Street Fighter: why it is a very good movie

All right, people, I know that 'Street Fighter' is a 'love it or hate it' type of movie. Ever since I saw it theatrically in December 1994, Street Fighter had become one of my personal favorite action movies. In truth, it pays much more respects to the game than one may initally think, and in some cases, even outdoes the video game. I had no problems with the dialogue; it gave us a break from the fighting and actually adds to the movie's charm. The movie is very quotable--I find myself spouting off quotes from this movie to my friends and family. The writing is crucial to a film--if the writing is good, we can forgive the rest. Who cares if the movie has terrific action and super-realistic CGI if the writing is lame and snore-inducing. That's what turned people off from the Fantastic Four movie--cool sounding characters, one damn boring movie.

To make your movie a success, one important factor is to try to appeal to everyone, not just fans of the game. Why not just appeal to the fans? Well, I know I don't want to watch the same movie 40 times in a row; let others enjoy it. In my opinion, the best 'adaptations' are about a product that anyone can sit down and watch, without having any prior knowledge of the product. Hasbro tried to make the Transformers movie which was aimed for fans of the series (and not really anyone else), and the movie didn't exactly rock the box office (hell, Howard the Duck made more money!).

Another thing I hear about is 'why didn't they make it like the anime'. Keep in mind that any Street Fighter product not made directly by Capcom is not official canon. The only way it would be is if the movie was made directly by Capcom. None of the non-Capcom comic books, TV series, movies, novels or anime is an official part of the story. Also, it wouldn't be better 'just because the Japanese did it'. If that was true, everyone would be foregoing terrific action-drama series like 24 and Prison Break in favor of kiddie action series based on Japanese sentai (think Mighty Morphin Power Rangers).

Also, the locales. The Australian background is a nice touch; and realistic for budget purposes. They can't possibly have a travel budget for the U.S.A., England, Jamaica, Brazil, Russia, Japan, China, Thailand, etc. The movie's budget would be finanically nuts.

I don't mind seeing changes to the story; Hollywood does that all the time. Disney has been doing it for years. Even in a movie such as Ray (2004), one notable change was Ray Charles' response to seeing his little brother drowning. Despite what the movie says, Ray did try to save him; he was 'too heavy'. The movie tells it differently to make it more dramatic. In short: history tells it one way, Hollywood will tell it another way. What I don't particularly like reading is anal-retentive viewers who think an adaptation needs to be 100% true to the source material: sure, you can make a very true, very faithful conversion (in the case of Street Fighter, that would be a little difficult, considering there isn't much of a story to go by) that would earn a fan's full appreciation, but it would mean little to the Average Joe moviegoer who just wants to see a cool movie. A movie can make so much more money with a PG-13 rating than an R rating. Why? Because no one over 17 can pay money to see an R-rated movie. In addition to that, Street Fighter isn't meant to be a cruel beat-'em-up a la Mortal Kombat--it's supposed to be goofy. Also, you can make a very true, very faithful film version, but then there would be little, if any, point in seeing the movie; you could sit at home with the original product and save your money. These people don't mind a movie based on a novel, which can be completely different from the original story (I am sure the original books about The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings are very different than the movies say), yet they blow a gasket if a movie about a comic book uses the word 'and' when the original comic book uses 'but'. Personally, I don't watch a book-based movie for faithful quality; one is, I know I won't get it, and two, I won't come back to it if the movie doesn't mean much to me. *Ask me...

How many times have I seen Spider-Man 2? ...Just once.
How many times have I seen Garfield? Ten times, at least.

*If you want me to use a fairer comparison, I thought Spider-Man 2 was totally overrated and came back to The Punisher so much more often. It had a consistant plot and I think Thomas Jane would have a much brighter future as an action hero than Tobey Maguire ever would. Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson said a hero for that type of movie should be someone the audiences would take seriously. Examples:

Arnold Schwarzenegger? Yes.
Sylvester Stallone? Yes.
Jean-Claude Van Damme? Yes.
Dolph Lundgren? Yes.
Steven Seagal? Yes.
Bruce Willis? Yes.
Jesse Ventura? Yes.
Samuel L. Jackson? Yes.
Mel Gibson? Yes.
Pauly Shore? Whatever...
David Spade? Yeah, right.
Tobey Maguire? Only for Spider-Man. Otherwise, forget it.

Another factor is casting. I realize some of the game's characters would be easy to cast, but other characters are pretty unique. I'd prefer to have someone who looks remotely like that character, but is a competent actor, rather than have an exact look-alike who can't act for coffee beans. It would be easy to cast Dee Jay, Ryu, Ken, Guile, E. Honda, Chun-Li, Balrog and M. Bison, as well as take a few liberties with a character like Blanka. However, according to Steven deSouza, in the July 1994 issue of GamePro, he states: 'We're having trouble finding Cammy. We're seeing a lot of English girls, but either they're not very thin or they're wimpy--they couldn't beat up Pee-Wee Herman.'

In addition to that...

T. Hawk? I don't know many American Indians who are 7'7" and bulked to weigh nearly 500 pounds (according to the trivia for the movie Steel (1997): Shaquille O'Neal had to do all of his own stunts; the producers were unable to find a 7'1" stunt double for him).
Dhalsim? Well, Roshan Seth was a good choice. Not many people look like Dhalsim.
Zangief? It's possible, but he'd have to look like his Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo character rather than his Street Fighter Alpha character.
Vega? He's pretty unique, too.
Sagat? Not many Asian men are over 6' tall.

Now, for the characters, I will detail exactly what I liked about them.

Game characters I like:

Colonel William F. Guile: Jean-Claude Van Damme was a good choice, he gave a stronger acting performance than his earlier work. As a hero, Guile is a likable character; he's not perfect and makes mistakes. He's got a strong sense of justice as established by his speech to his troops; he knows Bison cannot be rewarded for his crimes (and according to a recent study, men actually enjoy seeing bad people suffer). I don't mind his Belgian accent; I remember in "The Simpsons", Bart's comic book hero Radioactive Man is like an American, but in the episode 'Radioactive Man', the titular character was to be played by Rainier 'McBain' Wolfcastle. I like to think he is the one who defeated Bison in the game; his ending depends quite heavily on it.

General M. Bison: Raul Julia's over-the-top performance as Bison is another great factor in this movie; Bison is despicably evil, yet thinks his actions are for the good of the world and morally just. A real villain does not wake up in the morning asking, 'How can I make the world miserable?', they would ask, 'How can I make the world a better place for everyone?'. This is unlike his depictions in anime, where he seems to be nothing but evil and seems to only stand around laughing (yeah, REAL menacing). We'll miss ya, Raul...

Chun-Li Zang: Ming-Na gave another solid performance; I don't mind her career change as long as she still has her vendetta with Bison over the death of her father (that's what's important). Keep in mind we only need one 'man of law' to deal with Bison (so Guile and Chun-Li don't seem redundant). I know Chun-Li appears to be another character who possibly defeated Bison in the game, as in Street Fighter 3, Urien makes a statement asking if she destroyed Shadaloo. However, 'destroyed Shadaloo' isn't the same as saying 'physically defeated Bison'. She can have a role in it, but I lead towards Guile winning.

Ken Masters and Ryu Hoshi: Yes, I know what you're asking. "Why weren't they the main characters?" I can justify that knowing they directly oppose Sagat and Vega. However, Bison is the central villain in the movie. Guile and Chun-Li directly him, but Ken and Ryu don't. Regardless, Damien Chapa and Byron Mann made a good buddy team. There was a nice little throwback to their characters when Ken wants to find fortune in the war in Shadaloo (Ken fights for the glory) and Ryu claims he found the fight worthwhile (Ryu fights for the honor). Ryu changed over the course of the movie; he now finds the fight worthwhile and Ken redeems himself by helping his partner against Sagat and Vega, making them both a pair of likable protagonists.

Edmond Honda: Yes, I know in the game, he's Japanese, but in the movie, he's a Hawaiian. But what I consider important is his goals: he is a sumo fighter who loves his sport. But on getting blacklisted due to Shadaloo Tong, he now bears a vendetta against his blacklisters and now helps Chun-Li in her quest for revenge. His fight with Zangief was also a memorable sequence. I had no problems with Honda.

Lt. Cammy: Some people are asking "Why is she a good character? She is supposed to be a 'doll' for Bison!" Keep in mind that the movie came out before the Street Fighter Alpha series did, and that 'doll' plot didn't exist back in 1994. All we knew for the time being was she was a British Secret Service Agent with amensia. And given the way she is designed, Cammy being a good character is much more sensical. Kylie Minogue gave a good performance and she made a solid foil for Guile.

Captain Charlie Blanka: In my honest opinion...I thought his story in the movie was much, much better. Because when you hear his story in the game, it says 'He was originally a little boy named Jimmy who was lost and raised in the jungles of Brazil' and you think, 'That...doesn't sound very dissimilar from Edgar Rice Burroughs or Rudyard Kipling'. But when you hear his story in the movie, it says 'He was originally Guile's friend Charlie who was captured by Bison and mutated into a hulking green beast' and you think, 'That doesn't sound like a children's story, that...sounds like something I might hear on the news!' I liked this part of the story; it made Blanka a much stronger character.

Zangief: He looked very much like his game character, and I can justify his role on Bison's side knowing that being from the former U.S.S.R. (once an enemy nation), and having a 7', muscle-bound Russian on the villain's side makes him intimidating. He got some really funny parts too ("You got...paid?"). That was another element of the movie I liked: the 'lighter' side to it. The ocassional laugh keeps a movie from seeming 'too dark'.

Vega: Okay, I know he didn't have much. But he certainly kept his 'pretty boy' image and hated having Ryu singe his face.

On the missing character:

Fei Long: (borrowed from the trivia) The film includes characters from the video games up to and including Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers (1993) (VG). Most notably absent is Fei Long, the video-game version of Bruce Lee. Rumor has it that the character of Captain Sawada was supposed to be Fei Long, but was changed and renamed because the producers felt that the video game character was "too generic."

Game characters I am less partial to:

Viktor Sagat: Now, personally, Sagat was just never my favorite, I can't put my finger on why. But I liked his 'mob boss' approach and the fact he still wanted revenge against Ken and Ryu for their previous acts of betrayal. Wes Studi certainly looked the part.

Sgt. Thunder Hawk: He might have been cast the worst; he looked absolutely nothing like his game character and might as well have been omitted too. However, in my opinion, this is forgivable. Mainly because of the four New Challengers, T. Hawk was just my least favorite. And compared to Cammy, his part in the movie was minimal (he didn't play that big a role), and is ultimately just something I can overlook.

Dr. Dhalsim: ...C'mon. He's the lowest of the World Warriors. Never cared much about him either, him just being a scientist is okay (he's a fragile little guy).

In my honest opinion, as far as casting goes, there was only one real mistake that they made, and that was...

It just didn't make sense to me about why they chose to make Dee Jay bad and Balrog good.

Balrog: I didn't like his depiction here mainly because in the game, Balrog is the first boss character that you fight. I don't think I would have minded him as Bison's computer technician (if he still could fight, maybe give him a match with Dee Jay?); after all, Balrog's not exactly the most player-popular character. Dee Jay's character in the movie is pretty much how he would be in the game (driven by greed). However, Grand L. Bush did give a good performance.

Dee Jay: I didn't like his depiction either; he is a good character and one of the preliminary fights before the bosses. I would have made him Chun-Li's cameraman (a musician whose career was blacklisted no thanks to the Shadaloo Tong) and he and Honda would make a great 'buddy' team (this did happen on 'Street Fighter: the Animated Series (1995). He does like to joke around, and loves his music (qualifying him as reason to be good). Dee Jay is my personal favorite New Challenger; Miguel A. Nunez, Jr. gave a rather cheesy performance and Dee Jay deserved better.

As far as casting, that would be the only real mistake that I would change. Other than that, it was fine.

I also remember reading in a 'Game On!' magazine that although the movie was getting poor reviews, 'Street Fighter: the Movie' was well-received at the box-office. That would mean it was Street Fighter, not Mortal Kombat, that was the first truly successful movie based on a video game.

And on subject of the new end credits ending (Bison still being alive), people seem to be taking it in a literal sense. The reason it exists in the home version is because it is made by Universal to pay their last respects to Raul Julia, the actor who played Bison and died near the end of filming. Although Capcom didn't have any plans, they were in talks to make a sequel. The other deciding factor is what else can they do for a sequel--the objective is to try some new tricks, not merely remake the original. That would explain why so many people appear to love The Empire Strikes Back so much as a sequel to Star Wars, and why many people think Shrek 2 was much better than Shrek 1. On the other hand, movies like Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and Lara Croft, Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life did little more than remake their earlier movie.

I congratulate you, Steven deSouza. Well done.

"Now who wants to go home...and who wants to go with me?!"
--Jean-Claude Van Damme, Street Fighter (1994)