Dale's Video Backlog Blog: Street Fighter

When the first Street Fighter film hit in 1994 (trailer) my hype level for it was through the roof! Fighting games were on fire in the arcade and 16-bit systems at the time, and Street Fighter II was still a hot commodity. The trailer had then 11-year-old Dale craving to be there opening weekend because the costumes for most of the characters looked spot on. That preview included a montage of the “World Warriors” showcasing their vintage special attacks and poses. Guile’s Flash Kick and M. Bison enthusiastically proclaiming “GAME OVER!!!” in that trailer guaranteed I would be in the cinema for it. I was such a dork for this movie in my old journal at the time that I would keep a tally of the number of times I would see the trailer during commercial breaks on television leading up to the film……seriously.

There were only a couple of video game movies out by this point. The genre did not have the disastrous reputation that it does today, so suffice it to say, I was amped up going into the film…..and pretty peeved coming out of it because of how it treated a few characters compared to the game and because there was not an actual fighting tournament in it. In 2009, I revisited it when an “Extreme Edition” hit home video with extra features, and my opinion on it softened a bit seeing it with a fresh set of eyes. I re-watched it last week with the new “Steel Book” Ultimate Edition released on BluRay last year. All these years later, and now I seriously love the film!

Well known Belgian, Jean-Claude Van Damme is leading this film as the American fighter, Guile, fresh off Van Damme’s slate of action hits like Hard Target and Double Team. Director Steven de Souza stated in interviews that they had a throwaway line of dialog explaining how Guile covered up his Belgian accent by saying it was actually a southern accent and he is actually from the United States, but it wound up on the cutting room floor. His adversary is the dastardly lead Street Fighter II boss, M. Bison, played by Raul Julia in what would be his final performance.

As I alluded above, 11-year-old Dale was furious there was no fighting tournament. Instead, the film is all about M. Bison holding numerous “Allied Nations” employees as hostages in the fictitious world of Shadaloo, with various other Street Fighter combatants serving under him like Dee Jay (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.), Zangief (Andrew Bryniarski), Sagat (Wes Studi), and captured scientist Dhalsim (Roshan Seth). An awkward scientist’s attire is Dhalsim’s costume here, and Bison is forcing him to perform mutation experiments on Guile’s captured comrade, Charlie, and transform him mid-movie into the green-beast we know from the games as Blanka. I can go into the nerd gaming lore on how all kinds of wrong this is relating to Blanka, and Dhalsim’s character’s in the game, but I will actually give the filmmakers credit all these years later because it kind of actually plays well with an adult set of eyes because it would be pretty damn odd diving into Blanka’s actual video game origin story on the silver screen while trying to give equal time for the huge cast.

Speaking of this stacked cast, for the protagonists, aside from Guile, serving under him in the Allied Nations is Thunder Hawk (Gregg Rainwater), Cammy (Kylie Minogue), and Captain Sawada (Kenya Sawada)-who is a character created just for this movie. Sawada was later inserted as a playable character in the video game based on the film…that is based on the game and deliberately titled, Street Fighter: The Movie--just watch this video, it can explain it much better than I can. Two fighters more popular among fans of the video game, Ken (Damian Chapa) and Ryu (Byron Mann), have lesser supporting roles here as they are con-artist weapon dealers who later get teamed up against their will with Sagat and Vega (Jay Tavare).

The last squadron of good guys is the trio of Chun-Li (Ming-Na Wen), Balrog (Grand L. Bush – who gave a random viral speech about his memories on the film in 2015), and E. Honda (Peter Tiasosopo). This motley trio is an innocuous TV news crew, but all three coincidentally have their own martial arts background that lines up with the game canon, and Chun-Li wants to avenge her father’s death when M. Bison steamrolled through her village. When Chun-Li confronts Bison with this, Julia absolutely nails it with his delivery of the meme-worthy “It Was Tuesday” line….if you have no recollection of this, well then click or press here to see this iconic moment in cinema history!

Speaking of, Raul Julia is sublime in his performance as M. Bison. He cheeses up his performance just right in his delivery as the master crime lord. Bonus feature interviews detail how he went method for studying for the role going so far as to research Mussolini speeches to mimic body language cadence. Other actors interviewed stated how Julia was visibly sick and downtrodden off-camera with cancer but wanted to do this film for his kids who loved the game. When the cameras were on, his colleagues stated how he was a total pro and how he went out with an aces performance that still lives on to this day! I love the costume he adorns that is incredibly faithful to the game, outrageous cape and all!!!

Most other fighters either have game-appropriate costumes or receive their appropriate gear at some point in the movie. Honda is the perfect case where after an amusing Kong/Godzilla duel homage with Zangief, Honda’s gear is battered so much that he dons it like his traditional sumo gear in the game! Some cast members like Dee Jay and Dhalsim don’t don their proper gear, but the filmmakers and costume department get it right for the most part! For better or worse, the fight choreographers work in plenty of the roster’s iconic moves like Guile’s aforementioned Flash Kick, Bison & Honda’s torpedo dive, and regrettably meek renditions of Ryu’s Hadoken and Ken’s Shoryuken.

The film has a rather convoluted plot, but it essentially stumbles its way into a cohesive mess by the end. The Allied Nations crew teams up with Chun-Li’s TV squad and eventually Ryu & Ken to invade M. Bison’s fortress. Van Damme does an admirable “so-bad-it’s-good” portrayal of Guile, and he has a main event-worthy clash with Bison in the final act to close the film. All the fights inside Bison’s fortress with all the cast members are an admitted dumpster fire to keep up with, but an enjoyable one nonetheless! I tip my hat to the crew for the monumental task of trying to grant adequate screen time for this ensemble cast. At the time of the film’s release, Super Street Fighter II was a fairly new entry in the series at home release, so I was surprised to see Dee Jay, Cammy, and Thunder Hawk all featured, but Fei Long is mysteriously absent. However, it may make sense in recent years after finding out how litigious the estate of the Bruce Lee family is.

This Ultimate Edition Steel Book has a ton of bonus materials. I would be remiss not to mention how awesome the steel book case is, and the gorgeous art that adorns it. Another cheeky bonus is an actual, physical “Bison Dollar” that plays a small-yet-vital part in the film!!! The folks behind this steel book BluRay went all-out with new bonus materials. There are roughly 75 minutes of new video interviews and features. A couple of the highlights are a 20-minute interview with writer/director Steven. E. de Souza, titled, Making Street Fighter. There is roughly an E. Honda’s 100-hand Slap’s worth of new production anecdotes from Souza. Some quick highlights are how $10 million of the $32 million budget went to Jean Claude Van Damme & Raul Julia alone. Additionally, here we find out JCVD was his backup option after Sylvester Stallone and how he originally wanted Stephen Wang as Bison, but was surprised Julia jumped at the role and could not turn him down.

Also amusing was how Souza stated how they kept toning down the violence and blood in the fights to get to a PG-13 rating but eventually overdid it and the MPAA rated the movie G. Hence, they went back and had JCVD whisper in a curse word to get a PG-13 rating. Lastly, it was fascinating to see in this interview how Souza was pretty introspective all these years later, being appreciative of fans coming around and telling him how much they love the movie in recent years after all the initial negative press.

Other notable new extras are interviews with the composer, Graene Revell, and how he was competing to get his soundtrack done and released before the Mortal Kombat movie soundtrack, which went on to much bigger success and still resonates today. They tracked down Ken Masters actor, Damian Chapa for a new interview with fond reflections of his kids loving that he did this movie all these years later. The actress who played Chun-Li, Ming-Na Wen, also had a new interview, with the standout moment being how she was in the scene with Raul Julia for the iconic “It was Tuesday” line. While they could not track JCVD for a new interview, they did have a historian interviewed detailing his humble Hollywood beginnings to his breakout success, and eventually how Street Fighter was the beginning of a downward spiral for him.