Street Fighter The Legend of Chun-Li Review

So, I finally managed to catch Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, and yes, as expected it was pretty much junk. However, that being said, it wasn’t quite as bad as the atrocious Jean Claude Van Damme version, but that’s not exactly a compliment or anything. I’d rather have my balls blowtorched than sit through that film again. Well, before I begin focusing on why this movie wasn’t very good, I should at least point out the film’s merits of which there aren’t many. The action sequences were okay, the movie had a fairly simple plot that didn’t seem to waste too much time and while most characters from the game got the shaft; Balrog actually managed to get a decent representation and was played by an actor that actually looked like the character to a degree.

Too bad I can’t say the same for the rest of the cast.

Um.....no.

I don't think so.

Although this guy would have been an awesome Geese Howard, just sayin.

Oh my God, did they even try? One has to wonder, like I said, with the exception of Balrog, and perhaps even Chun Li arguably; absolutely none of these characters even come remotely close to looking like their videogame counterparts. I’m a huge Street Fighter fan and before I watched this film I had absolutely no idea who any of these characters were supposed to be on the front cover excluding Chun Li and Vega, thanks to his obvious mask. I mean, come on, at least give Charlie, excuse me, Nash (and just why does he keep his original Japanese name but Bison, Vega and Balrog retain their American names?) a pair of glasses to wear at least jeez. Gen? Seriously, you mean to tell me that’s supposed to be Gen? Hell, I would’ve picked Fei Long before I went that route. I thought Gen was supposed to be old? Bison? Do I really need to even point that one out? I know I’m sounding like some raving fanboy whose biggest complaint is that the characters don’t look exactly like they do in the games and honestly, I could probably have forgiven this massive oversight if it wasn’t for the insane amount of character assassination that took place in the 90 minutes of film time.

I wanted to like this movie, I really did, I didn’t go into it expecting a Shakespearian tragedy, but I figured that maybe the screen writers would have at least played Street Fighter for at least 10 minutes before deciding to pen the script. And yeah, I know that fighting games don’t exactly have decent plots to go off of, but this movie just strayed way too far from source material. Vega gets absolutely pummeled by Chun Li in less than 5 minutes and I’m supposed to take him seriously as some bad ass assassin? On top of that disgrace you make him ugly!? Talk about totally and utterly destroying the very essence of a character. Sheer, utter blasphemy. Perhaps the worst of all is Bison. Granted in the games he has no real back story and any hint as to his origin is cryptic and vague at best. That being said, why did they feel the need to waste time making up some silly origin for his character in this movie? Apparently, he performed some demonic ritual and poured the goodness of his soul into the spirit of his unborn daughter and now he is a merciless human being with no heart. If that’s the case, why does he bother to spare Chun-Li’s life when she was a child? Again, it’s just pointless nonsense like this that is peppered throughout this movie that could have easily been avoided. Some things just don’t need an explanation. Bison is an asshole just because he is.

All of this culminates into a flat out boring wannabe kung fu flick that will entertain no one and bore everyone. Fans like myself will be turned off from it as the lack of resemblance of the characters both physically and personality wise to the games remove any emotional attachment or interest to the product and non fans will just be bored by the mediocre martial arts action that is done much more stylishly in even the worst of Jet Li’s or Jackie Chan’s films.