Review of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009) by Chads. — 28 Feb 2009

Shoot the piano player. That's the objective. How hard can it be to shoot a concert pianist? Very hard, as it turns out; like in the nightclub scene, where the piano player does a handstand and kicks the guns out of four shooters' hands by virtue of a fluid pirouetting motion.

Don't mess with Hong Kong via San Francisco, with a matriculating stint in New York, somewhere in the timeline; don't mess with a Julliard grad. Some of them know Wushu. Rachmaninoff isn't just for girly girls.

Concert pianist/martial arts expert: that's a pretty absurd notion of being multi-talented, but for a film like "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li", musicianship serves as shorthand for character development.

Unfortunately, the girl's piano career is subordinated as a tangent, in favor of her other, more kinetic pursuit. When Chun-li(Kristin Kreuk) goes underground in Thailand, the concert pianist explains that she has to forget her past, in order to become one with Bangkok.

How convenient for the film's cross-purposes. Instead of being one of the common people(like the slumming rich girl in Pulp's "Common People": Chun-li's rich, too; she says goodbye to her servants before going "Bangkok Forgetful"), Chun-li could have stayed off the streets by playing the piano in some dive(and evoke Francois Truffaut's "Tirez sur le pianiste").

But that won't do; after all, "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-li" has no real aspirations of being a proper movie. It's pleased as punch with its essentiality of cheesy and uninspired fight sequences under the adulterated facade of girl power.

Having the accomplished girl shed her identity just makes it easier for the film to ply its patriarchial bent. Sure, Chun-li kicks ass, but she's under the tutelage of a man. How do you say "To Sir With Love" in Mandarin? So the film takes away her best asset: her fingers.

For the film's target audience, a woman who supports herself by playing the piano for tip money may constitute the rumblings of a chick flick.