Videogame Cinema: Street Fighter

I’ve talked about Street Fighter 2 in past reviews. About how it was one of the all-time biggest arcade hits and the massive impact it had on the wider world of gaming. But I don’t think I can convey just how big of an impact it really had.

Before Street Fighter 2, fighting games were designed more like action games. They were single player experiences where you had to fight through a series of computer opponents. They didn’t have much of a competitive element to them, and when they did, they were usually more a simulation of a combat sport like Karate Champ.

Street Fighter 2 changed all of this. It helped pioneer a lot of fighting game tropes most of us take for granted today. Having a weird cast of characters to select from each with their own unique fighting styles? This is something expected of the genre today, but it first debuted in Street Fighter 2.

The controls were smooth and intuitive rather than the clunky way fighting games used to control. I mean even Street Fighter 1 had that problem. The characters were all memorable, with bizarre moves and their own distinct stories and endings. It looked fantastic with big, well detailed and animated sprite work. And the music, look there’s a reason why Guile’s theme goes with everything alright.

It truly is one of gaming’s all-time greats. A true masterpiece that has stood the test of time. And it was popular, very, very popular. I mean you couldn’t walk into an arcade and not find a Street Fighter 2 cabinet.

I admit, I was born too late to really take in the 90’s arcade scene, but I do remember there was one bar I went too when my family went camping that had arcade games in it. And sure enough, one of them was Street Fighter 2.

To give you a better idea of how big it was, the SNES port of the game alone sold over 6 million copies. Not only was it the best-selling game of 1992, alongside Sonic the Hedgehog 2, it’s one of the top 5 best-selling SNES games of all time. There’s a reason the SNES mini had a version of Street Fighter 2 on it.

Hell, it was so popular, Capcom didn’t need to do a sequel to it for years. They just re-released the game with a series of updates that were also super popular. Even when they made the updated CPS2 arcade board, guess what the first game for it was? Yup, Super Street Fighter 2.

And with all this popularity this could only lead to one thing, merchandising! Comics, board games, t-shirts, toys, if they could put Ryu and Ken on something they would. They’d probably sell Street Fighter prophylactics if they could get away with it. Which they did incidentally, though this was years later. And if you don't believe me, you'll have to Google that on your own.

Look the point is, Street Fighter was hot shit in the 90’s and Capcom was taking any opportunity to milk this money cow dry. So, in 1994 following the “final” version of Street Fighter 2 with Super Turbo, they decided to make a feature film to capitalise on the series peak in popularity.

Released in December of that year, Street Fighter was written and directed by Steven E. de Souza, who is best known for action movies like Commando and Die Hard. He also helped write the live action Flintstones that released that same year. No, I am not making that up, Google it if you think I’m lying.

That’s not a great sign, but hey he did have experience with action movies. Even though he hadn’t actually directed a film before this point and only had writing credits to his name. Still he was a fan of the game and was willing to give it a shot.

The film would star Jean Claude Van Damme as Guile and Raul Julia as M. Bison in his final film role. In fact, Julia chose this specifically as his final film because his kids were huge fans of the game.

Now, after the Super Mario Bros Movie the previous year, you’d think Hollywood wouldn’t touch videogames ever again. But if there’s one thing Hollywood loves more than artistic integrity, it’s making boat loads of cash. There’s no trend Hollywood won’t jump on to make a quick buck.

Mind you in this instance it helped that Capcom themselves were the major investor in the project. Most of the films $35 million budget came from them. It sweetens the deal when the guys behind the source material are the ones shouldering most of the financial burden.

This also meant that Capcom had final say in any decisions that went into the movie. So, the issues that Super Mario Bros ran into of Nintendo not being involved in production wasn’t going to happen here. In general, the movies production wasn’t nearly as bad as the Mario movie, though it was still big mess.

For one thing, hiring Van Damme and Julia ate up a good chunk of the films budget. Of the $35 mil spent on the movie, $8 million of that went to getting Van Damme alone. That’s nearly a quarter of the films budget.

Because of this, the rest of the cast had to be filled with lesser known, or completely unknown actors because that’s all they could afford. Also, Kylie Minogue because de Sousa wanted an Australian actress and thought she looked nice. No really, that is the reason she was hired.

What’s funny is that Van Damme was specifically chosen by Capcom themselves. Meaning they intentionally wasted money on something that, in hindsight, may not have been the best choice in the first place. Oh Capcom, never change.

Another issue related to casting was Julia’s health. When I said he chose this as his last movie, I meant it. The dude was dying of cancer when he was making this which affected the shoot. The original idea was to shoot the less intensive scenes first to allow time for the actors to train for the more intensive action sequences. A common thing in action movies like this.

But because Julia wouldn’t be able to do this because of his ailing health. He had lost so much weight due to his cancer treatments that they couldn’t shoot him up close in the talking sequences until he regained the weight. Forcing them to do the action scenes first since then they could shoot him from a distance.

This meant the actors and stunt personnel had to be trained right before they began filming these scenes. Sometimes with only a few hours of prep time to get ready. Now you may be thinking, well why didn’t they just wait until everyone was trained before shooting. Because they didn’t have a choice.

See, Capcom was adamant that the film have a December 1994 release date. The problem was that they had made the deal to make the movie in December of 1993. Meaning they only had a year to fully make and release the movie.

This condensed production schedule meant things had to be rushed. Stunt work was often choreographed on the fly and the actors had to improvise most of their dialogue since de Souza couldn’t work on the script. A script he had written in only a single night. The movies production was so rushed that they had to start filming before the casting was even finished.

So you had a production with a deadline so tight they had to basically make it all up as they went along, and one of the leading stars was dying at the same time. Not to mention all the issues that happened while filming like actors getting sick from the local food, one actor being busted at the airport for steroids, oh and the line producer nearly dying from a fucking heart attack. The fact the movie was made at all is a miracle.

When the film did release, it wasn’t received well by critics. With most criticism aimed at the over the top and campy tone, poor writing and acting, as well as it not being faithful to the video game. Yes, even the original company’s involvement, it still wasn’t all that accurate an adaptation.

However, unlike the Super Mario Bros, it was a financial success. It did decent at the box office making 3 times its budget, and it did well on home video as well. So it at least made it’s money back and then some.

And to be fair, a lot of Street Fighter fans do seem to like the movie. I don’t think anyone would call it a great adaptation, or even a good movie, but there are still fans out there that fondly remember it and still quote it to this day.

It’s gained a decent cult following over the years as a so bad it’s good movie, and with Street Fighter 6 just around the corner as of the time of writing, I figured it would be a good time to go back to this and see what makes it so memorable. This is the 1994 Street Fighter movie. The only movie adaption of a videogame that got a videogame adaptation made of it. Yes, that actually happened.

Now, the plot of the videogame is straight forward. It centres on an international fighting tournament run by the villain M. Bison. A crime lord who runs an international criminal organisation Shadaloo, who runs the tournament to eliminate any threats to his power and, subsequently, take over the world. With various characters entering the tournament for their own personal reasons.

The movie is absolutely nothing like this. Instead, it revolves around a war against Shadaloo, portrayed in the movie as a rogue nation with Bison as a mad dictator, and the armies of the Allied Nations headed by William F. Guile.

This change was done because Souza didn’t want to just do a martial arts movie. Instead, he wanted to do a movie that was a mix between a James Bond movie, a war movie and, I shit you not, Star Wars. This in spite of the movie being called Street Fighter.

The entire premise of the franchise is people fighting on the streets. It’s literally in the name. Why would you not just make a standard martial arts movie, especially since you’re working with Van Damme who was well known for making those kinds of movies. I mean for god’s sake, Blood Sport was one of the main inspirations behind Mortal Kombat, which was Street Fighter’s biggest arcade rival at the time.

Really it just looks like Souza was over complicating his own movie for no reason. All he had to do was take a standard kung fu action movie and put the cast of Street Fighter in it. That’s probably what people wanted, but no, he had to be different just because he could.

But alright, that’s the basic set-up, what about the actual plot. The story begins with Bison having kidnapped a bunch of aid workers and AN soldiers. Threatening to kill them all if not given a ransom of $10 billion.

His actual plan though is to create a genetic army of super-soldier monsters so he can take over the world. To stop him, Guile recruits Ryu and Ken, a pair of con men, to infiltrate Bison’s gang so they can take them out from the inside.

Yeah, Ryu and Ken are con men in this rather than wandering world warriors. This leads me to one of the big issues with the movie, the character changes.

Chun-Li is now a news reporter rather than a police officer, with E. Honda and Balrog now being her camera crew who want revenge on Bison for ending their careers. Dee Jay is now Bisons lackey rather than a kick boxing musician. Sagat is now a gun runner, and Blanka is now a genetic experiment of Bisons, and also Guile’s friend Charlie.

Most of the characters from the game are here, but none of them feel like the characters they’re supposed to be. Some are definitely handled worse than others though. It still baffles to this day that the movie took Dhalsim, a yoga master known for powerful mystic abilities, and made him a scientist. They took this guy…

And put him in a lab coat. I don’t get it.

A lot of these changes are understandable due to the change in the premise. The original games characters backstories were designed around the idea of them being martial artists in a fighting tournament. So when you change the premise you also need to change the characters so they can fit within it.

But some of the changes just feel unnecessary if not outright disrespectful. Changing Ryu and Ken to be con men just feels wrong. It makes sense for the story, since Guile needs people to infiltrate Bisons group, and since Ryu and Ken are the faces of the franchise it makes sense to use them to give them a more important role in the plot.

But it’s also completely out of character for them. And since Ken is portrayed as the one instigating their scheming, it also makes him look like a huge asshole. And not in the fun way like he is in the games.

Chun-Li also being a newspaper reporter doesn’t make a whole lot of sense as a change either. She’s an Interpol agent in the games, which could very easily be adapted into this new setting. If need be, you could just make her military police and it would have worked perfectly.

Really the only reason to do this is for E-Honda and Balrog as they’re depicted as Chun-Li’s camera crew. Because I guess it was the only way to include them. Actually, while we’re on the subject, did Balrog’s and Dee Jay’s roles get reversed. Because in the games Balrog is Bison’s minion and Dee Jay is one of the good guys, while in the movie Dee Jay is Bison’s minion and Balrog is one of the good guys. Hell, Dee Jay is also only in it for the money, exactly like Balrog in the games.

They had to have switched the two at some point in development. Considering they didn’t have time to work on the script it makes too much sense. Funny thing is it wouldn’t be hard to fix. You’d only need to change a couple of lines of dialogue to make swapping them over work. But I guess they didn’t get enough time to do even that.

I’ll give the movie this, there are at least remnants of what the characters are like in the games here. Chun-Li’s entire story is trying to get revenge on Bison for murdering her father, just like her story in the game. Ryu and Ken were still trained by the same mentor. Even Guile’s story of trying to get his friend Charlie back is somewhat reminiscent of his story in the game.

Then there are the characters the movie got spot on. M. Bison’s backstory is different but his character is spot on. He’s still a mad general and crime lord obsessed with proving his superiority. And then there’s Vega who is still the vain, narcistic cage fighter who fights with a claw. Those two I have no real complaints with.

So it’s not all bad at least. But even with the things it gets right, it still suffers from having far too many characters. The movie tries to use as many characters from the game as possible. In fact, of the 17 characters in the game, only 2 didn’t make it in, Fei Long and Akuma.

The former because a character called Sawada replaced him due to Capcom having a contract with the actor, and the latter because he had debuted the same year the movie released, and they didn’t have time to include him.

But even with those omissions, that still leaves them with 15 characters. That’s way too many to cram into one movie like this. And the movie tries it’s best to give each of the characters something to do, but with how many there are it only ends up making them feel underdeveloped.

Even when they are given a more substantive sub-plot like with Chun-li, Ryu or Ken, it doesn’t amount to much. Most of the sub-plots don’t get any kind of proper resolution which makes them feel like a waste of time.

Not that the movie has time to waste. The movie never stops moving. It is constantly jumping from scene to scene, and when you combine that with the various disparate genre’s it tries to be, the movies plot ends up being quite a mess.

I mentioned before that they didn’t have time to really work on the script and it feels like. This feels like a first draft, not an actual finished script. Even the plot is more or less an outline of the story, it never really evolves beyond the basics.

If the movie had just focused on a few of the characters from the game, it might have had more time to flesh everyone out. But no, it needed to include everyone and give them something to do which just makes everything feel under cooked.

And the fact it barely resembles the game is just the cherry on top. Actually, given the premise of two armies at war, each staffed with a cast of colourful characters with their own unique skills and abilities, it ends up feeling more like a G.I Joe movie than it does Street Fighter. In fact, it feels more like a live action G.I Joe movie than the actual live action G.I Joe movies.

But you know what, who cares about the story. This is an action movie; action movies don’t necessarily need a good story. I mean look at another de Souza movie, Commando. That movie is pure nonsense and yet it’s held up as an action movie classic.

All you really need in an action movie is good fun action. And Street Fighter does have decent action. Though it definitely varies in quality. Some fight scenes, especially the ones with Van Damme, are done well, while others make a mockery of the art of wire fighting.

But the action overall is decent enough fun. Given the circumstances in which it was filmed I can’t be too harsh on it. At the very least you do get what you come for in a movie called Street Fighter.

That said if you’re expecting them to throw Hadokens or Sonic Boom’s you’re going to be disappointed. De Souza intentionally left out a lot of the more mystical elements of the game, so you won’t see any projectiles being fired. The closest you get is Bison use electromagnetism and even that’s based on technology not magic or ki.

Apparently, De Sousa did this because he didn’t want to shoehorn in elements from the games like Super Mario Bros did. And fair play to him, that was a big issue the movie did suffer from. But that raises the question on why Blanka is included. You know the big green jungle man with electric powers. How do you include him without the supernatural elements and still make it work?

Well through genetic engineering of course. Yeah, instead of him surviving as a kid in the jungle, here they just pump Charlie full of chemicals and that’s how he becomes Blanka. I mean, at least that’s one way of doing it.

But the biggest problem with the action is the editing. Specifically in when it cuts between fights. The movie has a bad habit of cutting away from a fight at the worst time. It’s hard to fully enjoy them because just when it’s getting good it cuts to something else. It makes everything just a little bit awkward.

I’ve been down on the movie so far, and not for entirely invalid reasons. Street Fighter has a lot of issues as a movie that really hold it back. But it’s also those same flaws that make so memorable. It’s not good, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t entertaining.

A lot of that is due to the movies tone. I was laughing my ass off throughout the whole movie because of how campy it all was. The dialogue is nothing but cheesy one liner, the action scenes are almost cartoonish at times, and the sets are so cheap you’d think the movie was funded by Scrooge Mcduck.

I mean the entire final fight is literally just Bison flying at Guile like he’s the Green Goblin minus the glider. It looks absolutely ridiculous, but it is the funniest shit you will ever see. The whole movie is like this. It cranks up the absurdity so much it’s hard not to laugh at it.

And the movie knows this too It isn’t trying to be taken seriously. It’s just trying to be a fun ride, and it succeeds in that. I was never bored at any point while watching it. Mind you that’s largely because the movie never slows down, but at least that means there’s never a dull moment. There were even moments that were intentionally funny. Anything with Zangief and Dee Jay is guaranteed to get a smile out of you.

And while the movie is nothing like the games, at least the characters look like there supposed to. They do wear their iconic outfits and that is cool to see in live action. They even managed to integrate the characters special moves into the fight choreography.

Sure, they look awkward as hell because they don’t translate well to live action, like at all, but I like that they tried. While the attempt at adaptation isn’t great, there is a genuine love for the source material here. There was at least an attempt to provide a visual representation of the games in a live action format. To give the fans what they want.

It’s hampered somewhat by the director trying to do a bunch of other genres, but it is there. And even the mish mash of genres has its own charm. It’s trying to be a spy thriller, war movie, sci-fi and kung-fu flick all at once. Like it’s trying every kind of escapism you can imagine.

The best way I can describe the movie is that it’s like a kid playing with all his toys at once. He’s mixing together his cowboys, robots and race cars and trying to make a scenario that makes sense for having all of them at the same time. He doesn’t succeed, because who could, but you get sucked into the enthusiasm that he puts into it.

Say what you want about the movie. It has tons to critique, but there was a genuine attempt by the creators to make something entertaining despite the circumstances. There’s a heart to it, and that’s more than you can say for a lot of the soulless corporate trash that gets made today. I’ll take a thousand Street Fighters before I suffer through another Jurassic World movie.

But by far the best part about the movie, its saving grace, is Raul Julia. This man is the king of overacting. He is hamming it up and chewing the scenery so much I’m surprised there was any scenery left. Though that would explain the cheap looking sets. It’s one of the most over the top performances you will see, and my god it is glorious.

Every scene with him is a treat. Mind you it helps that Julia is a legitimately good actor. If you’ve ever seen the 90’s Addams family movies you’d know he was a great talent with a ton of charisma. All of that is in full display here.

Unlike Dennis Hopper in the Mario movie who was entertaining because he just didn’t give a shit and did whatever the hell he wanted; Julia is legitimately putting his all into the role. He’s not half assing it or treating the movie like it’s beneath him. He treats the material like it’s fucking Shakespeare. Even though most of what he has to say is completely ridiculous, he says it with such conviction that he manages to make it work.

He did this for his last movie because his kids were huge fans of the game, and you can tell he wanted to do right by them with this performance. And f you think I’m lying, take a look for yourself…

And what’s even more impressive is the dude was dying while he was filming the movie. He had a disease that was devouring him from the inside, and he still put in the work. Mad props to Julia for this, he went out with a bang.

So, if there is one reason to watch the movie it’s Julia’s performance. But to be fair to the other actors, most of them do a good job despite the material their given. The casting in general isn’t that bad at all. Ming-Na Wen is good as Chun Li, Byron Mann is a decent Ryu, Andrew Bryniarski is really funny as Zangief, and Jay Tavare is goddamn perfect as Vega.

Really, there are only two actors in the movie that didn’t work that well. The first is Kenya Sawada as Captain Sawada, though that isn’t entirely his fault. Sawada doesn’t speak much English and most of his dialogue had to be dubbed. So, I can’t blame him for his performance being more wooden than Pinocchio on a morning.

But then there’s the other actor, and unfortunately, it’s the leading star, Jean Claude Van Damme. Now, to be fair, Van Damme he isn’t a bad stunt actor, and his stunt work is some of the best in the movie. It’s just a shame I can’t understand what he’s saying because of his accent.

He is horribly miscast in this. Guile in the game is meant to be an all-American military man, he’s the kind of guy who has tattoos of the American flag on his biceps for God’s sake. And in the movie, he played by a Belgian actor with an accent thicker than his fore arms. I think you can see the problem here.

I wouldn’t mind it if they changed the character to be Franco-Belgian, Guile is a French word after all, but nope. He still has the flag tattoos; he’s still meant to be all American. It really makes me wonder why Capcom wanted Van Damme specifically when there were probably better fits for the role.

Street Fighter is a perfect example of a so bad it’s good movie. It’s great to riff on for all it gets wrong, but there are plenty of things that are legitimately good about it. Again, Raul Julia is amazing and it’s worth watching for his performance alone.

I can see why the movie has the following it does. Even the dialogue, as cheesy as it is, is very quotable. There’s a reason why Julia’s Bison is quoted by so many Street Fighter fans. Even Van Damme’s speech near the end of the second act is pretty great.

So, I do recommend the Street Fighter movie, at least if you’re looking for a movie to make fun of with friends, especially if they’re fans of the games. It has enough recognisable elements in it that make it worth watching out of sheer curiosity just to see how they handle them in live action. Even if it isn’t the most accurate adaptation.

There would be other Street Fighter movies after this. Some are much better adaptations of the game, while others are much worse. We’ll probably look at those sometime in the future. In the meantime, I will leave you with another live action Street Fighter from the 90’s, courtesy of Jackie Chan.

Yes, that was real. And no, I will not provide context.