Cinema Sundays - Street Fighter: The Movie

(Now that we have that out of the way)

Street Fighter (1994)

Ah, yes. The halcyon days of 1994. Jurassic Park had been released the summer before, leaving everyone obsessed with dinosaurs, mosquitoes, and Jeff Goldblum. 

(Because Spielberg felt America needed this)

In 1993 also left Americans watching dinosaurs in the release of Super Mario Brothers in theaters, the first big blockbuster adaptation of a video game title. Yes, in the early 1990s America was dino-movie crazy and the more dinosaurs the better.

(Tell me again why you're nostalgic for the 90s?)

Wait...how did I get here? Oh, right. Street Fighter. 1993 saw our favorite plumbers fight King Koopa on the big screen (I swear that is what the movie is about). This saw studios, writers, and companies looking at video games in a new light: $_$. So, as the Super Mario Brothers came and went, Capcom began looking into developing a movie based on one of their own franchises: Street Fighter.

Capcom decided on a writer who was known for action films such as Commando, Running Man, and Die Hard: Stephen De Souza. In theory, Capcom wanted an American action movie based on the Street Fighter franchise and Stephen De Souza, known for American action movies, would deliver what Capcom wanted. For better or worse, this is pretty much what happened.

First and foremost, Capcom wanted Jean-Claude Van Damme to play the titular role in the film as Guile. This was non-negotiable. Capcom wanted him, and De Souza had to use him in the film. Of course, this meant that De Souza had to deal with Van Damme's constant partying, obstinacy on set, and his rampant cocaine habit.

(Oh. And he had an affair with Kylie Minogue. Because, as he put it, it would've be wrong not to.)

(All Aboard)

Speaking of Kylie Minogue, it was a surprise to see her in the movie. Until I saw Street Fighter, I was only aware of her music career. Additionally, she was cast primarily because De Souza was pressured to have a leading character from Australia, where a brunt of the shooting was to take place for Street Fighter and wanted to placate the unions and production companies.

In fact, most of the casting for this movie proved to be a headache for De Souza as a large portion of the films $33 million dollar budget went to cast Jean-Claude Van Damme for $8 million.

(Hey, he needed that sweet angel dust, baby)

The other big name cast for this movie was Raul Julia who plays the ever memorable M. Bison. 

Raul Julia is by far the best part of this movie and, really, the reason to watch this movie. If you enjoyed him as Gomez Addams in The Addams Family or Addams Family Values, you owe it to yourself to watch this at least once. For me, this movie has an interesting parallel in that the main reason I enjoy Super Mario Brothers is Dennis Hopper's performance as King Koopa. But I cannot stress the enjoyment I got out of watching Raul Julia chewing the scenery as M. Bison.

Part G.I. Joe villain, part Bond villain, M. Bison has kidnapped a few dozen hostages and is ransoming them for $20 billion dollars. If he doesn't get the money in 72 hours, the hostages will be put to death. Jean-Claude Van Damme aka Colonel Guile, is the head of the Allied Nation's counterattack in Shandaloo, the ambiguously defined Asian nation in which M. Bison resides and operates.

Most of the outdoor shots and initial filming were done in Bangkok and proved extremely problematic for De Souza and his crew. When De Souza set a production schedule, he wanted to do most of the combat near the end of filming to allow the actors to train and practice the martial arts/combat that was to feature prominently throughout the movie, with dialogue heavy scenes shot first. However, De Souza and the crew, who knew that Raul Julia had recently undergone surgery for stomach cancer, didn't realize how gaunt he was until he arrived on set. To allow Julia the time to recover, De Souza flipped the production schedule, with combat heavy scenes shot first and dialogue scenes to be shot later. This had the unfortunate effect of giving the trainers and actors little time to practice and train for their fighting scenes....in a movie called Street Fighter. 

However, Julia was not the only one as the heat, humidity, and change in cuisine caused most of the actors in the movie to lose 10-20 pounds during the initial filming and some scenes had to be reshot to take account for this.

(Its so hot...and humid....I need to ski the slopes to cool down.)

In fact, the primary problem during shooting in Bangkok, besides the weather, seemed to be Jean-Claude Van Damme. Most nights saw him partying and living it up at the expense of the film, literally. Many mornings he would not show up for hours, claiming he was not feeling well. De Souza, who was under a tight filming schedule because Capcom had given him the unalterable release date of December 23rd, 1994 for the movie, was forced to film scenes with secondary characters that were unpracticed and, occasionally, created on the spot just to get some filming done for the movie. When Van Damme was on set, he rarely practiced his lines and, English not being his primary language, led to many a mush-mouthed line being uttered by Van Damme. 

In addition to dealing with Van Damme and a tight film schedule, De Souza also had to deal with Capcom continually demanding characters get added to the film. De Souza remarked that with so many characters and around a 90 minute running time, it left him roughly 6 minutes to develop each character. So, as production ran behind in Bangkok and De Souza kept facing character additions, dealing with Van Damme, and bad sound stages, he decided to pack bags and move the rest of filming to Australia a week early.

(As long as I can have Bernie's Flakes for breakfast)

However, moving to Australia wasn't the end of De Souza's troubles with the film. Capcom had made a merchandising deal with Hasbro to license the then ailing G.I. Joe toy line into a thinly veiled 'Street Fighter' toy line. The result being additional demands made by Capcom to add tanks and such to create new toy tie-ins.

(Merchandising! Of Course!)

(Don't get your hopes up on seeing these in the film)

Despite the troubles that De Souza faced via outside interference, he still tried to make a big American action movie in the vein of a James Bond flick. He tried to add in as many references to the Street Fighter franchise that he could, including costumes, objects in the background that are in Street Fighter stages, and combat moves the characters use in the games. However, he was foiled in the last part by his stunt coordinator Charlie Picerini. Picerini was most affected by the changed shooting schedule as he had wanted months of preparation time for the considerable number of stunts, stage combat, and fighting that was to take place on screen. Picerini was unhappy.

Because of the trouble De Souza had faced with the constant edits to the filming schedule, cast, and screenplay, Picerini was of the mind that De Souza didn't know what he was doing. The result was when Picerini was in charge of secondary shooting, or filming fight scenes, he did it the way he wanted and not the way De Souza wanted and, in the process, any fighting or combat moves from the video games were thrown out the window. In some cases, De Souza went right behind Picerini and re-filmed scenes to try and get more iconic video game moves in the movie.

(I think we will just skip this mess)

So, as Guile is working his way to Bison's secret base, Chun Li, Balrog, and E. Honda are working to try and find Bison's base as well. Additionally, Ryu and Ken are also wrangled into trying to infiltrate Bison's base by Guile as blackmail for gun running. But Chun Li doesn't want Ryu and Ken to get to him first, so she sabotages them, and vice versa. All the while Bison (along with head cronies Zangief and Hawk) are trying to complete an arms deal with Sagat and Vega. Oh, and Bison is attempting to create supersoldiers (Blanka) with very 90s neon green mutagen.

(Oh, and reprogramming his brain with a Virtual Boy)

So, eventually, everyone in the movie meets up at Bison's fortress and a big mess o'fights ensues as characters pair off to fight one another, with Guile and Bison facing off against one another to save the world.

(I shall use the Virtual Boy as a weapon of mass destruction!@@!@!)

In addition to other areas of the movie suffering due to outside interference, De Souza's fight sequences also suffer due to the MPAA giving the initial edit of the movie an 'R' rating. This led De Souza to heavily edit the fight scenes to lower the rating. The subsequent edit was given a 'G' rating. Capcom wanted neither 'R' nor 'G' ratings. They wanted a 'PG-13' rating. So, they had Guile say an unnecessary curse word to bump the rating.

(Hadouken any $#$@* coke?)

Finally, the last issue to face De Souza (of many) was the fact that Capcom had demanded so many changes/edits and, due to Picerini and Van Damme causing shooting delays, De Souza had little time to add special effects to the movie and, as a result, additional moments were cut out and titular moves such as the 'hadouken' were removed.

(Yep. Pretty much all the SPFX in the movie.)

With the release of Street Fighter, De Souza saw a topsy-turvy opening weekend, with such a steep decline in ticket sales the first weekend as to create a new, albeit unwanted, box office record. Despite the poor opening weekend, Street Fighter proved profitable, making its $33 million dollar budget back in American sales, and pulling in an additional $66 million internationally, almost tripling its budget.

(With that type of money, Bison can build Bisonopolis at last)

Critically, however, Street Fighter was regarded as a flop and all but killed De Souza and Van Damme's careers (although Ultimate Soldier was the coffin nail for the latter). Sadly, Raul Julia passed away less than a year after filming, and the film is dedicated to his memory and is his last big film project before his death.

For the longest time I regarded the Street Fighter with an uninterested eye. This was due in part because the movie poster and dvd case are so boring. Additionally, I do not play fighting games all that much (beyond Soul Caliber 2 and DOA2: Hardcore) and only had a passing familiarity with the Street Fighter franchise. However, once I realized Raul Julia was in it, it got me interested in seeing the movie. Having seen him in the Addams Family movies, I didn't recognize him in the Internet famous 2 second clip at the head of this article. Once I realized that, it piqued my interest in the movie.

Having watched the movie I will say it is a 90s action movie in the way that Judge Dredd and Demolition man are 90s action movies. Every scene with Raul Julia was a pleasure to watch, with him hamming it up and chewing the scenery (in a good way). A handful of the secondary characters were fun to watch, with some good performances and others not so good. 

(ACTING!)

Street Fighter is a movie that is great in moments, and very bland in others. The troubles behind the camera are reflected in the movie itself. I think if De Souza had had more creative freedom and liberties with the movie it would have been much better and an amazingly 90s 90s film. The worst part of this film is easily Van Damme and, in general, the decisions by Capcom and those around De Souza really hampered his efforts in making a good movie. There are moments in the movie that reminded me of Verhoeven's Robocop. For example, when Guile and his troops are shooting up the base and killing Bison's troops, the P.A. in the background can be heard reminding Bison's troops they are responsible for signing up for Bison's medical insurance program.

(Not to mention Bison in a paisley robe, cocktail with his emblem as a stir, and Napoleon portrait.)

The above picture illustrates the potential the movie had. If the entire movie was as, well, silly as that scene, along with better combat, spfx, and more time to film and edit, Street Fighter could've been not only good, but great. As it is, the movie is mediocre at best, with Raul Julia carrying the film with his excellent depiction as Bison.

(MEDIOCRITY!)

All things said it isn't a bad movie, just bland and a bit of a mess. The sheer amount of fighters shoved into the movie makes it feel bloated with underdeveloped, and often unnecessary characters. It would be interesting to see De Souza make a director's cut of this film with the additional scenes and special effects added. Though, given it's reputation, I doubt Street Fighter will see anything beyond basic dvd release.

That aside, should you go watch Street Fighter?

Thankfully, Capcom learned from their mistakes.....

(@#!@%#*)