For the unrelated 1974 Sonny Chiba film, see The Street Fighter. For the animated film, see Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. For the video game adaptation of this film, see Street Fighter: The Movie.

Street Fighter is a 1994 action film based on Capcom's popular fighting game series Street Fighter. It was written and directed by Steven E. de Souza.

Although it was based on Street Fighter II, the movie also features characters from Super Street Fighter II. It starred an international and multicultural cast that included Jean-Claude Van Damme (in the role of William F. Guile), Raúl Juliá in his last film (as General M. Bison) and pop singer Kylie Minogue (Cammy) along with Native American actor Wes Studi (as Victor Sagat), Chinese American actor Ming-Na (as Chun-Li) and African American actor Grand L. Bush (as Balrog).

The movie altered the plot of the original game and motives of the Street Fighter characters. It also significantly lightened the tone of the adaptation, inserting several comical interludes into the mix (for instance one particular fight scene between E. Honda and Zangief plays homage to the old Godzilla movies). When released, the movie was panned by critics, fans of the series, and moviegoers alike. It used to be regularly listed on the IMDB's bottom 100. Despite less-than-stellar reviews, the movie was a box office hit, and has since gained a substantial cult following.

A fighting game based on the movie was released in the arcades and later for the PlayStation and Sega Saturn consoles, published by Acclaim instead of Capcom. It used digitized footage of the actors performing fight moves, similar to the presentation in the Mortal Kombat series of games.

Plot

There are several major players in the plot of the movie: Guile, Chun-Li, Ken and Ryu, Dhalsim and Charlie (Blanka) and Bison. The plot described below follows primarily Guile.

The movie takes place in the fictional nation of Shadaloo in South East Asia (the movie was shot in Thailand, and maps at the beginning of the movie show Shadaloo occupying a segment of modern-day Burma). After months of fighting, a multinational military force of the Allied Nations has managed to enter the city of "Shadaloo City". The Allied Nations is fighting against the armed forces of drug-lord turned General M. Bison, who has recently captured a couple of dozen AN workers. Bison makes his demands in a live two-way TV broadcast with William F. Guile, the regional commander of the AN forces. If he is not paid $20 billion in three days he will kill the hostages and the world will hold Guile and the AN accountable.

Guile's assistant Cammy is only able to partially trace Bison's signal. From that it can be determined that Bison's hideout is somewhere in the river-delta region outside Shadaloo City. After one of the thugs of Victor Sagat, head of the Shadaloo Tong, attempts to assassinate Guile, which Guile himself quickly foils, he figures out that Sagat is the arms-supplier for Bison.

Guile attempts to infiltrate Ryu Hoshi and Ken Masters, two foreign operators who were arrested along with Sagat while fighting a cage match - they had tried to cheat Sagat beforehand by selling him fake weapons, and Sagat was not amused - into Sagat's gang. He decides to stage a prison-break and his own death in order to find out the location of Bison's hideout via a homing device carried by Ryu and Ken. Guile's plan hits a snag when a GNT News Reporter Chun-Li Xiang (spelled "Zang" in the film; played by Ming-Na), who is out for Bison's blood, finds out that Guile is alive and with the help of her partners, Sumo wrestler E. Honda and professional boxer Balrog, attempts to kill Bison and Sagat with a truck bomb while they are engaged in arms trade at a thieves' camp. The explosion destroys much of Bison's arms cache but fails to kill the dictator. The plan thus fails (in part because Bison and Sagat are tipped off by Ken), and Chun-Li and her friends are captured.

Ryu and Ken are welcomed as Bison troopers. Once in the fortress, they free Balrog and Honda, and the four of them go to "save" Chun-Li, who is delivering an unexpectedly severe beating to a surprised Bison. Unfortunately, the arrival of Honda, et al interrupts Chun-Li, giving Bison a chance to escape and trapping the five of them in a room flooding with gas.

Ryu and Ken's homing device is tracked by satellite, which also detects the explosion at Bison's camp, and the AN is able to locate Bison's headquarters in an abandoned temple. Since Bison's air defenses are too deadly, Guile orders an amphibious assault on the base. As the troops comprising the strike force stand in salute and are preparing to march out, a group of peace negotiators arrives to inform Guile that the invasion is no longer authorized, since the ransom demand is about to be paid. Guile protests what he sees as appeasement and decides to go ahead with the assault.

Meanwhile Guile, T. Hawk and Cammy head up river to lead the attack in a stealth-boat, which they use to blow up part of Bison's radar system. Bison notices the attack and manages to compromise the boat's stealth-mode, making Guile a perfect target. The boat is blown out of the water but Guile and his comrades escape in time.

Guile heads in to Bison's fort alone while T. Hawk and Cammy stay and wait for the rest of the attack-party. Guile falls in to the laboratory of Dr. Dhalsim where he encounters his friend Carlos "Charlie" Blanka who has been warped in to a powerful beast. After realizing that Bison attempts to use Blanka to execute the hostages he hides in Blanka's incubation chamber and takes Bison by surprise. Unfortunately he is not able to prevent "red-alert" from going off and Cammy and T. Hawk end up in a tight spot. The attack party is not far behind and the battle begins.

While some of the heroes try to free the hostages, Ken wants to leave the battle now that the military is there. Ryu disagrees and goes back in to fight, but as Ken is leaving, he sees the monitors of the cameras spread out through Bison's base. He sees Sagat and Vega trying to ambush Ryu. Ken goes back in to help Ryu, and the two of them defeat Vega and Sagat after an intense fight. Meanwhile, Guile and Bison engage in a one-on-one fight. Guile seems to be winning, but then an automatic revival system brings Bison back to life and charges his body with great amounts of electromagnetism, allowing him to shoot lightning bolts and fly across the air. After taking a serious beating, Guile manages to kick Bison and sends him flying against his gigantic monitor wall. As he crashes, there are severe electrical disturbances which destabilize the power system of the base. As the base sounds the alarm, the heroes find and release the hostages just in time, and everyone evacuates.

Guile manages to find the laboratory and talk to Dhalsim and Blanka one last time before he is forced to leave them behind; Blanka, now a warped beast with red hair and green skin, cannot return to human society changed like this, and Dhalsim decides not to leave Blanka to die alone and to pay for his own part in having done this to him. When the temple comes crashing down after an explosion everyone thinks that Guile is dead, but then he appears from amongst the smoke.

The movie ends semi-humorously, after Guile converses with everyone they see the last ruins of the temple fall and take their familiar win poses as the camera freezes and fades out.

In the home video version of the film, at the end of the closing credits we find ourselves back at the ruins of M. Bison's lair, as the main computer announces that its batteries recharging from solar power and it begins fibrillating Bison's heart with electricity. As a close up of a computer screen reveals a readout: "initalizing... run programs... world domination, replay", Bison's fist smashes through the rubble, apparently having been resurrected. The computer greets him: "Welcome back General M. Bison."

Cast

Other movies

• This is not the first movie to feature Street Fighter characters. The 1993 Hong Kong film City Hunter, directed by Wong Jing, featured a fantasy martial arts fight in which main character Ryo Saeba (played by Jackie Chan) hallucinates and imagines himself fighting against his enemy after getting shocked by landing on the arcade machine in the Street Fighter II arcade room. Ryo first changes into Honda and then Chun Li; his enemy (Gary Daniels as Pony-tail Thug) represents Ken; and two of Ryo's helpers fight as Guile and Dhalsim. Sound effects are from the SNES version of Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II, including Ryu and Ken's Hadouken, Chun-Li's Hyakuretsukyaku, etc.

• Likewise, the Japanese theatrical release of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (simply titled Street Fighter II: Movie in that region) predates this live-action version by months. The end credits of the Japanese film promotes the release of the live-action version.

• Another Hong Kong film loosely based on Street Fighter, directed by Wong and released in the same year as City Hunter was Future Cops. In this action-comedy, the main characters are modelled after characters from Street Fighter II, and have their special moves from the games. However, this time the rights could not be secured so they were given new names that fit in with the comedic style of the movie (for example, Guile was known as "Broom-haired Man"). Although the plot of the movie has nothing to do with Street Fighter, it contains many references to the games.

• There is also a Japanese action movie called The Street Fighter that was released in 1974 and starring martial arts star Sonny Chiba. It also spawned two sequels called The Return of the Street Fighter and The Street Fighter's Last Revenge. None of these movies are believed to have any connection with the Street Fighter series, although these three movies were rated X in the U.S., and were not rated on DVD and videocassette.

• A new Street Fighter (Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li) film is in development and is scheduled for a 2008 release. According to the screenwriter, Justin Marks, the plot will revolve around female fighter Chun-Li embarking on a quest. On December 21, 2007, Smallville star Kristin Kreuk was confirmed for the role of Chun-Li and film production will begin in March 2008. Michael Clarke Duncan has also been cast as boxer Balrog, Chris Klein will play Nash, and Gen, originally intended for Rick Yune, will be played by Robin Shou, who played Liu Kang in the adaptations of the Mortal Kombat video games. ^[1][2]

Soundtrack

In 1994, a soundtrack album was released. The soundtrack album featured songs by Ice Cube, Nas, LL Cool J and other artists.

Tracklisting

1. Street Fighter - Ice cube
2. Come Widdit - Ahmad/Ras Kass/Saafir
3. One On One - Nas
4. Pandemonium - The Pharcyde
5. Street Soldier - Paris
6. Something Kinda Funky - Rally Ral
7. It's A Street Fight - The B.U.M.S.
8. Life As.... - LL Cool J
9. Do You Have What It Takes? - Craig Mack
10. Straight To My Feet - MC Hammer & Deion Sanders
11. Rumbo N Da Jungo - Chuck D & The Wreck League
12. Rap Commando - Anotha Level
13. Worth Fighting For - Angélique Kidjo
14. Something There - Chage and Aska

Game references and differences

The screenplay of the film attempted to include as many of the characters from the game as possible. This caused many changes in character background and behaviour. Cammy and T. Hawk's characters were reduced largely to supporting characters for Guile whilst Ken and Ryu were made conmen who try to steal money from criminals leading them to direct conflict with Sagat, the underworld boss at Shadaloo. The film attempts to stay geographically consistent by setting the events in South East Asia (in the game Bison's hideout is in Thailand). Notably Balrog switches sides in this movie becoming one of the goodguys while Dee Jay and Zangief are traded in as Bison's lackeys, largely for comical relief purposes. The characters of Blanka and Charlie were combined for the film in order to ground Guile's story (though in the game universe the characters are separate). Only the characters of Guile, Chun Li and Bison remain unchanged for the most part. The character of Fei Long was dropped from the movie with the character of Captain Sawada considered a replacement of sorts.

Nonetheless, Steven E. deSouza attempted to have some direct referencing of the game content in the film's production design. For instance in Bison's private room, a hatrack is shown which contains identically-designed officer's caps, each colored as one of Bison's palette-swapped costumes from Street Fighter II. In addition, the control panel for Bison's levitating desk is the joystick and buttons to a Street Fighter II arcade game and after he finishes using them he comments "Game over!".

Director Steven de Souza notes in the DVD commentary that the crew tried to make references to some of the stages in the game. The fresco found in the training room of Bison's base (a tsunami) is a reproduction of the stamp found in Honda's stage, on the wall of a bathroom, in the original game. The Bhudda statue in Sagat's hideout is taken from the one present in his stage, and according to de Souza, the docks that the AN army uses and the bell in Bison's fortress are references to Ken and Bison's stages respectively.

During the holding yard brawl with Ryu and Ken, there are barrels that have "Capcom" painted on them. The barrel used in the magic-act at the Thieves' Market also says Capcom on the lid. The lines "Are you man enough to fight with me?" and "Anyone who opposes me shall be destroyed" are direct references to the game Street Fighter II (Guile and Bison's win quotes, respectively). The final scene in which all the good guys (including Zangief) are celebrating with their signature win poses is a direct reference to an image which appears when the player completes the SNES version of Street Fighter II and Super Street Fighter II in the highest difficult level, and without losing rounds, which shows an image with the all characters. http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/snes/a/sf2ryu.htm http://www.vgmuseum.com/end/snes/b/ssf2ryu.htm

Outside references

The release date, December 23, 1994, is the 34th birthday of main character Guile according to the character's profile in Street Fighter II. The game designers at Capcom have referenced the movie a few times. The first was in X-Men vs. Street Fighter. In one of the stages, Blanka is in the background. However, when Charlie is fighting on the stage, Blanka is replaced by Beast. The second time was in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, one of Chun-Li's win quotes is: "Hey, leave me alone! I'm a fighter, not a news reporter!"

Signature moves

Many of the characters use signature moves from the games, except when the moves are too fantastic (i.e. fireballs, electricity, etc) to work. The sole exceptions are Bison, who uses devices built into his costume to produce electricity similar to his Psycho Power.

Ryu fires a single Hadouken during his second battle with Vega. Inexplicably, this Hadouken is cut out from the US broadcast version (shown regularly on USA and Sci-Fi Channel) along with most of the fight with Vega (including Ryu's scarring of his opponent using a furnace). The version of the movie that aired on the Canadian sci-fi channel Space, however, kept these scenes intact. The "Hadouken" attack was created without special effects: Byron Mann simply mimed the action, and the screen went entirely white for a frame or two, creating the illusion of a flash.

The other moves that appear in the film include Guile using the Flash Kick twice during his fight with Bison, Vega using his Rolling Crystal Flash during his fight with Ryu, E. Honda performing the Hundred Hand Slap on Zangief in their final fight scene, although his hands do not move as fast as in the game. Vega also strikes one of his win poses (he does a backflip, then holds his mask up in the air) from the game while showing off for the crowd before the cage fight.

Cammy performs variations on two of her moves: She does a basic forward kick to a Bison trooper, and her voice is dubbed in saying, "Thrust Kick!" (her lips are clearly not moving). She also performs her head scissors throw on a Bison trooper, snapping his neck while perched on his shoulders. T. Hawk does a very watered down version of his Mexican Typhoon, basically a choke slam. While not direct adaptations of the moves, a crude version of the Tatsumaki Senpuu Kyaku is done by Ryu on Vega (although it is only one jumping spin kick, rather than a consecutive flying combo). A very crude Shoryuken (just a spinning uppercut with no jump whatsoever) done by Ken on Sagat.

Related media

DC Comics' one-shot adaptation of the film.

An arcade game which used digitized footage of the film's actors was produced titled Street Fighter: The Movie, developed by Incredible Technologies and distributed by Capcom. A different game was developed by Capcom for home consoles bearing the same title, using the same footage.

Many plot elements of the film, such as Blanka's identity and Dhalsim's role as a scientist, were reused in the 1995 Street Fighter animated series.

References

External links

• Retro-Revisited: Street Fighter '94 Reviewed!

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