“Trash-Action Classic” Lady Street Fighter Is Coming to Blu-ray

Classic martial arts film: Sonny Chiba’s 1974 The Street Fighter. Classic videogame: Street Fighter 2. Not-so-classic martial arts film: 1981’s Lady Street Fighter, a film completely unrelated to Chiba’s series, including its similarly titled sequel Sister Street Fighter. Still, although the stuntwork and choreography of Lady Street Fighter are not what one might call “inspired,” that doesn’t mean the film doesn’t have value. Rather, Lady Street Fighter is a mouth-dropping example of WTF exploitation cinema, and one that is now headed to Blu-ray with a brand new 2K transfer, thanks to Alamo Drafthouse and its American Genre Film Archive. The organization, which is dedicated to preserving lost and forgotten genre films before their film canisters degrade completely, was also behind the preservation and digital transfer of 1975’s The Astrologer, a film we recently called the greatest cult classic you might never get to see. They describe Lady Street Fighter thusly:

She makes the bad guys bleed! Written and produced by exploitation demigod Renee Harmon (FROZEN SCREAM) and directed by the legendary James Bryan (DON’T GO IN THE WOODS), this is the story of Linda (Harmon), a tough-as-nails karate cop on the trail of the ruthless scumbags who murdered her twin sister!

From the outrageous fight scenes to Harmon’s incredible outfits, LADY STREET FIGHTER is a joyous blast of no-holds-barred chaos from one of the most important female filmmakers in genre history. Don’t miss the special appearance by Trace Carradine, the most elusive Carradine brother of all!

“Renee Harmon will now be finally recognized as the low budget genius-in-the-rough that she always was,” said LADY STREET FIGHTER director James Bryan. “Her great day has arrived!”

As the description suggests, Lady Street Fighter is primarily infamous for its wacky fight scenes, scandalous outfits, nudity and star Renee Harmon’s (who was German) almost complete lack of ability to legibly pronounce the English language. You can get a little glimpse of the captivating badness in the below trailer.

Lady Street Fighter hits Blu-ray on Aug. 14, 2018, on a special edition that includes commentary from director James Bryan (who brought us the likes of Boogievision and Sex Aliens) and liner notes from Annie Choi of Bleeding Skull. The biggest bonus is that there’s actually a second movie included as well—the unreleased 1990 Revenge of Lady Street Fighter, which was also preserved in 2K from the original 35 mm by the American Genre Film Archive.

Surely, you will not be able to resist owning this piece of exploitation film history, right? You can pre-order Lady Street Fighter right here.