Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie

For years, the terrorist organization Shadaloo has stood unopposed.  In order to cement this fact, it’s maniacal leader M. Bison has begun to abduct power Street Fighters from across the globe and turn them into his personal, unstoppable army.  Two unlikely allies: US Air pilot Captain Guile and Interpol Agent Chun Li team up to investigate these disappearances with the hopes of taking Bison down together.  They’ll have to move quickly as M. Bison has his sights set on one particular fighter: Shotokan Martial Arts Master Ryu, one of the most powerful warriors on the planet.  Fists will fly and spirits will be tested as the ultimate battle on a world stage begins. 

Back in the 90’s Street Fighter was the only game out there that could rival Mortal Kombat for popularity in the arcade arena.  Lighting fast combos and memorable, colorful characters from across the globe gave the game a very unique style.  It pretty much screamed to be made into an Anime at some point.  While there were several projects, from an Anime TV series to several OVAs, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie stands as one of the most remembered of these Anime outings.  Does it live up to that legend or is it just as bad as the live action Street Fighter movie with Jean Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia? (or at the very least passable like the first Mortal Kombat movie?)

Well if you’re looking for a dumb, 90 minute action fest where you can turn your brain off, SF2TAM is the flick for you.  Pretty much every character from the Street Fighter II roster is here from series mainstays like Ryu, Ken and Chun Li to eternal fan favs like E.Honda, Blanka and Sagat.  Of course, you can guess the problem with this.  Of the near dozen or so characters around, only five of them matter to the overall plot: Ryu, Ken, Guile, Chun Li and M.Bison.  Everyone else is either window dressing or gone before you even realize they were around (poor Cammy is reduced to a barely minute long cameo).  Everyone does get a moment to shine but it both feels all too brief and too much like an unnecessary distraction from the “main plot”.

Speaking of main plot, the overcrowded cast list also highlights the bigger problem that the story doesn’t really bring the two central journeys together all that well.  On the one hand, you have Ryu traveling the countryside, getting into side quests and fights.  Then you have Guile and Chun Li doing the major lifting looking for Bison and his men.  The latter of these two tales could have made the whole movie as it feels way more focused and Guile and Chun Li are great together.  Chun Li, more so, steals the show in every scene she’s in with her bubbly attitude, dead on to the game good looks and killer fight moves.  In fact, I dare say Chun Li at least gets one of the best fights in the movie before getting sidelined for the rest of it.  Poor Guile fares worse as he doesn’t get the proper conclusion to his tale he’d worked hard toward.  Yep, at the end of the day, it was all building to Ryu and Ken fighting M.Bison because they’re the only ones who truly matter to the Street Fighter Legacy…cause why not.  It left things a bit hollow from a storytelling POV.

So the story is a bit of a mess.  And it shows when everything else about the movie looks great.  The action scenes, of which the film can be summed up as one fight after another with a couple of short dialogue driven scenes in between, feel like they’ve been extensively research and crafted.  Everything is as fast as lighting and full of color and signature attacks and everything you can get by playing the Street Fighter II arcade game.  That’s not a strike against the movie either.  On the contrary, it’s a sign that the animators have enough good sense to stay true to the source and never stray too far from pushing the fights into Dragon Ball Z levels of over the top.  And it looks great too.  From the straight from the game costumes of all the characters (Chun Li in particular looks great) to the execution of the “Hadoken” and other special moves, the Street Fighter II movie is a staple of 90s Japanese Animation and it’s easy to see why its gained such a following besides just coasting on the Street Fighter label alone.  I already mentioned the Chun Li vs Vega fight as a personal fav of mine (helped by the 90s rock soundtrack provided in the English Dub) but the final showdown between Ryu and Ken vs. M.Bison was worth the missteps the film took to get there.  Fights in 90s films don’t get much better than this…fist fights that is, you want bloodier ones, there are other options but that’s neither here nor there.

Had the story been given a tighter focus…and a lot more attention, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie would be rated a little higher in my eyes.  The film looks really good for a feature film Anime from the 90s and there’s plenty of energy borrowed from the video games, along with a huge roster of characters that youre favorite will do something memorable before they vanish.  However, I cant ignore said large cast and the story feeling so uneven.  It is a fun time and a good 90s nostalgia trip…and yes it is much, MUCH better than the Live Action film.  So in the end, that in and of itself is a win.  If you ever wanted to get into Street Fighter and never, for whatever reason, played the games…id say yeah it’s a good entry point for ya…or you could just play the game then see the movie, that makes much more sense im my opinion.

7.5/10