Review of Street Fighter (1994) by Artyom K — 14 Apr 2015

The veteran of action movies, screenwriter Steven De Souza took as basis not the original game from 1987, he took its more popular sequel "Street Fighter 2"(1991), which differed much more original design and interesting selection of fighters. But he wasn't trying to just make a fighting game, he decided to use the characters and ideas of the game as the components of sci-fi action thriller, which he invented. Steven is also a director, this film is his second director's work, after a long break on screen writing career.

In the film there is a big semantic implication and teachings, in the form of dialogs and remarks between the characters. The picture is filled with deep meaning, but it does not become tedious or boring, on the contrary everything is very appropriate. The film is very spectacular, excellent stunt work and work of the artists and special effects creators.

Despite PG-13 rating, the film does not seem quite childish, it has a lot of violence and murder, ever-present tension. For example, the movie begins with news from the hot spot and displaying of General Bison breaks the necks of the captive soldiers.

The director came up with the fictional country Shadaloo in which General Bison is trying to seize power, while on his secret base, equipped with modern equipment and weapons, serve him a lot of fighters and scientists. His ultimate goal is to have the whole world. General wants to create an army of super soldiers, mutants.

He takes as a donor of one of the captured soldier named Carlos Blanca - Charly, it is one of the interesting changes of the director, in the game mutant was another man, but his name is also Blanca, in the game Charlie is the name of the soldier who was killed Bison, and for whose death now wants revenge him on another soldier named Guile, Charlie's friend. Also for example, the girl-fighter Chun Li in the film is the leading reporter, reporting from Shadaloo, boxer Balrog is the cameraman, and sumo fighter Honda a television director, they both leave a career and now work in television together with Chun Li. A excellent interpretation.

Street fighters, main characters of the original game Ken Masters and Ryu, now deal with different kinds of fraud, they arrive in Shadaloo to crank out another thing, but to cheat Sagat and his men they have not come out. Sagat decides to use them as gladiators. But during the first bout of Ryu with champion Vega, the building bursts Colonel Guile on the self-propelled gun, and arrest everyone. Now Guile wants with the help of Ken, Ryu and Sagat to find the lair of Bison and rescue the hostages. Parallel to this, Chun Li and her friends prepare his plan of salvation. This is very well thought out story. Like in the game, Ryu helps Ken, to make the right decisions.

It should also be said that Steven was able to skillfully use the elements of fighting in the story with gun shooting, explosions and chases. In the film there are all super attacks and the habits of the characters, and the actors are strikingly similar. Best turned out Vega - very quick and plastic fighter in the mask and with a glove with blades, which brilliantly played the Jay Tavare, the character literally stepped off the screen of the arcade machine. The same can be said about Zangief, naive strong man, who, being a kind man, foolishly went to serve for Bison.

Guile is well played by Jean-Claude Van Damme, in the film he has a short haircut, which in principle is right, because he's military. From Major, he became a Colonel, he perfectly fulfilled all the incredible techniques of this character from the game. But personally I very liked Damian Chapa in the role of Ken, he gave the character a more natural image, a kind of merry rascal. Well, and actually, this actor always liked me. General Bison is great played Raul Julia, this is perhaps his best role, the last role unfortunately, the actor died two months after the completion of filming, the film is dedicated to his memory.

As always at Steven De Souza, a very competent humor, really funny in many scenes and dialogs. The film does not become too comedic. All perfectly balanced. He also wrote the title song and exciting radio-remarks.

Great Graham Revell music, perfectly emphasizes the atmosphere and morale of the film. Especially managed opening theme, and the theme of sending of the AN(Allied Nations) soldiers.

A movie that may many teach the younger generation, an example to follow. The perfect combination of action, sci-fi, fighting and humor. A great example of how to make movies based on video games. 10 out of 10.

I strongly disagree with critics who threw slop this wonderful film. Guys, I think you do not understand what you want. Probably you wanted make the characters look cartoon and silly, like in the game. In any case, this is not a criticism, it's just your stupid taste. Need to be a very bad person to scold this film.