“Street Fighter” Review: A 6th Grade Love letter to The game
To understand Street Fighter, look no further than its soundtrack. A film set in 1993, that has used Tupac’s “Ambitionz As A Ridah” as it’s hype music in the trailer and film. A song that came out in 1996 for those who don’t know. This is Street Fighter. The music is of the era but not quite historically accurate. The writing is in the area of a good homage, but not quite on target. It’s a campy, zany film that tries its best to write a love letter to the game on a sixth grade level!
The film starts with an animated look back at the 1987 World Warrior Tournament in which martial artist Ryu (Andrew Koji) defeats Sagat by tapping into his dark side. After his master Gouken (Don Lee) sees this, he quickly tells Ryu’s best friend/brother Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) that he must protect his brother. From there we are in live action and present day 1993. Ken is a has-been doing commercials for Jolt energy drinks and Duracell. He’s the playboy, MTV star of the moment but he is missing something. In part, it’s his best friend, Ryu, who has been missing since the World Warrior Tournament. The other part is he doesn’t believe in himself as an ultimate warrior.
Meanwhile, M. Bison (David Dastmalchian) is on a mission to increase his own power by draining the best warriors in the land of theirs. What better way to do that then to have a World Warrior Tournament to gather them all together? “That’s all I have to say about that” in my best Forrest Gump voice.
Here’s the deal. It’s extremely difficult to put all the characters that people love from Capcom’s game into a live action script. Co-writer/director Kitao Sakurai is my age. As an elder millennial, I know he lived through the era of the game. I assume he remembers going to an arcade and putting your quarters down to play it in the mall. Or playing with friends on Sega. The love for the characters is there. Getting the wardrobe, hair and makeup, and in game nods are on full display. Cinematographer Ken Seng drenches the frame with neon, desaturated video game colors at times and diffused light beams that noticeably shine through windows. The love and desire to get it right is there, but the script is chaotic.
The film starts out strong and then goes in various directions in order to bring characters into the story. How can we get Blanka (Jason Momoa) in the film? Let’s have Ryu have to do this. How do we get E. Honda (Hirooki Goto) in the film? Let’s have Ryu do that. Let’s make other well known characters M. Bison’s henchmen but not explain why they are. Let’s not give them anything to do except serve Lord M. Bison. This is the movie’s achilles heel. In an effort to give fan service, it abandons Hitchcock’s famous quote: “To make a great film you need three things - the script, the script, and the script.”
The performances are a mixed bag. Koji is an anchor as Ryu bringing gravity to his character. Centineo is a solid Ken. Callina Liang is a fresh face as Chun-Li. While David Dastmalchian is always playing a strange character, his take on M. Bison is up for debate and feels like he watched The Dark Knight and the ’94 Street Fighter for inspiration. As much as I’m a fan of Cody Rhodes as a character in the WWE ring, acting in a legit film isn’t for him. He’s supposed to provide comedy but Guile is absolutely cringe. Everyone else is either not in the film long enough to make a remark or they bring their usual bro performance, just another role cough Jason cough Mamoa.
Unfortunately, this script is bloated. It abandons ideas soon after it puts them on the table. If it stuck to a story about two brothers overcoming guilt, shame and working to trust each other again, that probably would have been the right call. Oddly, it takes a bet on itself that there will be a sequel. I don’t know if the public will present enough quarters to continue!
Rating: D+
