Movie-Holic

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li is a movie that I have been waiting to see for awhile now. I was finally able to get around to checking it out and, well…

The Legend of Chun Li is a film based on the video game Street Fighter. While most movies that have been brought over from game to film have been mediocre at best, I have to say that with the build up of The Legend of Chun Li the huge crash of the movie is earth shattering.

And while it would be very easy to just hammer the movie on the change from video game to live action film, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to pick apart the movie itself on merit alone.

Basic plot: Chun Li is dragged into fighting an underworld crime syndicate that has kidnapped her father when she was very young. Chun Li never gets over it and it has been a strong foundation for who she is. She comes across a scroll that tells her she needs to find a guy named Gen who is to show her what to do next. Well, Gen, as it turns out, is a reformed criminal and leads a secret society that fights against his former employers. Yeah ok.

Anyway, the film is severely compromised on several levels that is would take decades to decipher exactly what is happening or even how they get from scene to scene. The feeling of “what the…” is so overwhelming at times that you instead just give up and detach yourself from the dialogue and action. The film is choppy at best, jumping from scene to scene with no real sense of integrity or commonality through each.

But, really what anyone is going to see Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li for is the fighting sequences and cool martial arts. Right? Well, you would think so. I was going into this with incredible expectations so maybe that was my ultimate downfall. But, the fighting is… well, bad.

It looked painful for the actors, with the exception of Robin Chou, who plays Gen, to go through the fight sequences. The choreography was inept and heavily focused on quick camera angles and quickly moving from shot to shot to hide the faulty fighting. I was finding myself becoming frustrated just trying to watch the action. When I go to an action movie, especially one with martial arts, I don’t want to concentrate on the action. I just want to enjoy it.

The only great shining moment I can take away from this movie is the performance of Michael Clarke Duncan. Isn’t he just the coolest bad guy? Neil McDonough also does a great job in his role as M. Bison and you tend to do what you’re suppose to do with his character… hate him. Chris Klein needs to go back to American Pie because his acting as Interpol agent Nash was just painful to watch. He isn’t the kind of guy to pull of this role and it really showed.

And finally what of Kristin Kreuk? What about her? Forgettable in every way.

Final Take

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li is not going to smash any box office records, or for that matter make a lot of people happy. There is a little to take away. Michael Duncan Clarke and Neil McDonough are great. The story would have been good if not overshadowed by the inept fighting and acting by the other “stars” of the film.