Street Fighter is as batshit crazy as I hoped it would be. You’ve got to admire a movie that totally commits to its premise.
Unlike Masters of the Universe, it doesn’t feel embarrassed about the inherent silliness of its own concept. It embraces it, and you’re either in for the ride or you’re going to have a bad time.
I don’t even know where to start. What should be a relatively straightforward adaptation of the legendary Capcom fighting game series is almost incomprehensible in parts.
I’ll begin with the easy bit. Evil dictator M Bison holds a World Warrior fighting tournament and invites the best fighters in the world to compete in it.
That really should be it, but it isn’t. Bison wants to harness ‘psycho power’ to make himself strong by kidnapping the current World Warrior champion Ryu (Andrew Koji) and extracting the evil spirit that resides within him.
This evil spirit is called Akuma. Fans of the Street Fighter video games will recognise Akuma as an alternate boss that first appeared in Super Street Fighter II Turbo. I thought I played that game, but I don’t remember him.
Anyway, sometimes it seems like Akuma has possessed Ryu but other times he’s a separate entity. Maybe Ryu is simply tapping into the same evil power source as Akuma. I don’t know.
Add to that an unnecessarily convoluted subplot involving Ryu’s relationship with former best friend Ken (Noah Centineo), and I was struggling to keep up.
But it doesn’t matter because this movie rocks. Street Fighter is action packed, funny, earnest and ridiculous all at once. I can’t say it’s objectively good, and many people will hate it, but if you can vibe with it then Street Fighter is massively entertaining.
Round one…fight!
Street Fighter is set in 1993 with an anime prologue set in 1987 covering the first World Warrior tournament. My only beef with the opening is Ryu listening to 4 Non Blondes’ What’s Up. In 1987. It wasn’t released until 1993.
Did you think I wouldn’t notice? I was there! It isn’t the only marginally anachronistic track in the film, but as most of them are bangers (like Offspring’s Come out and Play) I’ll let it slide.
Ken is the protagonist, a playboy reality star who wants to escape Ryu’s shadow and be taken seriously as a fighter. The movie leans into his MTV persona, but he comes across as likeable as opposed to annoying.
Another major player is Chun-Li and her thighs. She recruits fighters for Bison while secretly working for Interpol and even more secretly working for herself on a personal revenge mission.
Chun-Li’s backstory remains unchanged from the games and the 1994 Van Damme movie. We even get an unexpected but welcome callback to the much maligned 90’s original.
Round two…fight!
David Dastmalchian plays Bison. I thought he was an odd choice given his lack of physical presence, but he totally owns the role. Bison isn’t a fighter – he’s powerful in the evil dictator sense, but physically average and looking for shortcuts to make his physicality match his ego.
The entire cast is fantastic, with the one misstep being Jason Momoa’s CGI Blanka. He looks like Hulk’s stoner brother. Couldn’t they just chuck some green paint on Jason Momoa? He’s great as himself, as shown in The Wrecking Crew and even Supergirl.
The cameraman treats us to numerous subtle ass shots of Cammy and Chun-Li, but they are brief and within the limits of Street Fighter’s PG-13 rating. My favourite scene transition involves Chun-li entering a shower, and just as she turns to face the camera, we cut to a shot of E Honda’s fat tits in a sauna.
Well played. And also fuck you.
Round three…fight!
The tournament itself is disappointing. What should be the centrepiece of the movie is treated as an afterthought. Many of the battles happen offscreen, numerous fighters withdraw, and one contestant is a guy called Joe who I’ve never heard of.
I looked it up and discovered that Joe is a non-playable character from the original Street Fighter game. That’s some deep lore, right there. When you watch the movie, you will understand why they included him, but he’s a little underwhelming.
The tournament intercuts with the Bison/Ryu/Chun-Li storyline, and the editing is all over the place.
One scene shows a conversation between Ken and Chun-Li as she tries to persuade him to help Ryu. Moments later we see them talking again, but it’s the same scene we just saw, only earlier in the conversation. It’s mad.
In another scene Ken and Ryu stage a prison break and beat up dozens of guards (good job none of them had a gun). I thought they had won, but when we next see them they have been captured. I don’t know, maybe I blinked and missed something.
The good news is that the movie still contains plenty of entertaining fight scenes that aren’t as cartoonish as you might imagine. Sure, many of the moves are callbacks to the games, but they are well choreographed and surprisingly bloody. You can feel the crunch of Balrog’s punches.
I would have liked to see a showdown between Chun-Li and Cammy, but they must be saving it for the sequel.
You win!
I had a good time with this one, with the spot-on casting, decent banter and energetic fights winning me over despite the underwhelming tournament and the frenetic editing. The ending sets up a sequel that I’m almost certain will be made. I’m putting down my quarter now.
