Street Fighter (1994) More at IMDb Pro »

Street Fighter (1994)

Director: Steven E. de Souza

Starring: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Raul Julia, Ming-Na Wen, Wes Studi

Lord, I remember this movie. No, I didn't see it when it first came out, but I remember one scene from the trailer: Guile shouting "Now who's going home, and who's coming with me?" After that, I don't remember anything, and I heard the movie mentioned every occasionally on video game message boards. Then one day I found this in a $5 DVD bin at Wal-Mart, and I figured that I couldn't lose.

This movie is based on the video game series of the same name by Capcom. The characters look like their video game counterparts, and I think that's pretty much where the similarities end. If you know anything about the video game series, it's sort of best to forget everything you know except that M. Bison is a bad guy and Guile is a good guy before watching this movie. However, if you're a really anal video game fan and you can't accept the fact that stuff has to be adapted to be made into a movie, you might as well never watch the movie. You will be disappointed.

The idea of the movie is this: General M. Bison (Raul Julia) is the ruler of the Asian country of Shadaloo, and he's recently taken a group of A.N. (Allied Nations, obviously the same thing as the U.N.) aid workers hostage. If the world does not agree to his terms within the next 72 hours, then the workers die. Thus, the A.N. Colonel Guile (Jean-Claude Van Damme) must go in, save the hostages, and beat the snot out of M. Bison.

The movie is corny, as I believe that it was intended to be. However, this isn't a very good excuse because when the movie tries to be serious, it's more laughable than the corny scenes. Raul Julia is perfect for the role of M. Bison, yet he also looks out of place at the same time. Perhaps it's because we're seeing two great actors (Raul Julia and Wes Studi) in a sea of B-movie actors and actresses. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that this is the worst film in the world; in fact, it's very enjoyable. It's one of those movies that you can just sit back and relax because everything done is by the book and done in a fairly entertaining way. It's one of those movies that you know it's bad, but it's a campy and fun sort of bad.

Jean-Claude Van Damme's performance as Colonel Guile makes some video gamers cringe because Guile is supposed to be the all-American Boy Scout, instead of, well, Van Damme. Van Damme's acting isn't the best, and the character suffers a bit because of this. He's given some nice lines, but Van Damme's acting ability doesn't make them stand out like they should.

As for the other actors and actresses, some are main characters, but you obviously couldn't care less about them. We aren't meant to care about them, since the attention is all focused on Guile and Bison. Even Guile's love interest(s) Chun-Li and Cammy aren't given much to do. It was somewhat nice to see how they tried to fit in the character's signature moves, although Ryu's moves look incredibly cheap and stupid.

All in all, this movie is hokey and fun, but in reality, it's stupid. It's nice that they tried to make it seem somewhat realistic, but in the end it seems more Saturday morning cartoonish than real. Leave your brain at the door and have some fun.

My rating for Street Fighter 1 ½ stars out of 4.