Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li

After witnessing the destruction of her family at the hands of the villainous M. Bison, Martial Arts prodigy Chun Li begins a mission of revenge.  It is a journey that will take her into the heart of an international conspiracy, bring her face to face with mystic arts and legends, and see her battle ferocious enemies all looking to claim her head.  At the end of this road is Bison himself.  This is where the Legend begins.

Of all the characters in the Street Fighter pantheon, Chun Li is easily one of the most obvious to build a solo movie around.  This beautiful warrior Goddess has been one of the greatest and most recognizable gaming icons in history, beloved by gamers and non gamers worldwide.  Given her rich history and extensive combat resume, the kinds of crazy adventures and fight scenes you could pull off could be amazing.  But clearly no one was thinking about any of that when it came to Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li.  They just thought, “Hey let’s use Chun Li” and that was it.  I may not be as up on my Street Fighter lore as I am Mortal Kombat but this is not how you should be handling a Chun Li led movie.  In fact it’s not how you should be handling any movie at all…like ever.
 
I’m just gonna get this off of my chest right away: I am not a big fan of Kristen Kruek.  During her debut on Smallville, I feel like the powers that be were trying to prop her up as the next big hot Hollywood actress but personally, I’ve never been as enamored with her as others have been.  And her take on Chun Li doesn’t do anything to change that opinion.  From her lifeless and emotionless narraration to her tough girl act, nothing here reminds me of the cheerful but extremely deadly Chun Li we all know and love from the games.  I kid you not when I heard yet another string of narraration after a minute or so scene reprieve and I actively said to the screen “SHUT UP!!!” (MST3K Style).  And don’t get me started on when she tries to pull off Chun Li’s signature Spinning Bird Kick, that just felt so unearned.
 
Despite how bad as Kruek is in the lead roll, she’s not the only miscast offender.  Chris Klien’s Charlie Nash is the stuff of bad movie acting legends, trying to sound cool and bad ass but coming off more and more as a poser with each scene.  If anyone should have succeeded in this cast, it should have been Neal McDonough.  The dude can play fun, theatrical baddies (see his character Damien Darhk from Arrow and Legends of Tomorrow for his solid villain work).  Here though, he is anything but Bison.  The accent, wrong.  The wardrobe, wrong.  The theatricality, nonexistent.  Is it tough to follow Raul Julia’s flawless performance, yes.  But McDonough isnt even trying and that sucks.  The only redeeming cast members I found were Moon Bloodgood as C. Viper and Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog.  Bloodgood might not get to do much but she’s a better actress than most in the movie (and stunningly gorgeous) and MCD can be in anything and still be one of the better parts of any movie, man I miss him.
 
As vast and rich as the world of Street Fighter is, The Legend of Chun Li seems content with delivering a bog standard, run of the mill revenge flick that feels as been there, done that as any action movie in the 80s or 90s.  Except here, the action is terribly choreographed and chopped to pieces so bad it’s hard to tell who is fighting who.  If you thought the fight scenes in Marvel’s Iron Fist were bad…they still are but the fights here might be even worse.  From sudden super human feats to an overreliance on wirework to cuts so quick you’d think Kruek, McDonough or even Robin Shou (who’s one of the few actors who can both act and fight in this movie) aren’t even on set half the time for their own fights.  Look, the fights in the ’94 movie weren’t amazing either but that movie had a whole lot more holding it up than the Legend of Chun Li has here.
 
Arguably the most insulting part of this entire production is the ADR.  80% of this movie looks redubbed for no inexplicable reason other than no one was giving a good or usable performance on set that day and they thought they could fix it in post.  Dialogue and lip movements are so out of sync most of the time it felt like I was watching a poorly dubbed Kung Fu movie from back in the day, except those had the charm of how laughably bad they were.  Like everything else in this movie, the dialogue and performances take themselves way too seriously.  It’s like they’re trying to overcompensate for how cheesy the ’94 movie was but end up creating something even worse: something utterly forgettable and bad beyond forgiveness.
 
Chun Li’s first solo movie could well be her last if Caliana Liang and the upcoming 2026 movie don’t knock it out of the park.  Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li is a generic and very bad action film that uses Street Fighter characters without knowing what makes them memorable; gives those roles to a cast that should have been rethought and recast ASAP (except for Moon Bloodgood and Michael Clarke Duncan); and lends itself to one of the worst Hollywood set productions I’ve ever seen in a movie ever.  This isn’t just a bad Street Fighter movie, it’s a bad movie in general, the kind you find at the bottom of a bargain bin somewhere.  Too serious, not fun, hardly worth the time and effort to watch, this is one movie that should be Haddouken’d out of existence.
 
1/10
 
Next week, we’re actually looking at a Street Fighter Anime in this Street Fighter Movie Month.  Don’t know much about this one other than it came with Special Editions of Street Fighter IV.  Hopefully it’s better than Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie.  It’s Street Fighter IV: The Ties That Bind, Next Monday right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.