Street Fighter (1994)

The world is in peril as Dictator M. Bison and his warriors prepare for the ultimate conquest.  Standing in their way is a team of underdog fighters from all corners of the Earth.  Each have their own unique way of fighting and each has been drawn into the war to stop Bison.  Leading them, Elite Special Forces Colonel Guile, who has his own score to settle with Bison.  The stage is set.  The players have been chosen.  The ultimate battle to save the world begins.

In the hallowed halls of Live Action Video Game Adaptations, you have your true legends like the Sonic the Hedgehog Movies and the Mortal Kombat reboot.  Then you have your bottom barrel dregs like Super Mario Bros and any Uwe Boll movie.  Street Fighter lies in a bit of a middle ground.  As an adaptation, it’s flat out terrible.  However, if you’re looking for an unintentionally hilarious action comedy, it might just hit the spot.  Because despite it’s lack of understanding of the source material, woeful misrepresentations of an iconic cast and not very well choreographed action lies a so bad its good gem that somehow overcomes its shortcomings to be a good time if youre ok with turning your brain off.
 
It’s funny that this came out this Christmas before the original Mortal Kombat movie in 1995.  While MK has its fair share of understandable detractors, at least the movie went all in on the overall aesthetic of its world.  The costumes, moves and cast were all mostly accurately portrayed even with the PG13 bloodless violence.  Street Fighter by comparison feels ashamed to really go all in on what makes its video game inspiration so iconic to this day.  We’ll talk about the casting in a moment but for now, the action: it sucks.  Most of it is handled by the biggest action star of the film, Jean Claude Van Damme.  And any other sequence not involving him is either cut short or edited so poorly youd be surprised anyone threw an actual punch at someone.  The lack of any special moves or Hadoukens is a detractor too.  Subpar all the way.  Even Van Damme’s impressive physical talents are wasted.  Also, how can you have a movie called “Street Fighter” and there’s no Street Fighting?
 
Then there’s the characters.  Does anyone get properly represented?  Why is Dahlsim a scientist with no stretchy powers?  Why are Ryu and Ken con men?  Why does Blanka look like a rejected design for a rebooted 90s Incredible Hulk TV Series?  Why is All American Guile Belgian?  Like, what’s wrong with anyones design and story from the games?  Would it be that hard to make a Street Fighter movie if it all wasn’t mostly grounded in reality?  And yeah, sometimes the characters do get their iconic outfits like Ryu and Ken and Chun Li gets a red version of her famous costume.  But even that feels like fanservice without putting in any actual effort.  I hate to go back to MK95 again but despite the lack of character growth, everyone looked the part, acted the part and felt pulled from the games.  Street Fighter instead just lands generic characters in a generic situation tailor made for an 80s action film made a few years too late (fitting since the director/writer is Steven E. De Souza, the writer of Die Hard).
 
Now, those are the flaws.  They’re evident and prevalent and they don’t make Street Fighter a good movie.  What elevates it above those mistakes is the cast itself.  Sure theyre not accurately portraying their characters but people are having fun with the dialogue and their co stars.  The cast seems in on the joke that the movie is and is game to play along and have a good time along the way.  Nowhere is this more evident than with the films true star: Raul Julia.  This was sadly the final role the legendary Gomez Addams would take on before his passing but my God does he save so much of this movie by just being on screen.  His presence, his mannerisms, Julia is delivering a performance so theatrically campy you cant help but root for him.  Plus he gets some of the most quotable lines (“It was Tuesday” lives rent free in my head).  His verbal sparing with Van Damme is actually much more fun than their actual battles together (cudos to Julia for wanting to do his own stunts despite his condition but you can only do but so much).  Van Damme himself is pretty much in standard action hero mode, not really doing much to make Guile stand out from his other roles other than he isnt Guile from the video games.  Ming Na Wen is also a welcome (and absolutely gorgeous) Chun Li, more than holding her own against Van Damme and Julia.  For me though, the two MVPs of the cast are Andrew Bryniarski as Zangief and Miguel A. Núñez Jr. as Dee Jay.  Zangief’s a loveable oaf who gets easily the best joke of the film while Dee Jay is the audience surrogate rolling with the punches of his bosses with some of the best reactions.
 
It’s easy and understandable to hate on Street Fighter 94.  It’s not a faithful adaptation and feels more like a generic action movie of the week with Street Fighter character names thrown into the mix.  Van Damme’s on autopilot and the actions so dull it makes a mockery of the colorful super fast paced gameplay the video games revolutionized.  However, the film is saved thanks to a charming cast that is delivering all of the dialogue straight and with a healthy dose of humor with plenty of quotable lines.  And, of course, Raul Julia steals the show one final time with a performance that no one can deny is pretty damn good.  This is a true guilty pleasure film worthy of both a “GAME…OVER!!!” and a “Continue?”
 
6/10
 
So what happens when the next attempt at a Street Fighter Movie tries to course correct so hard it does everything much, much worse? Find out as we look at one of the worst Video Game movies ever made Next Monday with Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.