Street Fighter (The Good One)

Ah Street Fighter. One of the least faithful video game to movie adaptations out there, yet still I re-watch it every couple of months. Why? Well, if you couldn’t tell already I like bad movies. And this one is well and truly on the “so bad it’s fun” side of things. Raul Julia alone makes this movie worth it, never mind the random crap that pops up almost every ten minutes.

Wait, Gomez Adams is in this? Yes, yes he is my friends. And for those of you who haven’t seen this yet – why are we friends? Seriously though, Raul Julia is in Street Fighter, playing General Bison no less. You know, the psycho spirit-powered major bad guy who’s supposed to be a physical threat on par with someone like Akuma? Yeah, Raul Julia’s playing him. I did mention this wasn’t going to be a faithful adaptation did I? So, what else have we got? Chun Li, Balrog and Honda as reporters/film crew, Ken and Ryu as weapons smugglers (yes, you heard that right), Dhalsim as a scientist, Dee Jay as an intern…yeah this isn’t good. Guile and Cammy being military is about as good as we get, and the all-American hero is played by none other than Jean Claude Van Damme. That said, for Cammy we got Kylie Minogue with pigtails pretending to be tough so I’m almost willing to forgive a lot right there out of sheer bemusement.

Plot? What plot? Raul Julia ate the script along with all the scenery…ok fine. Bison has taken over a large chunk of the fictional nation of Shadaloo (not-Thailand), and the Allied Nations (not-UN) have sent an army to stop him. Led by the Muscles From Brussels with a really bad red hair colouring, the AN get off to a great start when a couple of dozen aid workers get kidnapped along with 3 of their soldiers. 2 of the soldiers get killed by Bison in personal combat (yes, we are going to try and make Gomez look tough in combat. Hold it together), while the third gets sent to the laboratory for science! The third being Carlos Blanca and of course he’s Guiles’ friend. Plot hook deployed.

Meanwhile, Ken and Ryu are selling weapons on the black market to Sagat, also an underground arms dealer. This script writer really had a thing for making even video game characters as bland and as far from their roots as possible. Anyway, shenanigans ensue, they fight (alongside Vega, played by some clod who wishes he was Antonio Banderas) and Guile rocks up to arrest them all. At some point Guile gets the bright idea to infiltrate Ken and Ryu into Sagat’s gang by having them all break out of prison, and fake killing Guile. In the process, Chun Li places a tracker on the escape vehicle and discovers Guiles’ deception.

If it seems like I’m summarizing at a breakneck pace, it’s because the plot is the least interesting thing about this movie by far. This movie has two things going for it – Raul Julia and an almost never-ending series of one liners so painful they’re awesome. Let’s cover Julia first - aside from the sheer brain-fart that made someone think Gomez would be a credible physical threat to anyone, let alone Van Damme in his prime, he was also extremely ill during filming. So ill he died afterwards in fact. Apparently he only did the movie because his kids wanted him to. Kind of sad, but to his credit he took the crap he had and ran with it right to the end. For example:

A most glorious speech

Listen to that and tell me you didn’t at least chuckle. And for the 40k nerds among you, are we sure at least a part of this guy didn’t end up in The Emperor? Julia spends the entire movie chewing scenery like this and it’s glorious. Even if you haven’t seen the movie you’re probably familiar with the “but for me, it was Tuesday” line. Every scene with Bison is basically a moment of joy, which still amazes me. Nobody should have come out of this film looking good.

As for everyone else, well, most of them got in at least one good moment. However, I’m going to take the absolute cream of the crop and show you all a moment where a named henchman surpassed even Bison’s madness. For context, Chun Li and crew have interrupted a meeting between Bison and Sagat, and kicked off a video message showing them launching a massive truck bomb. Behold the razor sharp wit of Zangief (and the foolery of basically everyone else):

Quick Thinking

Absolutely glorious. That moment should be in cinema history.

Anyway, more shenanigans ensue, the AN raid Bison’s temple headquarters, carnage follows, Dhalsim and Blanca stay to die because they don’t want to be pointless/green troll dolls, and we get the most mismatched fight I’ve ever seen in an action movie – Jean Claude Van Damme vs a very ill Raul Julia. Again, to Julia’s credit he tried to chew the scenery right to the end – the writers even gave him something to play with. Sure it was giving him the ability to fly and shoot lightning, but at this point we’ll take anything we get. To the surprise of no one, Van Damme eventually jump kicks Bison to death and everyone goes home.

As terrible as this movie is, I can still happily recommend it to anyone who likes bad movies. It’s absolutely hilarious, and presumably even funnier to fans of the game series. Faithfulness to the games is minimal at best, everyone involved wishes they could chew scenery like Raul Julia, and yet somehow it’s still a highly amusing 90 minutes. Absolutely amazing.

Some final thoughts – firstly thinking of Bison as part of The Emperor makes me want to redo the Horus Heresy casting with exclusively 80’s/early 90’s action stars in their prime, and secondly, Chun Li was played by Ming-Na Wen. Some of you may recognize her as the voice of Mulan, or more recently Melinda May on Agents of Shield. And at 50 she’s showing some pretty dangerous fighting talent. Kind of makes you wish she’d found some better roles/choreographers early on. She could have easily been up there with Michelle Yeoh in the 90’s.

Oh, and for those of you wondering where the Vikingdom review is – in progress. I have to watch it again to get some of the main points out, and it’s painful. Everyone involved has the enthusiasm of damp moss...