Cognition Dissemination: The Street Fighter Movie I’d Like to See
The history of Street Fighter in media outside video games has been of inconsistent quality, but Capcom will not be deterred from pursuing more. Legendary Entertainment has acquired the exclusive rights for future live-action works in TV series and movie forms. The projects will be produced in conjunction with Capcom, and there was eventual confirmation that a live-action movie is already in the works. There’s no telling what it could resemble, who it could star, and what story it could adapt yet, but there’s a high chance of it taking inspiration from other recent live-action comic book adaptations considering the fighting game franchise is closer to them thematically.
The timing here is a bit fortuitous, too, as video game adaptations are making bank. The Last of Us series on HBO and The Super Mario Bros. Movie are the biggest recent examples, the latter of which just became the biggest video game movie in history after staying in theaters for a mere nine days.
Of course Street Fighter has to get in on this action. But Capcom didn’t announce plans to go about this in the way I personally wanted to see. I’d love for them to look back to the past.
It is beyond time for a new anime movie, in the vein of the superlative Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. The film has long been regarded as a worthwhile adaptation of a game series that, at the time in the mid-1990s, had threadbare storytelling and character development. It established plot threads and personalities that have remained with the franchise to this day, well beyond its success leading to the more anime-influenced Street Fighter Alpha series. Street Fighter and, by extension, overall fighting game fans have appreciated it for years for how well it turned out (and not only for, I promise you, introducing a pre-internet audience to the concept of bare cartoon boobs); but it’s also come to be appreciated by overall anime fans. Upon rewatching it on the myriad of streaming services it’s available on, it’s easy to see why.
The movie is briskly paced from beginning to end, chronicling Ryu’s journey around several countries as M. Bison attempts to forcefully recruit him to be one of his strongest brainwashed soldiers in his quest for world domination. The narrative is hardly groundbreaking, but this type of work shows how some stories only need to be fun and entertaining to be memorable. It helps when that’s accompanied by some of the prettiest animation and, in particular, fight choreography seen in an anime film to this day.
The last point is worth further elaboration, thanks to Capcom and now-defunct animation studio Group TAC hiring professional fighters to direct them, including K-1 founder and karate master Kazuyoshi Ishii and the now-late professional fighter Andy Hug. The movie made significant use of their directorial abilities with the sheer number of fights it contained, but the production team knew it needed to have a fine-enough story to movie it along. Only a little more than a handful of characters were central to the narrative, with some like Blanka, Zangief, T. Hawk, and Dee Jay, mainly included for the need to jam all 16 characters from the Street Fighter II series into the movie. (I’m not counting Akuma’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo there.) But it again must be emphasized that this movie didn’t need the most riveting story.
Street Fighter’s anime progeny has yet to top it; hell, many of them haven’t even tried to. Future works gave ranged from “fine enough” (Street Fighter II V, Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie) to “mediocre at best” (everything else). At least Street Fighter II V tried to insert riveting fights on a TV series budget, though the animation suffered in the second half thanks to its low ratings and, resultingly, the reduced episode count. Perhaps a bunch of fans initially mistook it for a follow-up to the Animated Movie, and were disappointed to discover that it was its own thing, and Manga Entertainment’s marketing in the United States didn’t help. But it was still a fun time.
Capcom will be occupied with overseeing the live-action projects and maintaining their quality to ensure the mistakes of Street Fighter: The Movie (despite it becoming a cult classic) and the genuinely terrible Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li aren’t repeated. But I sincerely hope they save enough time and money for another anime film, because I’m far from the only one who still wants to see a worthy follow-up nearly thirty years later. If not, I’ll settle for a series. I also wouldn’t mind both.
I didn’t even get into the idea of Capcom making a years-late sequel to the 1994 Street Fighter film, considering actors like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Ming-Na Wen are still involved in the entertainment world and reportedly didn’t hate working on it. But that’s unlikely to happen even if it’s still not too late to create it. But a new anime movie with budget and care put into it is what I want to see most, the reason why it’s the focal point of this post. If it does come to pass, you’ll know who to salute in the future.
About The Author
Geoff
News Editor | Geoff is some nerd who writes for a blog and thinks he's knowledgeable. He write a lot about video games, but is capable of writing about other subjects, too. Twitter
