Movie Talk - The Street Fighter Animated Movies

I’ve noticed that I’ve been in game mode here recently. I guess that’s one side effect of the pandemic: more time to play stuff. Today’s post is still in that mode, but I’m including a bit of anime in this time. Animation and Fighting games tend to have a weird record a lot like live action video game adaptations. Sometimes, they ain’t too bad. Other times, you wonder what narcotic the creators were taking when making the anime. While I like the Street Fighter franchise, I’ll admit that it’s not too high on the totem pole these days. I think one reason for that is the fact that I don’t know jack about these characters. You’d think that the numerous movies would help, but nah.

Some time ago, I decided to re-watch the animated Street Fighter movie from the 1990s on Amazon Prime. I actually owned the movie back in college. It was a collection of Street Fighter games for the PS2, and some jackass stole it back in college along with a few more games and some books. Thankfully, I didn’t need the books that much, but I would’ve loved to traded American History and Psych 101 in. I’ve seen the other movies in bits and pieces on TV and online. I didn’t even know about the last movie, The Ties That Bind, until this week. I also noticed something on Hulu (Round 1: Fight), but that was apparently a motion comic.

Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie

Street Fighter: The Animated Movie was released in 1994. The movie basically revolves around M. Bison, leader of the evil organization, Shadoloo (How is it spelled?), trying to find the best fighters in the world. One fighter he’s set his eyes upon is Ryu, a fighter who travels the world. He ends up using Ryu’s friend and rival, Ken Masters, instead since they share the same abilities. The governments of the world are on Bison’s tail though as they send Major Guile and Interpol agent Chun-Li after him. Bison ultimately finds Ryu and tries to sic a mind-controlled Ken on him.

Now that's awesome.

This movie is probably one of the better Street Fighter-related media out there. Yeah, we don’t’ get that much good outside of the games, guys. It’s not a perfect film, but it is pretty fun. First off, the designs look like they popped right out of the games. The animation looked good then and still looks good. The fight scenes were all well animated and flowed pretty well. While the story is pretty jumbled, it still feels pretty fun. Some of the faves like Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li and M. Bison get good moments. By the way, that was one hilarious way to end a movie.

It does have some issues here and there though. As I said above, the story isn’t’ the best. The creators tried their best to take all of these characters and make a cohesive story with them. While the movie does well with a couple characters, some don’t get that moment to shine. The dubbing isn’t the best, but that’s 90’s anime for you. You also have some “interesting” fanservice (just see the whole sequence with Chun-Li and Vega), though your mileage may vary on whether it’s a good thing or not. Overall, it’s a good movie and possibly one of the best video game adaptations in general.

 

Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation

Street Fighter Alpha was released in 1999 and takes inspiration from the Alpha series that was being released at the time. The Alpha games were meant to be a bit of a prequel to SF2, which is why you don’t see many of the regulars other than Ken, Ryu, and Chun-Li around. In the movie, Ryu is reeling from the death of his master Gouken at the hands of Akuma. Not only is he dealing with controlling the Satsui no Hado, or “Dark Hadou”, in his body, he finds out that he has a little brother named Shun. Meanwhile, a doctor from Shadaloo (Dr. Handler who was just created for the movie) is trying to find Ryu. He plans to take Ryu’s and other fighters’ data and absorb it into himself. Ken, Chun-Li, and Ryu end up taking on Sadler and his robotic henchman, Rosonov, in the end.

Yes, Zangief! Destroy that annoying twerp!

This wasn’t that good of a movie. With it being based on the Alpha series, a series that I never interacted with, it was going to have to do some stuff to win me over. Unfortunately, it didn’t. Now, I did like the plot of Ryu losing control of his abilities. It seems like that this is one plot point that comes up a lot with him in different games and media. Heck, it’s gonna come up a lot in the next two movies. While the designs weren’t the best, some of the fight scenes were okay. I also thought that Ken and Chun-Li got moments to shine.

Now, here’s the bad. I couldn’t stand Shun, Ryu’s supposed little brother. In fact, I couldn’t stand a few characters here like Sakura and that Sadler guy. Why did the creators end up creating a villain instead of using a villains from the games anyway? I wasn’t the biggest fan of the story either. I wasn’t a fan of the dubbing with some characters. I don’t know how many times Shun called Ryu “Big Brother”, but I know it was at least 20.  A lot of the fighters from the Alpha series pretty much end up in the background as usual. I didn’t like some of the music either. Overall, this was pretty much a miss for me.

 

Street Fighter Alpha: Generations

Generations was released in 2005. Instead of revolving around a lot of street fighting, this one revolved more around Ryu and the backstory of the ‘Satsui no Hado’. In the movie, Ryu goes to his master’s dojo to pay his respects after his master was killed by Akuma. He ends up befriending an old man and his granddaughter. “Grandpa” ends up teaching Ryu much more about the Hadou. Sakura also shows up because she’s heard about how good Ryu is at fighting. Eventually, Ryu sets out to challenge Akuma to a fight. Oh yeah, Ken shows up at the end and doesn’t interact with Ryu at all.

This was another miss for me. I will say that it was interesting that it mainly just centered on Ryu and the backstory of Akuma. I also thought the designs and animation were pretty decent. The fight scenes, or what fight scenes we got, were okay at best. I also liked the Old Man, or “Grandpa.” Seriously, this dude was pretty much called Grandpa by everyone in this movie, and it was so annoying. The music wasn’t too bad. Also, the voices were good for the most part.

Even though I heaped some praise on it, it still fell flat for me. I think it mainly had to do with the running time. This was only about 45 minutes. While you think you’d get a lot in that time span, you don’t. It really felt stilted towards the end with Ryu’s and Akuma’s fight. The story also felt a bit confusing and pretty slight especially towards the end. It also felt like Sakura and Ken were just shoved into the movie since someone realized that there weren’t many SF references around. Overall, it’s not a good one.

 

Street Fighter IV: The Ties that Bind

Now this is one that I didn’t know existed until now. Apparently, it was released in the collector’s edition of Street Fighter IV back in 2009. I don’t think it’s been released anywhere else. The Ties That Bind serves as a prequel to SFIV. In the movie, a secret organization is taking out fighters across the world. Cammy, Guile, and Chun-Li are tasked to figure out what happened to them. Meanwhile, the Shadaloo group set their eyes next on Ryu, who’s having trouble with his Dark Hadou, by staking out Ken, who’s settled into the life of a family man. When Ken’s wife, Eliza, is kidnapped by the group, our fighters team up to get her back and take on the leader of the organization.

I'm betting Ken has the song, "Guy Love" on his Spotify playlist.

This was okay but a bit dull. I did think it was cool to at least have an anime that actually ties into the games since none of the above really do that. It was also nice to see other characters other than Ken and Ryu. While they are mainstays of the franchise, you kinda want to see other folk. I also liked that we got to see a little bit of Ken’s life since outside of him training and running off to being with “Random Blonde Lady,” we don’t see much. The  designs looked good, and some animation was fine. THe voice acting was also pretty nice since we had actors from the game reprising their voices.

Still I had some problems. Even though its only an hour, it does drag a bit. The story isn’t’ really interesting outside of a couple character beats. We really only get a small number of fight scenes here, and even then, they aren’t the best thing around. While the animation is fine, it’s all trapped in this drabness. It’s weird because when you play SF4, the game pops with its color palette. Overall, it was an okay time, but I can see why this was just stuck on a collector’s edition of the game instead of being its own thing.

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Overall, Street Fighter has struggled a bit when it comes to animation. Yeah, we have the 1994 animated movie (seriously, it’s that good), but that’s about it in terms of good quality. The rest range from “eh” to “meh”. I will say that most of these make the live-action webseries, Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist, look even better in my eyes. If you’re want something that does the games justice and is actually pretty good, check it out. Well, I think some more cleaning needs to be done for the day. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there. M. Bison can be anywhere in his 18-wheeler.