10:05 p.m. - Monday, May. 04, 2009
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-li Review (I got the courage) 2/10
I know it has been two months since this movie cam out, and you're all probably wondering what took me so long to write about this. But really, i had forgotten about this movie. No, I didn't. I just didn't feel it deserved a review. Why? It was horrible. But my friends brought it up recently when they were talking about Fox's movies like Dragonball and Wolverine. So I decided I would go ahead and give it a Review. Yes, I'll review the horrors of this film. I like Street Fighter a lot, the anime and the video game (though Mortal Combat can top it in some ways according to some ppl) But as far as this movie goes, it is worse than any adaptation I have ever seen. It was even worse than the original Street Fighter Movie! So I'm going to take this time to review what made this such a bad movie. Story, characters & Cast, graphics and fighting, costume design, and writers, producer, and directors. Be prepared to hear some hard-core bashing of the horrifying movie. This is is some sick joke. This is an embarrassment to the whole franchise (which it's recent video game made 6 billion world-wide). It's like some Street Fighter haters got together and decided, "we're going to make our own Street Fighter and make fun of it to show our distaste." People who walked out of the theater had the sour look of displeasure on their faces as if they were going to throw up. I left feeling sick to my stomach. Any reviews you've seen, they're all true. Thats a SHAME! My sister is more of a fan than I am, and so she tried to stick up for it. But she couldn't find a single thing RIGHT about it!
Story-First off, as a Street Fighter fan, we already knew the story of Chun-li. In fact Chun-li is one of my favorite fighters to use. This movie brought her to ruin! Like they just said "oh our newest video game made 6 billion dollars, so lets slap a movie together to make more money." Every Street Fighter fan who has been following the series since the 90s knows that Chun-li is looking for the corporation Shadowlow and M.Bison is in charge of the whole operation. He is a ruthless but strong man. Okay, this story just redid the whole story except, get this, there are two idiot cops who have no point in the story. Nash did not act like that and who the underground is Maya? There are too many pointless scenes with them in it. Then there are pointless scenes with Chun-li. The scenes and story seem to jump to quickly, though i have to admit there were no loop-holes. We knew where the story was going, and we missed 10 minutes of it. The story wasn't the worst of it. It was actually the best part. It wasn't boring, just amusingly weird. I haven't even begun to tell you the worst.
Cast&Characters-This was the worst. A movie can seem ok if the characters look the part, act the part, and have the same names, even if the story sucks. Like Dragonball. Ok, no one looked like the characters, but at least they acted like them, in many ways than you've probably noticed, which made me feel they were the characters they were portraying. Goku even wore some of the lame battle clothes with MC Hammer pants.. But this movie, none of the characters looked like, acted like, or even seemed like the characters AT ALL. I didn't even know who was who until they referred to the person in the movie. The best people in the movie was Chun-li, and her barely, and Balrog, who was the perfect character. everyone else, what the ....? Catana barely had a scene, after dancing in a club (? did that happen in the series?) with Chun-li to music that didn't go well with the movie. And then Chun-li fought her and whooped her WAY to fast. But not as badly as Vega who threw ONE cheap shot before he got smacked down like a wuss. I don't think he ever even TOUCHED Chun-li! (Though I've always whooped him in the series, you would think they would enhance his skills in the movie) THEN when he took off the mask, he was the dude from Black Eyed Peas (Fox must have a thing for them because one was in Wolverine)! Might I remind you that Vega is supposed to a good looking blond man. Not Taboo behind the mask! And what was with the Dark Veda breathing? Next was Nash and Maya. First of all Maya was a slut. And Nash was too much of a ladies charmer and too good with a gun. If he had been that good, he wouldn't have died in the series. (first off there were too many guns and less fighting, but more on that later)Nash was supposed to be a nerdy guy who knows his stuff. He was supposed to wear glasses. Not be some heart-throb womanizer. And Maya, just get rid of her! And why was Rose a little girl in this movie? That ruined it too. She didn't even FIGHT! OMG, whats the point of Street Fighter? But the worst of the worst of all the characters was M. Bison. M. Bison is supposed to be a bulky and strong Nazi-like dictator with the uniform on with the Nazi hat. His powers includes crushing his opponents (like the psycho crusher, deadly I'll have you know). In this movie, yet again, Chun-li whooped the STRONGEST man too fast, the final battle. He only punched, and when he did lay a hit, it was with some bamboo! SOME BAMBOO!!!??? Second of all, he was a short man with a tailored suit. He looked like a real estate agent or a car salesman rather than a Nazi dictator who is strong! And it proved what he was, because he was WEAK! M. Bison is one of my favorite characters in the game, but that wasn't M. Bison in the movie, that was a guy trying to promote his business. And furthermore, Gen was too young and too important in the movie to be Gen. Gen in an 90 year old man, and it looked like 30 year old played him! And Gen fought...that was never in the series. The characters were whack.
graphics and fighting-I felt the fighting was good on Chun-li's part, but everyone else got whooped too quickly. I didn't understand the gang fight in the alley, but whatever, Chun-li used all of her moves, so...but everyone else, sucked. I think this was all from Chun-li's perspective of things where she's like "Vega isn't really that strong, I can whoop him, and M. Bison too.." Bong! Wrong answer. The best fight was between her and Katana, and that was effortless for Chun-li. The fights were so short we didn't have time to see any graphics! Whatever, I'm sure it sucked too.
costume design-I don't usually care if the characters don't dress the same as in the game/anime/book etc, but there are so many characters in Street Fighters, some things are just signature for the characters. Like Chun-li is known for the bun buns, which SHE had. she was the most well-made, considering this was her movie. Everyone else lost their signature look, which is another reason i didn't know who was who. M. Bison is supposed to wear the hat, Nash is supposed to wear the glasses, and maybe Belrog did better without the boxing gloves, but he also could do without a gun. Get rid of that prop. It is a FIGHTING game! It's all in the fist not the weapon. I mean the costumes and props were all f-ed up.
writers,producers,and directors-20th Century Fox did this movie, the same creators of Wolverine and Dragonball. I'm thinking "They are not good at doing fighting movies at all." First off, their fighting scenes are too short. I was surprised at Wolverine. But then i realized they were so busy working on this, that just slapped some movies together to feel in the time gap until they released their true favorite movie. Personally, like i said before, I haven't liked Fox since they took over the Garfield series. Bratz movies didn't get GOOD until it left Fox. This movie was poorly promoted, as no one even knew about the movie. And when some people finally found out, like me, we had to travel all they way out yonder to go see it, and they spit out this garbage. Fox just didn't care. Thats why I don't like them. They feel every little thing is unnecessary, so its all right to change everything. Well, fans like detail and unnecessary things. We already KNOW the story. And who do you think will watch the movie? The fans first, then the people who just like action-packed movies! You can tell the people who made this movie haven't been playing the game long. or haven't played it in years.
All I have to say is the only way you should ever even THINK about considering this movie, is if you have every single item Street Fighter and are a hard-core fan just happy to see Street Fighter anywhere. Other than that, don't even think about it. Don't worry. All fighting games are not in vain. Tekken is still coming out in August and the cast looks really good. The trailer looks good and the directors and producers look good (They made spider-man). Unlike Mortal Combat and Street Fighter, i like Crystal Sky Pictures, Lionsgate, and Arad Productions.
