Street Fighter[a] 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 (in his final film) 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.
Leonard Maltin gave the film his lowest rating, writing that "even Jean-Claude Van Damme fans couldn't rationalize this bomb."[22] 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."[23] 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."[24] 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."[2]
Street Fighter V – Live Action Performance
In 1994 a live-action adaptation of Street Fighter was unleashed on the world. Much like the previous video-game movies before it, critics tore it apart, citing the ridiculous plot and cheesy dialogue. It didn't matter to Capcom or Universal Pictures, though, as the film tore up the box office. Over the years, it's become something of a cult classic as fans found a lot to admire about it, especially the late Raul Julia's phenomenal performance. While we've seen other live-action Street Fighter properties released since then, none have lived on in the memory like the Steven De Souza-helmed motion picture has.
After a career full of awards and critical acclaim, actor Raul Julia made the odd decision to play M. Bison in the infamous Street Fighter movie. At this stage of movie history, it's become a running joke that live-action film adaptations of video games tend to be terrible. This goes right back to the first major instance of that happening, 1993's Super Mario Bros. movie, which bore almost no resemblance to the game world or its characters, and alternated between bafflingly weird and confusingly stupid.
Akuma begins to search the globe looking for worthy fighters to challenge. Secluding himself in the shadows, he watches small tournaments and street fights, desperately seeking someone who might be able to match his strength. He is eventually challenged by a man named Gen. Gen fights a vicious battle, even surviving the Shun Goku Satsu by emptying his soul in time. Just as Akuma begins to wonder whether this man is the worthy opponent he's searching for, he begins to sense not all is as it seems. When Gen's mouth begins to bleed, Akuma's suspicions are confirmed: his opponent is sick, and the fight is not fair. After being knocked to the ground, Gen tells Akuma to kill him. Not wanting to carry the fight on any longer, Akuma leaves, infuriating Gen.[12] After the fight, Akuma becomes obsessed with Ryu, hoping to awaken the Satsui no Hado within his prey.
In the World Warrior tournament's finals, Akuma faces M. Bison, but neither is able to gain the upper hand until the Psycho Drive, the device that powers Bison, is destroyed by other street fighters. In the true final battle, Akuma is defeated by a Satsui no Hado-consumed Ryu, who manages to regain his senses in time to spare Akuma's life, refusing to dishonor the memory of his late master by giving in to the darkness. Enraged, Akuma is then apparently stopped by Gouken; however, Gouken's appearance can be attributed to Ryu having hallucinations caused by the smoke and toxic vapors, courtesy of Shadaloo's island disappearing in the eruption of a volcano.
While a character of advanced and rigid disposition who demands investment and dedication to play as; including extensive memorization, study, and training of his entire moveset to fully understand his weaknesses, strengths, and openings, awareness of his rather rigid speed, the use of spacing and tactical positioning, strategic awareness of the opponent and literal street fighting awareness to psychologically read movement and action, some manner of creativity, utilizing at full all game central mechanics to their advanced level, even a good mindset and training of the mind to rightfully engage in "flow" to play him at his optimal performance, even moreso than other characters, and at best requires a lot of experience with Street Fighter to play, he is nevertheless a powerful adversary in the hands of one who knows and can react quickly to the ins and outs of the game and with tools to immediately turn the tide back to their favor. In turn, much like Oro, he can be considered a much more advanced "Ryu" to play as, and it is best to also study and play as his graduate student to understand his more complex aspects.
Street Fighter is back! Surrounding its 35th anniversary and six years after the launch of the last installment, Street Fighter V, the grandmaster of all fighting games returns to consoles and PC next year with Street Fighter 6. Rolling Stone on Twitch is here with an exclusive sneak peek at music from the game. This Friday, Aug. 26, Rolling Stone will reveal the character themes for fighters Kimberly and Juri live on our Twitch daily show, along with a number of other surprises.
In addition to the aforementioned spin-offs, the series also inspired at least three different animated adaptations, Japanese manga, plus several toylines (one of which was actually mixed in with G.I. Joe). There are also several art books, the latest of which was released in August 2014. College Humor's Street Fighter: The Later Years is a parody of Street Fighter II. There's also Future Cops, a little-known live-action Chinese action/comedy adaptation starring Palette Swap Captain Ersatzes of the main characters.
During the Capcom Cup 2015, a live-action miniseries from Machinima, Street Fighter: Resurrection, was announced.[33][34] It is made by the same team who is behind the live-action TV series Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist and its second season World Warrior. The series first aired in March 15th, 2016, consisting of four episodes.
It is a video game adaptation of the 1994 action film Street Fighter (itself based on Capcom's Street Fighter II fighting game series), featuring digitized actors in a similar fashion to the Mortal Kombat series. Each fighter is portrayed by the same actor as in the film (with some exceptions).
NC: Hello I'm the Nostalgia Critic, I remember it so you don't have to. Well an overwhelming amount of viewers have made it clear that there are two films that put the "sin" in cinematic shit-mongering that I must address:Footage of both filmsNC (voiceover): Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat. And God can't tell you how much I don't wanna review these suckers. If someone gave me a choice between sitting through these movies again and being crucified, I'd sayNC: "Grab the nail gun, I hear there's a lumber sale at Home Depots*!"NC (voiceover): Both of these movies are based on the best fighting games that ever hit the arcades: Street Fighter II for its speed and gameplay, and Mortal Kombat for its violence and gore.NC: But luckily all that violence and gore had absolutely NO disturbing effects on our DECENT childhoods.NC begins drinking out of a skull and firing his gun in the airNC: I'm sorry, I have to do that every 12 minutes.NC (voiceover): Now both of these movies came out around the same time, so we got a double dose of disappointment that summer.NC: But, to keep it simple, let's review the FIRST film that came out that year, Street Fighter. So what's the biggest problem with this piece of shit of a movie? Four syllables:Footage of Van Damme in Street FighterNC (voiceover): Jean Claude Van Damme. Van Damme is like the poor man's Chuck Norris. The guy you get if you think Steven Segal is too classy for your movie. He knows martial arts, but he often forgets that you need a personality in order to be interesting.Guile: Anytime, dickhead.NC: The only bigger insult to having a bad actor in a bad film is having a GOOD actor in a bad film.Footage of M. BisonNC (voiceover): Enter Raul Julia as the villain, M. Bison. Raul Julia was one of the most charismatic actors who ever lived and was taken from us a million times too early. In fact, it was rumored he did this as his last film because it's something his children really wanted him to do.NC: Well THANK YOU, you little brats. He lived long enough just to see the destruction of his entire career! Top notch!Textual overlay relaying the following announcementAnnouncer: Warning: This is clearly for satirical purposes. Raul Julia kicks ass and I'm sure his family kicks ass.Guile: You've lost your balls.NC: So what's the story, you're probably wondering.FootageNC (voiceover): Well ironically it involves absolutely no street fighting whatsoever. Van Damme plays a war hero named Guile who's out to stop the evil M. Bison from, you guessed it, taking over the world.M. Bison: OF COURSE! **First appearance**NC (voiceover): On top of his fearsome army, Bison also has hostages that he's holding ransom for 20 BILLION dollars. Guile, being the fearless leader, has this to say.Guile flexes his armNC: (gasp) Can he do that on TV?NC (voiceover): After that we get a bad action sequence. Followed by another bad action sequence. Followed by ANOTHER bad action sequence. Followed by...another bad action sequence. Followed by- oh hey look they're actually talking here! Okay, this is the scene where they discuss their strategy to- oh wait, no no, this is just another bad action sequence. Guile's accompanied by 3 other fighters: Chun-Li, Balrog and Honda. They represent some sort of journalistic...secret agent...fighting squad, who are also out to take on M. Bison. Now that's just violating non-partisan reporting. These three obviously have a very difficult task ahead of them. Not taking on M. Bison's fearsome army, but trying to figure out what the hell their fearless leader is saying.Guile: (obscured by his accent) Call it a...wake up call.NC: A way-kakaw? What's a way-kakaw?Guile: If I am not topside in fifteen minutes--NC: What?Guile: I'll distract his defenses.NC: Huh?Guile: If Sagat runs off to Bison-NC: Who?NC (voiceover): Seriously, even the actors in the movie look at him like they don't know what he's saying.Guile: Some moron just canned meA man looks at him quizzicallyNC: I hate to admit it, but I think I might actually be missing Schwarzenegger!Guile: Get the hostages OUT!NC: Get the hostages OUT!NC (voiceover): Things start looking up when it appears that Guile has been shot and murdered in the middle of a violent shootout.NC: Hey, alright, this movie's finally startin' to get good!Guile rises off his morgue tableNC: Dammit!NC (voiceover): It turns out that Guile is still alive, and this death scene was just an attempt to fool the enemy, even though they spot him on a speedboat just a few moments later.NC: Which makes this scene...He raises his finger, and a chime indicates the appearance of the words "Entirely Pointless" on screenNC: Entirely pointless.NC (voiceover): By the way, I LOVE Guile's army fatigue, a blue camouflage. That'll really come in handy if they're ever fighting in the sky, or under water. The rest of the story is KINDA hard to keep track of, considering how there's so many damn characters.NC: Most adaptations have the problem of leaving a character or two out. But not Street Fighter, no, they have the courtesy of giving us every single DAMN annoying character these games ever produced. Like:Shots of each characterNC (voiceover): Guile, M. Bison, Chun Li, Honda, Sagat, Balrog, Ken, Ryu, Cammy, Zangief, Dee Jay, Vega, Dhalsim, T Hawk, Blanka, Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy, Dancer, Prancer, Comet, Cupid, Cubby, Tommy, Pinky, Brain, John, Ringo...Gilligan's Island Theme Song: The Professor and Mary Anne!NC: IT'S A NIGHTMARE! Everyone in the world is here! It's like A Street Fighter Christmas!NC (voiceover): Okay, I'm gonna do you a favor and show you the only funny scene in this entire movie. It's when the villains are watching a TV screen showing a truck of explosives riding out of control, only to find that the truck is actually heading right towards them.Zangief: QUICK! Change the channel!NC (voiceover): Okay...that's kinda funny. But trust me, it's not worth it to watch painful scenes like this one where the most stereotypically smug British man tells Guile that they're giving in to M. Bison's demands.British Guy: Deliver these orders to your troops, then consider yourself relieved of your command. I think we can deal with General Bison.NC affects a bad British accent, and sips a teacupNC: Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to burn down an orphanage and puppy farm. Ahahahahahahaha.NC (voiceover): Then Guile delivers a speech that even George W. (Bush) would find epically ridiculous.Guile: Our superiors say the war is cancelled. We can all go home.NC: Oh Good! I don't know how much more of this movie I could take.Guile: Bison is getting paid off for his crimes. And our friends will have died here. But...we can all go home.NC: Yes yes yes, very tragic-I got things to do so I'm just gonna-Guile: Meanwhile, ideals like peace, freedom and justice...they get packed up. But...we can all go home.NC: Well we WOULD, if you would stop yapping your trap.Guile: Well...I'm not going home.NC: No no, don't do this to me Van Damme! You said I could go home!Guile: I'm gonna get on my boat and I'm going to KICK that son of a bitch Bison's ass.NC: Heart of a poet.Guile: Now who wants to go home-NC raises his handGuile: And who wants to go with me?!Crowd: YEAH!NC: NO NO NO!!!!NC (voiceover): One subplot out of the BILLIONS going on here involves Guile's friend Blanka, who's transformed into a mix between the Hulk and one of those cavemen you see from the Geico commercials.Guile: You're joking.NC (voiceover): This is all done by a scientist named Dhalsim, who's just a DEAD RINGER for the Dhalsim in the video game.Still shot showing that no, no he isn'tNC (voiceover): Can you tell the difference? I sure can't. Actually one of the strangest parts of the movie involves his appearance. The last time we see him, he looks like this.Standard appearance of Movie DhalsimNC (voiceover): And then the next time we see him, he looks like this.Something much closer to the game versionNC: WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?NC (voiceover): One minute he looks like a scientist, then the next he looks like the bald guy from 300 (Xerxes). And the movie NEVER tells us why!NC: Did he just "bloom" into a yogi/Indian warrior? Is he on his way to Quiquai costume party? I mean it makes no sense!M. Bison: Why?NC (voiceover): So after an onslaught of bad lines and lame action sequences, we FINALLY get to the showdown between Guile and M. Bison. Granted, Bison's army is totally outnumbered and all they have to do is shoot him in order to end this stupid war, but nope! Guile wants to risk THOUSANDS of lives, so he can show off his cool hand-to-hand combat moves. A 30-year-old heavyweight takes on a 50-year-old dictator?NC: Gee, I wonder who's gonna win!Guile owns BisonNC: What a shock!NC (voiceover): At some point, Bison regenerates himself and is able to levitate throughout the room. So he flies up into the air and hits Guile straight on! And then, after that...he flies up into the air and hits Guile straight on. But then he has the brilliant strategy...of flying into the air and hitting Guile straight on. I think finally the TWELFTH time he does this, Guile gets an idea:NC: Maybe he should, pfft, hit him!Guile owns Bison again, this time sending him flying into a wall of TVs, causing an explosionGuile: BISON! You're off the air.NC: (sarcastic) AhahahahaNC (voiceover): I think probably the strangest scene--and trust me, that's saying a lot--comes at the very end where Guile tries to rescue Blanka and Dhalsim. Blanka says he can't face the world looking how he does, so Dhalsim decides to look after him in the comfort and safety OF A BURNING BUILDING!NC: I mean what made them think that would be okay there? Guile even at one point says--Guile: This whole place is gonna go up.NC: Oh, it's a fixer-upper, but you can't beat that rent.NC (voiceover): Gee, I wonder how the armies feel knowing that Guile's best friend and an innocent scientist were lost in that explosion.The characters all strike a pose to celebrateNC (voiceover): I guess they're taking it pretty well. Horrible movie, sucks ass, next film.Title card saying "End of Part 1. Don't forget to see Part 2 at Youtube.com/TheNostalgiaCritic 2ff7e9595c
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