Movie Review: Street Fighter- The Legend of Chun-Li

After the original street fighter movie was generally regarded as a flop and overall horrible movie, there was an attempt a few years back to try to reboot the Street Fighter name with The Legend of Chun-Li. This movie effectively answers the question of what happens when you take a campy-fun movie and remove the camp from it.

This movie is effectively an origin story about Chun-Li. It stars the usual suspects as the villains of Balrog, Vega and M. Bison. Zangief was conspicuously absent as his performance in the original Street Fighter provided ample entertainment. Some other characters are also introduced and I wasn’t sure whether they were from the expanded Street Fighter universe, such as Gen as Chun-Li’s trainer.

The story, however, seems to be very ashamed of the silly-fun that the original movie had and tries to take it too far the other way. There are very few moments of fun and levity in the movie and most the characters don’t seem to be enjoying themselves. The exception to this is Balrog as he seems to be having allot of fun in his role as big, strong guy.

Outside of Balrog and possibly Chun-Li, most of the actors seem to be miscast. Gen as Chun-Li’s trainer looks far too young to invoke the Karate Kid type training vibe they tried to go with. Vega looks menacing but is never really given much to do. Bison doesn’t really have the air of menace or gravity that he is meant to, no matter how many sound effects they play when he is on screen. The worst acting is by far the actor and actresses that played the police inspectors tracking down Bison.

Maybe most of the miscast actors would have been passable if the story was more compelling. They turned a villain who was meant to be insane into a property mogul to try to ground him in reality. Bison also only has one weakness: The White Rose. The White Rose ends up being the good part of Bison’s soul but it is never explained why this is a weakness. When Chun-Li and friends get the White Rose, they don’t even use it to defeat Bison. There is an element of mysticism in what Gen, Chun-Li and Bison can do (i.e. fireballs and super strength) but it is often ignored until it is convenient. In short, the story is a mess that tries to have it both ways (i.e. a grounded story and mysticism) and ends up failing in both departments.

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is a bad movie. It is, in effect the worst of both worlds, with none of the silly fun from the original Street Fighter and a poor story that makes no sense. Most of the acting is bad and the actors and actresses are miscast, for the most part. The attempt to reboot the series into a grounded movie feels like they attempted to make it like Batman, and they failed horribly. It’s only saving graces are Balrog and that it is only 90 minutes long.

1 out of 5 Waffle Hadoukens