After the disastrous abomination that was the 1993 Super Mario Bros. live-action movie, my expectations of a decent silver-screen adaptation of Street Fighter II were depressingly low.
Still, I watched the film on its opening day (December 23, 1994) anyway, and as expected, it was a disaster. Horrible casting choices, a ludicrous plot, and laughable dialog made me hate myself for wasting money I could have spent at the arcade.
As a huge fan of Capcom’s fighting game series and a cinema aficionado (and a masochist, apparently), I recently acquired the Blu-ray version of Street Fighter (under $10!) and gave the flick a second chance 18 years later.
Maybe it’s because I’m still caught up in the excitement of the 25th anniversary celebration of the Street Fighter series, but I actually enjoyed bits and pieces of the wretched movie this time around. I am so stunned that I’m sharing with you 15 aspects of the film that didn’t trigger my gag reflex.
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Guile’s Flash Kick
Guile's Flash Kick
The Street Fighter games are loaded with impossible martial arts moves like Chun-Li's Spinning Bird Kick and Blanka's Rolling Attack. Seeing them in a live-action film would be a joke.
To my amazement, through clever camera angles, Guile's Flash Kick looks pretty darn cool ... even better than Van Damme's trademark jumping spin kick, which M. Bison also eats.
Source: Samir Torres
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Chun-Li is a clumsy ninja
Chun-Li is a clumsy ninja
She may be the strongest woman in the world, but Chun-Li is not the stealthiest kunoichi.
The TV news reporter infiltrates Guile's Allied Nations headquarters wearing a black garb but forgets to cover her face. She also carries a huge tracking device that beeps extremely loudly. It doesn't matter, though, because apparently all the guards had the night off.
Source: Samir Torres
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Cammy manhandles E. Honda
Cammy manhandles E. Honda
During Chun-Li's attempt to interview Col. Guile, Cammy steps into her van, walks all over E. Honda, and then literally kicks the sumo wrestler-turned-news-crew-technician's ass out the vehicle.
This is especially hilarious considering that Kylie Minogue weighs about 185 pounds less than Peter "Navy" Tuiasosopo.
Source: Samir Torres
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M. Bison’s favorite game
M. Bison's favorite game
To stop Guile's silly "invisible" boat from reaching his secret Shadaloo base, M. Bison mans the controls he ripped out of a Super Street Fighter II arcade cabinet to launch naval mines at the colonel.
When his super bar is full, Bison performs an ultimate desperation attack by pressing all six buttons simultaneously, making every mine explode at once. "Game ... over!"
Source: Samir Torres
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Sagat’s real height exposed
Sagat's real height exposed
Finding a 7'5" actor who's also a Muay Thai expert is impossible. Instead of removing Ryu's nemesis from the script, the casting directors went with a more realistic representation of Sagat in the form of Cherokee star Wes Studi.
Sagat is now a 5'10" retired brawler making a living as a weapons dealer. The average height of Thai men is about 5'6" ... so you can still say the former street fighter champ is on the tall side.
Source: Samir Torres
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Mystery surrounding Blanka’s beastliness solved
Mystery surrounding Blanka's beastliness solved
For the last 21 years, gamers have wondered what made Blanka transform into a green-skinned beast. A lightning strike? Being raised by animals in the Amazon jungle? Steroids? Writer/director Steven E. de Souza finally offers an explanation.
M. Bison wanted genetically enhanced super soldiers to do his bidding, and by mixing green DNA mutagens with orange anabolic plasma, you get just that. Blanka doesn't conduct electricity in the movie because that would be stupid, but at least de Souza made an attempt to construe the Brazilian's freaky complexion.
Source: Samir Torres
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M. Bison hates himself
M. Bison hates himself
M. Bison is a huge narcissist. Every corner of his hidden fortress is littered with paintings of him in absurd poses. All but one ... .
In his personal quarters stands a recently finished piece of the drug lord as a clown looking depressed. The colored balloons in front of him do nothing to alleviate his sorrow.
We've seen Bison devastated and sulking before, but this gloomy painting is a cry for help.
Source: Samir Torres
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Zangief and E. Honda destroy Bisonopolis
Zangief and E. Honda destroy Bisonopolis
In the middle of the Allied Nations' raid on Shadaloo, a furious battle breaks out between Zangief and E. Honda. As they slap and shove each other, the beefy brawlers demolish Bison's model of Bisonopolis.
Captain Sawada and another Japanese soldier watch the bout unfold on a security monitor. Flashbacks of Godzilla ruin their day.
Source: Samir Torres
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Ryu’s invisible hadoken
Ryu's invisible hadoken
As much as I would've liked to see Ryu perform a hadoken on Vega during their fight, it would have made no sense and probably would have looked cheesy.
Instead, Ryu puts his hands together and pushes the matador away. The screen goes white for a single frame to show how much energy went into making that attack.
The ki blast is not visible, but that was clearly a hadoken. I added the fireball sprite from the game in the image above to show you how awkward it would have looked otherwise.
Source: Samir Torres
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Bison’s alternative lifestyle
Bison's alternative lifestyle
The idea of having a combat suit that can perform CPR on fallen soldiers sounds fantastic. The way it's actually executed, though, is disturbing. Bison doesn't look as menacing with dancing boobs.
Source: Samir Torres
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Sagat’s eye patch and scar are on the wrong side
Sagat's eye patch and scar are on the wrong side, or are they?
For years, I've mocked Street Fighter for placing Sagat's eye patch and scar on the wrong side of his body, but is it really a mistake?
In every version of Street Fighter II, Sagat's eye patch and cicatrice switch sides depending on the direction he's facing -- a common occurrence in 2D fighting games with asymmetrical character features, like Kano's face plate in Mortal Kombat.
Every official artwork of the Emperor of Muay Thai shows the patch covering his right eye and the scar crossing the chest from his right shoulder down to the left side of his abdomen.
I'm letting this slip, but I still wonder how Sagat injured his chest if it wasn't the result of Ryu's savage shoryuken.
Source: Samir Torres
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Ken is proud of his shoryuken
Ken is proud of his shoryuken
Ken avoids fighting as much as possible, but when Sagat corners him in a filthy Shadaloo gym, the shotokan karate master mans up and knocks his former business associate's ass to the ground with a well-placed shoryuken. The look on Ken's face afterwards is priceless.
Source: Samir Torres
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Bison has no respect for the handicapped
Bison has no respect for the handicapped
At one point in the movie, Guile pretends to be killed by Ken. When the colonel shows up alive later on, Sagat can't freaking believe his eye. Bison then proceeds to publicly humiliate the former cage fighter for having impaired vision. That's low even for a madman with delusions of grandeur.
Source: Samir Torres
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E. Honda’s hilarious hissy fit
E. Honda's hilarious hissy fit
After totaling Bison's miniature model of the perfect utopia, E. Honda decides he's had enough of Zangief and lays down the Hundred-Hand Slap right on the Russian's face.
The slaps look so silly that you'd think the Hawaiian sumo star was having a seizure. Big props to Andrew Bryniarski (Zangief) for not cracking up during this scene.
Source: Samir Torres
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M. Bison is a Dark Lord of the Sith
M. Bison is a Dark Lord of the Sith
Shadaloo's boss agrees to engage Guile in hand-to-hand combat but then shocks him with electricity emanating from his fingertips. Bison calls it "superconductor electromagnetism," but anyone who's watched Star Wars knows it's really called "Force Lightning."
Source: Samir Torres
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