly more humane (and therefore slightly less bad-ass) than in the preceding film, but he still is a mercy-less one-man-army killing machine whose strange sounds when flexing his muscles before another deadly stroke (understandably) evoke mortal fear in his enemies. Instead of the silly sidekick he had in the first part, he has a somewhat silly, but also cute female sidekick played by (Yôko Ichiji) in this one. Tsurugi's mortal enemy, Tateki Shikenbaru (played by Masashi Ishibashi) is also back, having somehow survived the ending of the first film. Strangely, the film poster depicted here on IMDb shows the beautiful Yutaka Nakajima, who played the female lead in the first part, even though she does not appear in this film.

Overall, this one may have some inconsistencies in its storyline, but it is just the gory, action-packed and supremely bad-ass sequel that fans of the first "Streetfighter" film should enjoy. Highly recommended to any Martial Arts/Cult-cinema fan, and a must-see for my fellow Chiba-fans.