Sister Street Fighter/ Sister
Street Fighter 2: Hanging By A Thread (Blu-ray Double Feature/BCI Eclipse)
Picture: C+/B- Sound: C+ Extras: C- Films: C+
Though
the Sonny Chiba Street Fighter films
are well-known, Sister Street Fighter
also surfaces in collections of his films in this franchise, issued by many
companies. Here are two examples:
BFS
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/621/Great+Street+Fighter+Movies+(BFS/Chi
VCI
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/435/Sonny+Chiba+Street+Fighter+Set+(VCI
For such
low-budget, common fare and after so many DVDs, you guess you’ll never see any
of these films right until they are done in high definition. Well, BCI Eclipse has issued, Sister Street Fighter along with its
little-issued sequel on Blu-ray and both were issued in 1974. Together, they are not bad and Etsuko Shihomi
is more than Chiba’s equal in the first film, but he is sorely missed in the
sequel with its formula story of Yakuza kidnapping young lady and only our
heroine can save her and fight an army of martial arts baddies. This is more of the kind of back catalog
title that will get movie lovers on board Blu-ray sooner than later.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image has noise issues we remember from early
25GB Blu-rays and the picture has halos and edge enhancement showing these are
early HD masters, but color and a solid look that is an improvement over the
DVD versions put these ahead of their low-def counterparts. However, there is room for improvement and
maybe this should have been a 50GB disc.
The second film looks just a bit better than the first and I like the
scope compositions on both.
The old
monophonic sound has even been upgraded to Dolby Digital 5.1, which is better
than the tired mono option, but shows the age of the recording. At least BCI did not add new sound effects
like Fox had in some of there martial arts DTS DVDs, but the idea is to make
the old DVDs obsolete and this disc just manages to achieve that. The only extras are some trailers, but that
is all. Too bad there was not a press
materials section.
- Nicholas Sheffo
