Anime: Street Fighter II: The Movie 5n6f3m

Street Fighter is possibly the greatest fighting game to date. The video game seems to flourish internationally, so why not make it an animated movie? Because stuff like this terrible movie can happen.

ANIMATION

Now dont get me wrong, the quality of the animation and the overall fluidity is good. Each character portrays their video game counter part very well in this movie. My main qualm with some of the characters is their exaggerated muscle size. For example Ryu's upper body is like an over inflated balloon on top of some normal legs, it doesnt make sense, but I can see that the creators were going for that super human look, so I'll leave it at that.

SOUND

Old 80's-ish gym music his droned on through the fight sequences, and various other instrumental peices to fill in the gaps where fighting doesnt occur. It gets boring after a while, but it becomes like a white noise after a while (like the silent drone of an air conditioner)

The voices were done well *note the Japanese voice cast is the only one I watched* with the exception of Ryu. His voice actor was not what I was used too, the game version. He sounded like a bad guy from an old samurai flick when he talked normal, and like a bruce lee wannabe when he would fight, didnt match the voice from the game, which is to be expected. Other than that, the other VA's were tolerable.

STORY

The is the biggest pitfall of all. The story is very base, dont read the movie summary, the real story is that Shadowlaw wants to find Ryu, and Guile and Chun-li want to find Bison (Vega in Japanese). To work the story out, a series of 'street fights' are shown with some moments of character interaction, then a flashback, then another fight, thats how the movie unfolds. I found it uninteresting, and found myself watching the clock till the end of the movie.

CHARACTERS

The Saving grace of this animation is the characters. I basically ranked it high, because I loved the characters from the game, and their movie debut was well done. They also portrayed themselves remarably similar to there video game counterparts. Ryu the lone warrior, and Ken the cocky American stereotype. The only problem is that since most of the SF2 cast is there, their debuts are remarkably short and most have no relevance to the overall plot of the movie, DeeJay and Blanka come to mind.

VALUE

If you arent a fan of the games, than I would recommend you stay away from this film, if you are a fan, than I recommend you watch at your own risk, you might be in for a dissapointing experience.

ENJOYMENT

I didnt like it, I didnt hate it, I watched it too see my fav fighting game series on screen. Mediocre at best, if that.

As Video game to anime goes, this isn't all that bad. This isn't the first time popular video games turn into animation, but it may just be the most successful. Tekken tried, and failed miserably, as did Fatal Fury. SF2 just might have ed the quality bar.

The story revolves around Ryu and Ken, and it does a decent job detailing out a bit of their history. They're fiercely competitive, especially with each other - which will become something of prime importance.

Plot-wise, SF2 tends to be predictable, but one should expect the "good-guys" to win in the end, anyways. The best aspect of the plot would be fueling the competitive nature between Ryu and Ken. They trained under the same master, and use the same techniques, but with differing strengths.

Not surprisingly, Bison the human torpedo, is the villain, as are his various henchmen. The anime movie actually starts with the famous battle between Sagat and Ryu, in the middle of a wheat field and in the middle of a dark, stormy night. And that is where the highlight of the anime comes; the action.

Fighting is the essence of SF2, and the action forms the core for the movie as well, which is something Tekken:the Movie failed to do. The moves on the most part are the signature moves of the characters of SF2. You will see the whirlwind kicks, the dragon upper-cuts, and the fireballs of Ryu and Ken, and so on. But the true highlight has to be Chun-Li. If you thought you've seen her, guess again. Her shower scene, and her fighting in a bathrobe - those are golden moments in SF history.

The animation sometimes looks akward, but on the most part, isn't all that bad. The background definately need more work, but the action scenes were generally well done. The music, if one can call it that, was terrible. The musical pieces and background music sounded like something put together on a cheap electrical keyboard. Completely video-game music, but seening as it IS a video-game anime, it makes sense. It doesn't make the music any better, but it makes sense.

For those who are huge fans of SF2 will see all of the characters ed and present for. Unfortunately, the sheer number of characters makes forces minimal exposure due to time restrictions. A few times, the presentation of the characters and their respective fighting skills is forced. At one point, Zangaf and Blanka are duking it out in a Las Vegas arena, with no relevence to the story. Guess the writers had a hard time including those two freaks into the main plot.

This video game turned anime isn't as bad as those would quickly dismiss it. A story plot exists, good action scenes, and some character development. Definately see it at least once if you were a fan of SF2, but be weary if you have never heard of SF2.