Action Packed Flashback – Street Fighter (1994)
Not to be confused with the Sonny Chiba starring Street Fighter series from the 1970s, Street Fighter from 1994 is based on the popular fighting games from Capcom, but is also known for a few too many things I’m sure director Steven E. de Souza couldn’t have foreseen back then. Besides being a box office success (as hard as that is for some people to believe) and the beginning of the end of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s reign at the box office in the 1990s, the film was ridiculed for its light tone, serving as a source of why video game adaptations don’t work, and marred by the death of its villain Raúl Juliá, who died before its release.
Still, time has been kind to the film, as it has become something of a fan favorite for the qualities critics once spat upon, as evident in its profitable DVD and now Blu-ray sales. Killer Film looks back at Street Fighter in another Action Packed Flashback with co-star Byron Mann, who played Ryu.
Hadouken!
“I believe that was Steven’s directorial debut,” Byron Mann recalls. Until then, Steve E. de Souza had only been a screenwriter for such action classics as Die Hard, Commando, and 48 Hours. This was his feature film debut as a director (he directed some TV prior). “He had a very keen eye for on both action and comedy. He knew what was funny and what wasn’t. I think they hired him because he wrote the script and knew how to bring the characters to life. It was uncharted territory for everyone, since it was one of the first video game adaptations.”
Byron Mann, who previously starred in some TV and Hong Kong films, was cast as the video game’s most recognizable character, Ryu. The film instead focuses on Colonel Guile played by Jean-Claude Van Damme and nixes the tournament structure in favor of telling a Desert Storm parable where M. Bison (played by the late Raúl Juliá) is an out-of-control dictator who has put the world on notice for a ransom of the hostages he has, as well as Carlos Blanka, a friend of Guile’s. A laundry list of the games’ character choose sides, as we end in an epic fight to the finish, something President George Bush, Sr. never had with Saddam Hussein.
Byron Mann recalls working with some of the actors. “Jean-Claude was a lot of fun. You should see him do a Jerry Lewis impersonation. JCVD and I live in the same cities and we have become good friends through the years.” One of the other key characters and relationships from the game that got ported over was that of the friendship between Ryu and Ken (played by Damian Chapa). “Damian was quite a wild man back then. He was like a live wire. Working with him kept me on my toes, on screen and off,” recounts Byron Mann, who has most of his screen time in the film with Damian Chapa.
“I remember meeting [Raúl Juliá] for the first time, and I could not recognize him. He had lost like 50 lbs by then. I think this was, unfortunately, his last feature film before he passed away.” But one of Mann’s nemesis’ was Vega (played by Jay Tavare), a sporting Spaniard where they square off twice in the film. Vega approaches Ryu towards the end of the film and asks: “Where were we?” Ryu kicks Vega in the chest and answers: “You were losing.”
“Jay was very serious about his character. There was no difference between him and his character. It was a very professional experience working with him. First, I do many other styles than just Wu Shu,” Byron tells me about his fight scenes. “When you’re in front of camera doing action, I’ve learned that it’s important to be well-versed in many different styles, not just one. Because you never know what will translate well on screen. Regarding Ryu’s signature moves (the fireball and the hurricane kick), we had fight choreographers and trainers who advised us closely on what the moves should look like.”
One of the things many people don’t know about is a post-credit sequence that wasn’t as common to do as it is today. It reveals that M. Bison is in fact still alive, which could have been filmed to set up the sequel JCVD was rumored to be working on, with Byron Mann and Damian Chapa set to return as well. But with the action genre changing, the untimely death of Raúl Juliá, and the critical panning, the sequel never got made. Instead, a decade later, Street Fighter was rebooted in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. “Interestingly, I was in Bangkok when they were filming that. I hear it wasn’t that good.”
He’s right. For all of the heat this 1994 film got, it was a commercial success, making approximately three times its production costs ($99 million in worldwide box office receipts from a $35 million budget), and is miles better than the remake, which bombed at the box office. “It was a very big production but also a quite a tumultuous shoot. I thought every film was going to be like that, which fortunately, it wasn’t. I think of the whole experience very, very fondly.”
Until the next flashback…
