The '90s In Action! - 'Street Fighter' (1994)

If 1995’s “Mortal Kombat” could be seen as one of the first good adaptations of a video game that was successful at the box office, then 1994’s “Street Fighter” is the exact opposite of that. The movie was critically panned by both critics and fans of the long-running “Street Fighter” video game series.

“Street Fighter II” was released in arcades in 1991 and it quickly became a sensation. It is the game most directly responsible for putting the fighting game on the map and several iterations of the game were released. So, it should come as no surprise that someone wanted to make a movie out of it.

The movie was actually produced by Capcom, the video game studio responsible for the game series. It was eventually picked up and distributed by Universal Pictures. The movie was written and directed by Steven E. de Souza, the same man who wrote or co-wrote several big action films such as “48 Hrs.”, “Commando”, “The Running Man”, and “Die Hard”.

That meant that nothing could go wrong, right? Well, this is also the same screenwriter who wrote films such as “Hudson Hawk” and “Judge Dredd”. Guess which version of the screenwriter decided to show up for this one?

Okay, there are some good points. Namely, I know people who love campy movies. Well, if that’s your cup of tea, then there is a small chance that you may get something out of this movie. I will say that for my money, it falls just short of the “it’s so bad, it’s good” category.

Yeah... this actually happens in 'Street Fighter'.

Secondly, Raul Julia! Here’s a man who understood the assignment when he signed on to play the film’s primary antagonist, General M. Bison. There is a reason why I actually respect both Julia as M. Bison and, let’s say, Arnold Schwarzenegger for his role as Mr. Freeze in “Batman and Robin”. These are two actors that looked at the script and went, “Oh, I know what this shit is and I’m committing 110%!”

Somehow, Julia makes his scenes as Bison work while others cannot… Okay, that’s it. That’s all I can say that is good with the movie.

The first major problem is with the fighting scenes… or lack thereof. Most of the time, when a fight is about to break out, it’s interrupted by either a gunfight or some other distraction. You know, that’s what I love most about “Street Fighter”. All of the gunplay!

The second problem is the lack of faithfulness to the source material, which is sad considering that the same studio that made the games produced the movie. It’s like they took a look at their own property and went, “You know what? Our storyline sucks. Let’s go in the complete opposite direction. Ooh, I know! Let’s make Ryu and Ken secondary characters and terrible con artists and while we’re at it, cast a man from Brussels as the ultimate American hero from our games!”

Admittedly, the actors do try their best with this movie. Ming-Na Wen tries her best as Chun-Li as do Damian Chapa as Ken and Byron Mann as Ryu. They just aren’t given enough to work with and no matter what they do, they can’t save this abortion of a movie.

Throughout the whole movie, you’re either waiting for something memorable to happen or you’re hoping it’ll at least be something worth making fun of later on. Sadly, neither thing happens and this movie still proves to be one of the worst video game adaptations of all time.