This is NOT the Street Fighter live action movie
Added 11/4/2009
Amazon is wrong on the description.
I tried to update the description of this particular item, but Amazon refused without a reference link. Nevermind I bought the darn thing thru this site, you'd think they'd give me a little more levity. But no. Also, the publisher ADV is now defunct so you can't find an online reference for this title.
As it is, this is a pretty obscure box set anyways. This is the Street Fighter CARTOON, and Jean Claude Van Damme is NOT involved in any way.
Now I know what you're thinking. Its from ADV, and its Street Fighter, so it much be another anime about good old SF, but its not anime at all (in the sense of it produced for/from Japan). This is a cartoon created to broadcast on American television, mostly the USA network, and the cartoon is loosely based on the live action movie (where Ryu and Ken and Sagat are all arms dealers, Chun Li is a reporter, Blanka is Guile's old friend Charlie and a brilliant scientist, etc etc.)
This box set contains a bunch of the early episodes. The action is mediocre at best, the video production quality is acceptable as is the dvd mastering. The characterizations are very shallow, typical fare for most US produced animation that gets into syndication. Its highly episodic with no larger theme tying things together. It was released under the ADV Kids label, and a younger crowd might find this mildly entertaining.
If you're a big/ hard core SF fan... only pick this up as a curiosity. otherwise, stay away~.
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Not as Terrible as everyone says, but not oscar-worthy, either
Added 10/1/2009
This movie isn't the crap fest that everyone makes it out to be. If you like street fighter, this is probably the best you're gonna get out of live-action. Van Damme is so Damme terrible an actor, and his accent's hard to understand most of the time. However, Raul Julia more than makes up for it. He's so charismatic, and I'll never think of another actor as possibly being able to play M. Bison. It's kind of like how fans feel about Yule Brenner with The King and I, except on a lower quality scale due to the entire movie not having Julia in every single scene. "Quick, change da channel!" is one of the funniest scenes I've ever seen in a movie, believe it or not. The fight scenes are actually not too bad, and the casting and story are kind of hit-and-miss. Julia as Bison, as well as the actors who played Zangief, Vega, Sagat, Honda, Balrog, and Ryu weren't too bad, and Van Damme looks and acts the part of Guile, even if he doesn't sound it. I didn't like the casting for Chun-Li and Ken very much, to be honest. The story, having Guile and Cammy being the main good guys, and Bison and his henchmen as the bad guys were both fairly interesting. I hated the parts involving Chun-Li's news crew, most of the parts with Ken, and the Dhalsim-Blanca ordeal. I think the actor did a fine job as Dhalsim, but the movie character didn't seem at all like the game character, except for the fact that they both seemed like pacifists from India. Most of the other characters seemed to fit fairly well with their game counterparts.
All in all, while the movie's not really great, and Van Damme lowers it a star with his acting, Raul Julia is a magnificent enough presence to raise it two stars in my opinion, giving Street Fighter a three star rating.
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Super Street Fighter II The Movie
Added 8/21/2009
It was only a matter or time before the phenomenal video game smash hit was turned into a video game, and when word was out there was to be a live action movie, i don't think anyone really knew what to expect. And once it was out, it made it's money, which was guaranteed, but left a lot of the fans of the game in disappointment at how there favorite video game characters had been portrayed.
To those who never played the game, it was a JCVD movie where he led the U.N against the dictatorship of General Bison with 100 other side characters involved. But to those who just dismiss the movie and give it 2 to 4 word reviews, you really need to stand back and look at just how many characters from the game are portrayed into this film. What was it meant to be? 80 mins of nonstop fighting with special effects coming out of there hands?
I have to say, for the task that was at hand and the plot of the movie, it's not that bad of a job when asking someone to involve so many characters from a video game and incorporate them into a full length motion picture. I mean, this movie was based on Super Street Fighter 2 and that game had about 16 characters in it. It really came down to the casting of certain characters and costumes that really held this movie back.
Jean Claude Van Dame - as Cornell William F Guile. I think half the audience liked the idea he played Guile, and the other half would ask why the muscles from Brussels is playing an American military Cornell? As like any JCVD movies, he has his moments of coolness & his moments of complete lameness.
Raul Julia as M. Bison i thought was great casting. Raul really researched dictators like Hitler and Mussolini for this role, and created exactly who Bison was expected to be. I'm not just praising him cause he died just after this movie, no, he is one of the much better actors in this movie that when I think if someone else could have been cast who would be better in this role, then Raul is the one I would say is the #1 choice.
Ming-Na as Chun Li I think did a terrible job. It's not so much she didn't look the part, but I think they could have found someone who looked a better Chun-Li, but also her acting from sarcasm to doing her own lame stunt's that look stupid in the movie (hence that roll she did to put a tracking device on the truck) really make you wonder how she got this role in the first place. She plays the role too goofy in most parts, then when she is supposed to be mean, you just don't buy it.
Wes Studi I think played a great Sagat. He looked the part, and played it straight. Even tho he was not as tall as Sagat should be, it would be very hard to track down a 7'4 kickboxer to play the role.
Jay Tavare I suppose played a decent Vega. Surely there is someone out there that could have done a much better job, but this guy played the character decently and no real complaint about his performance in the movie.
Kylie Minogue playing Cammy was the worst choice of the entire movie. She completely killed the character by having no knowledge what-so-ever of who the heck she was supposed to be portraying. And her accent in the film is just enough to make cringe.
Byron Mann as Ryu was not quite the right choice, tho he could have been better if he was a little darker and not working with Damian Chapa who really did not suit the role of Ken Masters at all. The two of them where not what you expected out of so many SF2 fans favorite characters. Both of them should have been played by people a bit thicker and didn't look like the comic relief from a stoner movie.
Roshan Seth I suppose played Dahlsim as best he could for the way he is written into this movie. Many where disappointed he was not a Yoga master made of rubber shooting flames out his rear end, but for what his role was here, I suppose he did a decent enough job.
Grand L. Bush looked the part of Balrog in some parts of the movie, but he did not seem he was the right choice for the character. Balrog should've been much meaner and bulked up. This guy was far from the right choice.
Peter Navy Tuiasosopo as E.Honda I will say was a good choice to play the role. Even tho he was Hawaiin in the movie, and the video game he is Japanese, not to forget in real life Peter is Samoan, there probably wouldn't have been a lot of Japanese men of this size that could make this character work on screen.
Andrew Bryniarski as Zangief was really horrible choice. It wouldn't have been that hard to find an actual wrestler who stands at about 7 foot in height who looked more the role then this guy does. This guy looks like he is wearing a bad fake beard and wig, and is trying to play the character just as goofy as can be. it really ruins scenes with guys like Raul Julia who give a great performance, and then this guy screws it up with really bad acting.
Gregg Rainwater as T.Hawk, why did they even bother? I'm not even going to go on about this one.
Miguel A. Núñez Jr. as Dee Jay was pretty bad as well, the character was written in badly, so i guess it wouldn't matter who played this role.
Robert Mammone as Charlie (Blanka) again, another one they should have had a beefed up guy play the role of and make him look somewhat credible then just completely stupid.
Kenya Sawada as Captain Sawada - what a memorable character this one was - not. This was supposed to be the introduction of a new character for the video games Capcom was planning to release in an upcoming SF game, but after the fact no one took any notice of him in this movie, I guess the idea was canned.
So with very few right choices for the roles of the SF characters, you can see why the movie is not praised by fans of SF2 from being the wrong choice of characters. If it had a balance of the right looks for the role, and everyone on the same level from who is going to play the role seriously, and who is going to portray it as a loony tune, then the results may have varied more in the thumbs up favor.
BONUS FEATURES
- Boring commentary from the director giving you more information about his background and life then anything to do with the movie.
- Trailers to SF4 (big deal)
- 2 Deleted Scenes that are worthy of looking at.
- The trailer (whoopie)
Still, with the negative things I have said about this film, and the things I would have changed, much like Masters Of The Universe, there is just something about the film that makes you want to see it at least once every year or two. It's far from the worst film of all time.
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Capcom Real life
Added 8/14/2009
Jean Claude movie, what can I say ,not the best movie out there, but worth watching once if you like the capcom game.
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Keep in mind, this movie does not take itself seriously
Added 7/23/2009
Better than 2009's Legend of Chun Li that simply tries to hard.
Jean Claude Van Damme was at his best in Street Fighter! "Now who wants to go home? And who wants to with ME!"
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