Street Fighter: The Movie
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 Another bad movie based on a popular video game franchise? OF COURSE!
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Street Fighter (also known as Street Fighter: The Movie) is a 1994 action film written and directed by Steven E. de Souza, based on the video game series of the same name produced by Capcom. Distributed by Universal Pictures in the United States and Columbia Pictures internationally, the film stars Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia, along with supporting performances by Byron Mann, Damian Chapa, Kylie Minogue, Ming-Na Wen and Wes Studi. Loosely following the plot of Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, the film focuses on the efforts of Colonel Guile (Van Damme) to bring down General M. Bison (Juliá), the military dictator and drug kingpin of Shadaloo City who aspires to conquer the world with an army of genetic supersoldiers, while enlisting the aid of street fighters Ryu (Mann) and Ken (Chapa) to infiltrate Bison's empire and help destroy it from within.
The film was commercially successful, with a worldwide box office gross of approximately three times its production costs, and its home video releases and television broadcasts were also profitable, with the film earning Capcom a return of ¥15.5 billion ($165 million) from the box office and home media. However, it was not well-received by critics for its campy tone, unfaithfulness to the source material, and overblown effects. Raúl Juliá's performance as M. Bison, however, was singled out for widespread critical acclaim and garnered him a posthumous nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the Saturn Awards, while the film was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film. The film was Julia's final theatrical performance, as he died of a stroke two months before the film's release; the film is dedicated to his memory.
An intended reboot, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, was released in 2009 to critical and commercial failure, while a much more positively-received British television series focusing on Ryu and Ken, Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist, was released in 2014.
Plot
General M. Bison, leader of the Shadaloo terrorist organization, has captured a group of international peacekeepers and is turning them into mutant supersoldiers under his command in an effort to take over the world.
Meanwhile, Colonel William F. Guile is sent on a mission to free the hostages and defeat M. Bison. Along the way, he recruits two small-time smugglers, Ryu Hoshi and Ken Masters, a news reporter named Chun-Li Xiang, along with her two associates, Balrog and Edmond Honda, as well as his two military partners, Cammy White and Sergeant T. Hawk, and together, they all unite to infiltrate Shadaloo headquarters and stop Bison from succeeding in his evil plans.
Production
The film's production budget was ¥4 billion[1] ($35 million),[2] with Capcom alone financing most of the budget.[1] Because Capcom was co-financier of the film, every aspect of the production required their approval. Among other points, they mandated a December 1994 release date, which required the cast and crew to maintain an aggressive filming schedule.[3] DeSouza says he wrote the initial draft of the script overnight, being made aware that Capcom executives were in Los Angeles on short notice and because he himself was a fan of the game.[4]
Capcom had long envisioned Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile and asked him to be cast. Raúl Juliá said that he accepted the role of Bison because his children are huge fans of the video game series.[5] After Van Damme and Juliá was cast as Guile and Bison, most of the casting budget had been spent. Van Damme's fee alone took nearly $8 million of the film's $35-million budget.[6] This meant that the majority of other parts had to go to little-known or unknown actors, such as Byron Mann, Damian Chapa, Peter Navy Tuiasosopo and Grand L. Bush. Kylie Minogue was cast as Cammy as a result of the Australian Actors' Guild wanting Steven E. de Souza to hire an Australian actor. By the time he received the request the only part not cast was that of Cammy. De Souza first learned of Minogue from her cover photo on a "World's 30 Most Beautiful People" edition of Who magazine.[7][8] Japanese actor Kenya Sawada appeared in the film as a part of a promotional contract with Capcom.[4]
The cast's physical training was handled by Hollywood trainer and world karate champion Benny Urquidez.[8] Charlie Picerni was hired as the stunt coordinator; he took the job with the condition that he would need ample time to train the cast. De Souza agreed; however plans were switched once it was learned that Raúl Juliá was suffering from cancer.[7] Initially plans were to shoot Juliá's less intensive scenes first while the rest of the cast would train with Picerni, however upon seeing Juliá, de Souza realized that they could not show him in his current weakened state and was forced to switch the filming around. This led to an environment where the cast would be trained only right before their scenes—sometimes only hours ahead.[7]
De Souza stated that he did not want to make a generic martial arts movie and described the film as cross between Star Wars, James Bond and a war film. In addition, he indicated that he also did not want to shoehorn in elements from the games, citing the previous year's poorly received Super Mario Bros. film as an example. De Souza said that he avoided the supernatural elements and powers from the games but would hint at their use for a sequel.[9]
Street Fighter was filmed mostly in Queensland, Australia along the famous Gold Coast during the second and third quarters of 1994 with most of the interiors and exteriors filmed on soundstages in Brisbane. Some exterior scenes were filmed in Bangkok, Thailand which were used as the backdrop for the fictitious Shadaloo City.[7] The Bangkok scenes were filmed first, in the second quarter of 1994,[3] with filming in Australia beginning after three weeks in Bangkok.[7] DeSouza envisioned the attack on Bison's hide-out to include helicopters but was unable to do so due to the political instability in the neighbouring Myanmar, which is why the AN troops attack via boats instead.[4] This was referenced in the film's final script.
The MPAA gave the first submitted cut of the film an R classification which was unacceptably high for Capcom, who had stated from the start that it should be a PG-13 film.[3] After various cuts were made a G rating—according to de Souza—was given which was bumped up to PG-13 with the addition of an expletive in post production.[7]
The post-credits scene where Bison is revived was omitted from the theatrical release "out of deference to Raul Julia" but was retained in home video and DVD releases.[10]
Why It Shouldn't Fight
- This film has almost nothing to do with the source material of the game because it is about a group of martial artists working together to stop an evil organization from taking the world, whereas, in the games, the lore is about martial artists from around the world competing in a fighting tournament.
- Speaking of source material, most of the characters are nothing like their video game counterparts. For example, Ryu and Ken are a duo of small-time con artists (though not evil) and the former isn't even the main protagonist like he is in the games, and Balrog is a good guy on Chun-Li's side instead of being one of Bison's henchmen.
- Some of the costumes are not even faithful to the source material. Take a look at Chun-Li, E. Honda, Dee Jay, Blanka, and Cammy for example.
- The acting (except for Raul Julia as M. Bison) is terrible and the dialogue and one-liners are incredibly corny.
- This movie has a very generic "stop the villain from taking over the world" plot, and it has nothing to do with a fighting tournament like in the games.
- There are some very confusing plot holes. For instance, Sagat takes Ryu and Ken to a cage fight, but then Guile comes in and arrests the whole audience. If Guile was after Sagat, and Sagat alone, then why did he feel the need to arrest everyone who was watching the cage fight and presumably had no wrongdoings at all?
- The fight scenes are very bland. Not to mention that most of the famous moves from the games like Shoryuken, Sonic Boom, and Spinning Bird Kick aren't present in them.
- Despite being based on Street Fighter II, Akuma and Fei-Long are nowhere to be seen in this movie, not even as a cameo or a reference mentioned by another character.
- Bison's villainy is often overexaggerated, as he makes paintings of himself and names cities and currencies after himself.
- Jean-Claude Van Damme gives a very poor American accent and still makes Guile sound Belgian, despite the character's nationality is American.
- As mentioned in WISF#3, the dialogue is filled with stupid quotes, most notably Zangief saying "Quick! Change the channel!" as an out-of-control truck carrying explosives heads towards the tent, he and the other Shadaloo henchmen are in.
- Ryu's name is pronounced incorrectly as "Rye-You" instead of "Ree-You" like it actually is in the games.
- The special effects are poorly done, especially when Ryu unleashes his Hadouken with the light flashing all over the screen once instead of an energy ball coming from his hands.
- There's barely any character development, and a lot of characters are just one-dimensional.
- Dee Jay and Zangief are Bison's henchmen, despite the fact that neither of them has ever worked for him in the games.
- The direction by Steven E. de Souza is awful.
Redeeming Qualities
- Although most of the acting is terrible as mentioned above, Raul Julia is considered to be the only good actor in the whole film with memorable quotes like "OF COURSE!", "Anyone who opposes me will be destroyed..." and "For you, the day that Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life, but for me... it was Tuesday".
- There are some pretty cool nods to the game the film is based on, like Bison using an arcade cabinet to fire missiles at Guile, and some of the characters doing their victory poses from the game at the end of the movie.
- Some characters are still faithful to their game counterparts, like Bison being the leader of Shadaloo, and Chun-Li being a kung-fu martial artist whose father was killed by Bison.
- Some may find this movie to be enjoyable because of how bad it is so in other words: it's so bad, it's good.
- Though stupid, Zangief's quote "Quick! Change the channel!" is pretty hilarious, and Dee Jay's reaction to it afterwards adds to its hilarity.
- The soundtrack is very good.
Reception
Critical and audience response
Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B−" on an A+ to F scale. It holds a 12% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 41 critic reviews, with the consensus reading, "Though it offers mild entertainment through campy one-liners and the overacting of the late Raul Julia, Street Fighter's nonstop action sequences are not enough to make up for a predictable, uneven storyline." On Metacritic, the film has a critic score of 34/100. On IMDb, the film has an average user rating of 4.0/10. On Letterboxd, the film has an average rating of 2.0/5.
DeviantArt user Japanese-Anime-Gamer gave this movie a rating of 6/10.[11]
The movie currently has a Google users rating of "74% of users liked this film".
Leonard Maltin gave the film his lowest rating, writing that "even Jean-Claude Van Damme fans couldn't rationalize this bomb." Richard Harrington of The Washington Post said the film was "notable only for being the last film made by Raúl Juliá, an actor far too skilled for the demands of the evil warlord, Gen. M. Bison, but far too professional to give anything less than his best."[12] Critic Stephen Holden of The New York Times referred to the film as "a dreary, overstuffed hodgepodge of poorly edited martial arts sequences and often unintelligible dialogue".[13] Writing for Variety, Emanuel Levy stated that the film "suffers from the same problems that impaired “Super Mario Bros.”: It’s noisy, overblown and effects-laden and lacks sustained action or engaging characters." Levy commented on Julia, referring to it as "his weakest performances, accentuating each and every syllable as if he were reciting a Shakespearean role of grand emotional range. It’s too bad, for this is the accomplished actor’s last film, and it is dedicated to him."[14]
Leslie Felperin of Sight & Sound described Kylie Minogue as Cammy's "hilarious miscasting as a military wench with Heidi plaits. The merest glimpse of her holding a bazooka and looking mean is enough to induce giggles in the most dour of viewers."
Box office
The film earned $3,124,775 on its opening day.[2] It grossed $9,508,030 on its opening weekend, ranking at #3 behind Dumb and Dumber and The Santa Clause at the box office.[15][16] On its second weekend it grossed $7,178,360 and dropped down to #7.[17] The film grossed $33,423,521 at the domestic box office and $66,000,000 at the international box office, making a total of $99,423,521 worldwide.
Accolades
In 2009, Time listed the film on their list of top ten worst video games movies.[18] GameTrailers ranked the film as the eighth-worst video game film of all time.[19] The film also received two nominations at the Saturn Awards: Best Science Fiction Film and Best Supporting Actor (a posthumous nomination for Raúl Juliá).
Videos
Behind the Scenes
Reviews and Top 10
Trivia
- This was the last film to star Raul Julia, who died of a stroke brought on by complications from terminal stomach cancer two months before the movie was released.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/data/pdf/explanation/2017/full/explanation_2017_full_04.pdf
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=streetfighter.htm
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 GamePro's SF II Movie Begins Shooting (issue 59, page 182–4)
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Street Fighter commentary by Steven E. DeSouza
- ↑ https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/raul-julia-the-pride-of-puerto-rico/11933/
- ↑ GamePro's SF II Movie Update (issue 60, page 170)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedpolygon - ↑ 8.0 8.1 Electronic Gaming Monthly's Kickin' Butt and Taking Names (issue 65, page 179–183)
- ↑ GamePro's Street Fighter 2 The Movie Secrets (issue 60, page 40–41)
- ↑ GamePro's Game Gab (issue 86, page 17)
- ↑ https://www.deviantart.com/japanese-anime-gamer/journal/Street-Fighter-1994-Review-772829486
- ↑ https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/longterm/movies/videos/streetfighterpg13harrington_a0ad15.htm
- ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/24/movies/film-review-raul-julia-s-last-film-with-van-damme.html
- ↑ https://variety.com/1994/film/reviews/street-fighter-2-1200439610/
- ↑ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?view=&yr=1994&wknd=51a&p=.htm
- ↑ https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-12-27-ca-13429-story.html
- ↑ http://www.boxofficemojo.com/weekend/chart/?view=&yr=1994&wknd=52a&p=.htm
- ↑ https://entertainment.time.com/2008/10/20/top-10-worst-video-game-movies/slide/all/
- ↑ https://youtube.com/watch?v=vCkwhflYLZQ
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