Home Opinion Guilty Pleasure – Street Fighter: The Movie

Guilty Pleasure – Street Fighter: The Movie

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Now, as an avid fan of films, I’ve watched my fair share of crap. Except here’s the thing, in a cinema that has more people moaning than a Raelian group orgy, I’ve been the sole person that managed to sit down and think to myself, “This film is so bad, it’s awesome!“.

And I’ve got my fair share of such movie experiences, films which would most likely have me committed to a mental institution. Street Fighter The Movie is just one such film, and I want to express my love of it with all of you.

Where do we even begin with such a film? Is it the sheer lunacy of trying to adapt a global fighting tournament into a 90 minute feature? Jean Claude Van Damme trying to pass himself off as a hardcore American? Kylie Minogue trying to be British?

Yes, yes and plenty more affirmation, as this happens to be one of my favourite films based on a video game. It’s pure madness from the get go, and it doesn’t help when Raul Julia arrives to chew more scenery than a morbidly obese man on a combination of the munchies and LSD.

And yet, it’s absolutely brilliant. For those of you who don’t know, this was Raul “Addams Family” Julia’s final film, before he passed away from health complications.

In fact, he filmed Street Fighter while he was suffering from his condition. Yes, the man was literally dying to play M Bison, and he certainly did steal the show.

Everything he did, while hammier than a pig on growth hormomes, was done with passion. The way he spoke, moved and strutted about, from his wary expressions whenever Zangief did, well, anything, to his infamous speeches.

This man made Tuesdays awesome.

And then you’ve got the rest of the cast. While JCVD didn’t sport the iconic paintbrush hairstyle of his digital counterpart, he at least had the moves at that point, and he was flexing his meal-ticket bicep-laden arm as much as he possibly could.

And then you’ve got the rest of the cast, which is a comedy of mismatched nationalities portraying differing nations. A very Australian Kylie Minogue does her best to be a british Cammy. Wes Studi donned an eyepatch and swopped his Native American heritage to be a Thai gangster.

The list goes on, and had they not done this, I doubt that Street Fighter would have been as comically tragic as it was.

And then you’ve got the entire design of the film. And I love it. It’s mid-nineties practical effects combined with poorly-realised CG effects at its cheesiest finest.

M Bison riding around on a hover throne because “Screw You man!”, That’s how we float! Guile’s invisible boat which is practically useless against actual technology. Chun Li and her impossibly well-constructed on a reporters budget bomb, which led to my personal favourite quote of all time.

But the best thing about Street Fighter the Movie? It’s in no way as terrible as the Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li, and that says a lot. And that’s my take on the cheesiest, yet funnest, PG 13 films ever made,

Raul Julia, JCVD, action and Ming Na-Wen in a Chun Li outfit that showed off her curves. It was heaven for me. What about you guys, any other particular guilty celluloid pleasures you’d care to mention?

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Critical Hit as an organisation.

Last Updated: March 22, 2012

3 Comments

  1. Justin Hess

    March 22, 2012 at 15:35

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I enjoyed Orgazmo. Fuck all the haters. 😀

    As for Street Fighter, I haven’t seen it since I saw it in the cinema in 94, when I saw it as a double billing with Charlie Sheen’s Terminal Velocity, which I enjoyed far more.

    I just noticed that Street Fighter was directed by Steven E De Souza, the writer of none other than Die Hard. You really have to wonder what happened in the interim.

    Reply

    • Darryn_Bonthuys

      March 22, 2012 at 16:04

      You liked Orgazmo? HIGH FIVE!

      Reply

      • Justin Hess

        March 22, 2012 at 17:29

        Orgazmo is hilarious. The bizarre on set assistant, the guy who runs the Chinese take ways, laugh out loud funny

        Reply

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