Fighting games are one of the simplest and longest lasting
genres of video games. Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Super Smash Bros.,
and Dead or Alive have led the
charge, along with one other video game series: Street Fighter. There’s
something about fighting other characters to come out on top as the victor that
people enjoy. It’s like beating someone
up without the real world regret and consequences. They had their thin stories. Mortal
Kombat was about a tournament that held the world in its clutches. The original Street Fighter was about a fighting tournament, but the sequels
would bring in crime syndicates and scientific experiments.
These games have become a source for some of the lesser
video game film adaptations that have been made. Dead or
Alive came out in 2006, and told the story of a fighting tournament gone
wrong. Mortal Kombat and its sequel came out in the 1990s, and told the
story of beings from other realms trying to conquer Earth through a fighting
tournament. Even Tekken got two movies, with the first not being all that bad, and
the sequel getting one of the worst reputations in video game movies.
Two movies have been made based on the Street Fighter video game lore.
The first, 1994’s Street Fighter,
saw a bunch of people including Guile (Jean-Claude Van Damme), Chun-Li (Ming-Na
Wen), Ryu (Byron Mann), Cammy (Kylie Minogue), and Ken (Damian Chapa) working
to take down evil dictator M. Bison (Raul Julia). It was ridiculous action, overdone
performances, and one-liners. Fifteen
years later, in 2009, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li would be
released. It wasn’t a sequel to the other
film. Instead, it told the story of
Chun-Li (Kristin Kreuk) as she tried to get revenge on M. Bison (Neal
McDonough) for kidnapping and killing her father. The whole time, Charlie Nash (Chris Klein)
and Maya Sunee (Moon Bloodgood) were trying to take down the underground
criminal organizations in Bangkok.
There were some major differences in the two movies,
particularly in the portrayals of the characters. Three major characters who were in both films
were vastly different from their counterparts.
Chun-Li, M. Bison, and Balrog were all changed between Street Fighter and Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li to the point that if their
names weren’t known, it would be hard to tell that they were the same
character. A deeper look into the
characters will show how different they were in the two movies.
Chun-Li
Chun-Li was the first playable female character in the Street Fighter video game series. She made her debut in Street Fighter II as the only playable female character and became
a fan favourite almost immediately. She
would be a playable character in almost all future games in the Street Fighter series, if not all of
them.
The character would make her feature film debut in Street Fighter, a movie based on Street Fighter II. She
was portrayed as a news reporter, out for revenge against M. Bison, who had
killed her father when he came to their village. She teamed up with Balrog (Grand L. Bush) and
E. Honda (Peter Navy Tuiasosopo), who each wanted to take down Sagat (Wes
Studi), one of M. Bison’s allies.
The motivations behind Chun-Li’s story were kept almost the
same for the movie that would feature her name in the title. In Street
Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, the character was a piano player whose
father was kidnapped by M. Bison when she was young. She sought revenge to get her father back.
The two movie versions of the characters weren’t too far off
from one another. The main difference
between the two, outside of the obvious career change from reporter to pianist,
was the stage in their revenge that was playing out. The reporter version of Chun-Li had clearly
been working towards this revenge for a long time. The pianist version, audiences got to see the
whole road to revenge play out. She left
the cozy pianist world to train with Gen (Robin Shou) and get closer to her
revenge. The whole story of Chun-Li’s journey was
playing out, instead of how she intersected with a bunch of other characters
leading to M. Bison’s downfall. It was
more focused, and a better story. The
movie was worse, but the potential for something better was there.
Balrog
Balrog was one of the original Street Fighter characters, appearing in the first game as
Mike. His original name was Mike Bison,
which was changed to Balrog come Street
Fighter II for non-Japan releases.
They wanted to avoid the Mike Tyson/Bison potential lawsuits. The M. Bison name was given to a different
character, and the boxer became Balrog.
In the 1994 film adaptation of the Street Fighter series, Balrog was working with Chun-Li as she tried
to get revenge on M. Bison. He was part
of her news crew. Together with E. Honda
and Chun-Li, Balrog executed a plan to blow up a meeting between M. Bison and
Sagat. When that went wrong, they were
captured by the villains. They would
later team up with Guile, Ken, Ryu, Cammy, and a bunch of military people to
take down the Shadaloo Empire.
Balrog would switch sides for Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. He was now a bad guy, like his video game
counterpart. Balrog (Michael Clarke
Duncan) was a henchman for M. Bison. He
did all of the dirty work that M. Bison didn’t want to do. There wasn’t too much to the character
outside of being intimidating. He fought
Gen late in the movie as a lead-up to the big fight against M. Bison, which was
very much like the game, where he had to be defeated before the final boss of
M. Bison.
The main difference between the character’s portrayals in
the two movies was his allegiance. In Street Fighter II, which seems to be the
specific game that the two movies took their concepts from, Balrog was a
villainous character. For whatever
reason, he was a heroic character in the 1994 adaptation. The 2009 film would keep him as a villain. The villainous role may have worked a little
better, but neither was all that great.
He was a character who was supporting another character, which meant he
didn’t have much to do. He wasn’t given
any meat to chew on. He was just there.
M. Bison
Now comes the villain of the Street Fighter franchise, M. Bison.
He wasn’t in the first game, but would be a major player in every game
after that. M. Bison was in charge of
Shadaloo, a crime organization that was to become the foundation for world
domination. He wanted to be the dictator
of the world, and even dressed the part.
Raul Julia played M. Bison as an over-the-top campy dictator
type in 1994’s Street Fighter. He gave a great performance that perfectly
fit the movie it was in, yet it alienated the game’s fanbase because of how
knowingly comedic it was with the material. They wanted seriousness. What they got was Raul Julia acting as a
goofy, extremely off-the-rails guy trying to be a dictator somewhere in Asia.
The M. Bison of Street
Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li was much more serious. He was a business man starting a crime
syndicate called Shadaloo in Bangkok. He
got rid of his political rivals by having them killed and leaving their bodies
for the police to find. His motivations
were no longer only to take over the world.
He wanted his daughter back because he had transferred the good part of
his soul into her body. He was evil, but
he was a smart evil.
Seeing the two Street
Fighter movies, M. Bison was the biggest character shift out of
anyone. His personality was completely
changed between movies. He went from the
dumb power hungry dictator to the business smart power hungry crime lord. It was a different kind of villain for a
different kind of movie. The difference
was a crazy man who thought he needed to show people that he deserved power and
a smart man who knew he had to take the power if he wanted it. Each was the right choice for the movie that
was being made, though neither movie was all that good.
Speaking of the movies themselves, there has yet to be a
good movie based on the Street Fighter
video games. Street Fighter, the 1994 movie, was a campy action film that didn’t
take the material seriously at all. It
had good fun with the concept and made some light fluff that was easily
digestible, if a little on the dumb side of things. Street
Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li went too far in the other direction, trying
to make things too serious. It still
came off as hokey because of how serious it got. Chris Klein was in his own world of over-acting. Kristin Kreuk’s narration was some of the
most unenthusiastic voice work ever set to a movie. Nobody has properly found a way to do Street Fighter service yet, which has
made for a tarnished film reputation.
The same could be said of any fighting game that has been
adapted into a film. Mortal Kombat was fun, but it wasn’t a
great movie. DOA: Dead or Alive had its moments, and it certainly had fun with
the material, but it was a little too much sometimes. There’s something about fighting games that
hasn’t quite translated because nobody can figure out how to mix the
seriousness and the fun in a way that isn’t cheesy.
Maybe there’s something lost in the adaptation part. Too much time is spent in movies trying to
pay tribute to where the idea came from.
When video games are adapted, the people behind the movie want to make
sure that they bring in all of the elements of the video game that they
can. They put more focus on that than
crafting an entertaining, strong storyline.
And when they do craft that story, it gets lost under all of the video
game moments. Movies are a different
medium and should be treated as such.
Fighting games don’t need to play out like fighting games on the big
screen. They need to be brought to life
in a different form for a different medium.
That’s the key. When someone
figures it out, they’ll unlock something great.
Let’s unlock some notes:
- Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li was suggested by friend of the blog, @BreakABone, who previously suggested Birdemic (week 100), Steel (week 127), Catwoman (week 174), I, Frankenstein (week 217), and Jonah Hex (week 249).
- Other movies that were mentioned in this post were Mortal Kombat (week 140) and DOA: Dead or Alive (week 191).
- Robin Shou returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies this week, playing Gen in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. He was in Death Race (week 9), Death Race 2 (week 9), Death Race: Inferno (week 9), Mortal Kombat (week 140), Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (week 140), and DOA: Dead or Alive (week 191).
- Michael Clarke Duncan made his fifth Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. He was previously in A Crush on You (week 51), D.E.B.S. (week 111), Delgo (week 148), and Air Buddies (week 270).
- Sahajak Boonthanakit and Gigi Velicitat each made their third Sunday “Bad” Movies appearances this week after appearing in both The Marine 2 (week 30) and Skin Trade (week 146).
- Another third-timer was Neal McDonough, who had previously shown up in The Marine 3: Homefront (week 30) and Timeline (week 222).
- Gerry Day was in The Marine (week 30), as well as Street Fighter.
- Seng Kawee was in The Marine 2 (week 30), as well as Street Fighter.
- Street Fighter featured Miguel A. Nunez Jr. who had been in Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (week 46) years earlier.
- Kylie Minogue, who played Cammy in Street Fighter, also had a role in Bio-Dome (week 124).
- Peter Navy Tuiasosopo showed up as E. Honda in Street Fighter. He was previously in the Sunday “Bad” Movies when he was in Batman & Robin (week 138).
- He wasn’t the only DC connection. Byron Mann was in Street Fighter and Catwoman (week 174).
- Jay Tavare returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies this week in Street Fighter, after having shown up in The Human Centipede III (week 180).
- Obviously, Street Fighter wasn’t the first appearance of Jean-Claude Van Damme in the Sunday “Bad” Movies. He was in Double Team (week 193).
- Benny Uriquidez was in Road House (week 200) before he was in Street Fighter.
- Street Fighter had a performance from Andrew Bryniarski, who was in Hudson Hawk (week 232).
- Finally, Ron Smoorenburg was in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. He had already joined the Sunday “Bad” Movies in Outcast (week 163).
- Have you seen either of the Street Fighter movies? Which one do you think was a better movie? Which one was a better adaptation? Are there any good fighting game movies? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter.
- Those are two good places where you can suggest movies for me to check out. Twitter and the comments. I’m always keeping an eye out for movies I might not have otherwise known that would make for good subjects for this blog. Hit me up, people.
- If you want to add me to snapchat, go ahead (jurassicgriffin). Sometimes there’s interesting stuff. Not normally though.
- The Sunday “Bad” Movies will return next week. Hopefully it won’t be as rushed as this week’s post. Getting sick at the end of the week meant I’m finishing this at about 3am the night before I’m posting it. The next movie up is The Karate Dog, which I saw once when I was younger. I would have been fifteen when it came out. What was I doing watching that at fifteen? No idea. Anyway, that’s next week, so be ready. I’ll have a post for it. I’ll see you then.
No comments:
Post a Comment