‘Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li’ Review

Release Date: 2/27/09

As a child, Chun Li was trained by her father in Wushu, a form of martial arts. But while she is still young she witnesses her father being kidnapped by a group of men. Many years later, she still hasn’t seen him and believes him to be dead. Her mother is battling cancer and soon dies. Chun Li receives an ancient Chinese scroll and sets out to find out what it means. This takes her on a journey to Bangkok where she is living on the streets trying to survive. She meets Gen, who informs her about the man who kidnapped her father, and trains her to one day face him for revenge. All the while, two Interpol agents are searching for that same man, M. Bison, who is taking control of Bangkok. This movie is one of the biggest piles of crap I have ever seen. The Jean Claude Van Damme version of Street Fighter blows this one away and that’s saying a lot.

First of all Kristen Kreuk plays Chun Li. She is half Chinese but barely looks like it. As a child in the movie she is full on Asian but for some reason as she grows up she totally changes. And its not just puberty, its bad casting. While she may be nice to look at, she was tasked with carrying the majority of the movie and she was not ready for it. She pulled off some cool gymnastic and fighting abilities though. But the fights looked badly choreographed like they were dancing with each other and perfectly timing everything. Plus I guess everyone in Bangkok knows martial arts. The only other characters from the game that were adapted for the big screen were Neal McDonough as M. Bison, Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog, Taboo from Black Eyed Peas as Vega, and a little known character Gen played by Robin Zhou. Extra characters were the hot as crap Moon Bloodgood and her partner Chris Klein as the agents looking for Bison. Klein plays one of the worst roles ever created for the silver screen. He pulls off some terrible acting, tries being too badass, and is an overall failure.

The rest of supporting cast was nothing special either. McDonough was a terrible Bison. Raul Julia should be proud his final role was at least a better depiction of the character than this guy. Basically he’s just a businessman who is trying to take control of land in Bangkok. Duncan was a good Balrog but he basically just shoots people and follows Bison around. He throws a few punches here and there to satisfy the fanboys. Speaking of fanboys, we do get a Spinning Bird Kick in slow motion to also give them a boner. Vega is TERRIBLE! He looks like the metal Jason Voorhees from Jason X. He’s barely in the movie though. Robin Zhou played the ally of Chun Li, Gen, who was in a few Street Fighter games but the casual gamer like myself didn’t remember him. The actor also played Liu Kang in the Mortal Kombat movies and had a small role in the DOA movie. He must like his games. Anyway, he stunk! He tried being all mysterious but it just ended up being cheesy. Plus when he starts throwing fireballs Chun Li doesn’t even ask him HOW THE HELL HE DID IT! She just assumes throwing fireballs must be something you can learn.

To sum this all up, Street Fighter is terrible. There’s no fighting tournament, there’s barely any characters from the game, and the story stinks. It’s a shitty version of the Kill Bill story. Girl wants revenge so she trains with a weirdo so she can one day face the man who wronged her. The Van Damme version of Street Fighter may have been goofy in a cartoonish kind of way, but that’s what made it fun. Its definitely not a good movie but I can watch it time and time again and laugh at it. While I could definitely watch this new Street Fighter with some friends and make fun of it, it wouldn’t have the lasting power that the Van Damme’s version had. This made my list of worst movies ever. Master of Disguise has some company.

IMDB – 4.6/10
Rotten Tomatoes – 5%
Movie Wiseguys – 1/10