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Rating: 2 out of 5
One of my favorite games growing up was Street Fighter. Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, along with Tekken, used to go head-to-head in my world. Street Fighter had characters from all over the world and the moves that made you laugh. It was all about Chun-Li and her thick thunder thighs. In Street Fighter 2, she was definitely the strongest O.P. character. All you had to do was jump, flip with a kick, and quickly transition into her fast leg attack. Do that twice, and it was game over. Street Fighter did introduce some wild characters, as in Colonel Guile and his wild hairstyle with SONIC BOOM! How about General Bison and his pain-in-the-ass attacks? I can’t forget Ken and Ryu. Those two were the staples of the game and used to beat the shit out of you when they could. In later games, those two characters, especially Ryu, became the focal point in the series.
In 1994, the world was blessed with a live-action version of Street Fighter, starring the one and only Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia in their respective roles. The film is a blend of many characters from, I think, the first three games. I will say that Street Fighter is one of those films that is so bad it is good. Oh, it is so bad that you shouldn’t like it or even enjoy it. When you really think about it, it is based on a video game, so expectations should be extremely low. I’m going to be honest with you: I enjoy this film because it is so bad, and you will be entertained because of the sheer stupidity and acting.
As I said, Street Fighter is based on the famous video game. What is this masterpiece about? Well, in the Southeast Asian nation of Shadaloo, a civil war has broken out. On one side is the Allied Nations, led by Col. William Guile (Van Damme), and on the other side is General M. Bison (Julia), a would-be world dictator and egomaniac who wants to control the world. Bison has captured several A.N. relief workers and demands a ransom of $20 billion with a time limit of three days. Guile refuses the demand and thinks of ways to track down the evil warlord. Behind the scenes is Chun Li (Wen), the beautiful reporter who seeks revenge against Bison for killing her father. Also, there are two small-time criminals named Ryu Hoshi (Mann) and Ken Masters (Chapa) who were arrested during a raid on Sagat, a powerful arms dealer. As the pieces come in place, Guile recruits many to bring down the evil warlord and save the world before Bison unleashes his wrath upon the world.
Let’s jump right into this film. Like I said earlier, this film is so bad that it is good. Was I looking for some all-time masterpiece of epic acting and storytelling? Hell, NO! The story is simple and all over the place, with Bison trying to rule the world and Guile trying to stop him. There isn’t too much to it. Straight forward and to the point. Where it falls off the wagon is that many stories are going on. You have Ryu and Ken doing their thing. You have Sagat, who is an arms dealer and wants to do his own thing and go against Bison but needs him because he buys guns. Chun Li wants revenge against Bison. You even have Blanka being turned into a monster with green skin and orange hair. It was all over the place, and I enjoyed it.
With this being a video game movie, there should be some video game moves, right? Well, the film did a terrible job of doing that. You did get Guile’s backflip kick. There were no Chun Li thunder thighs and her famous kicks. We got a little bit of Ryu ball attack, but homeboy didn’t say, “HADOUKEN!” Blanka just threw people around, which wasn’t what you expected. Hell, Mortal Kombat brought out the special effects for their film. This film was like, “Naw, we don’t need any of that and try to make it believable.” I will say that the final fight scene was meh. It was over the top. The fight between Bison and Guile was lackluster and could’ve been a million times better.
I will say that the costume work for this film was top-notch. I will give credit where credit is due. Video game movies always bring the A-game when it comes to costumes and making people look like the actual characters. Even though Guile didn’t have the crazy hair, Chun-Li was on point along with Bison. Thunder Hawk, Edmond Honda, and Gerard Balrog all look like their parts. Even Vega was a welcome sight to see.
Oh, and the acting with the one-liners was so freakin bad that it was laughable. Jean-Claude Van Damme as Colonel William F. Guile was Van Damme. He made sure he had his muscle scenes and did the over-the-top but useless speech at the end. The speech he gave made ZERO sense, but hey, you have to motivate the troops somehow.
On the other side, I have to give credit to the late Raul Julia as General M. Bison. This was Julia’s last film as he suffered from stomach cancer, I believe and only did it because his kids loved the video game. You can tell he was sickly in this film, and he was definitely trying to go out on top. He was the BEST part of this whole film, and his “It was Another Tuesday” speech was priceless.
Regarding some other performances, Ming-Na Wen as Chun-Li Zang was good. I don’t know about you, but Wen looks the same after all these years and just as beautiful. As Li, she was fierce, strong and was on a mission. She was definitely a side character. Another person in the film was singer Kylie Minogue as Lieutenant Cammy White. I forgot that she was in this film, and I had to pause the movie to make sure it was her. Granted, this wasn’t her best, but I’m not going to hold it against her because she wasn’t the worst out of everyone. Years later, she came with that hit with her in a white dress.
I talked enough about Street Fighter. As I said, it is a video game movie that is so bad it is good. You should play the video games because they are entertaining. Watch the animated films because those are AWESOME and have way more action. Watch Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie because the fight between Ryu, Ken, and Bison is INSANE. Van Damme and Julia hold their own, with Julia being the best part of the whole film. Watch this film when watching other bad video game movies.
