Street Fighter: Legend of Chun-Li – DVD Review

The Film:

There are so many movies that are based off of video games and most of them suck. This film is just like most of them- it sucks. I guess I should not be too critical of a film that is based off of a video game and is not supposed to be a particularly smart or intelligent film with high caliber acting, but this film really was a stinker. The films only saving grace is that Kristin Kreuk is in the film and she is pretty hot, which is the only thing in this film which was hot, for the movie was not.

Based off of the popular video game of the same name, this film focuses on the video game character Chun-Li, growing up playing piano and learning wu-shu martial arts from her very-skilled father. Her father is a very well-connected business man and the family moves from San Francisco to Hong-Kong. Once in Hong Kong, her father Xiang (Edmund Chen) is abducted and imprisoned by Bison (Neal McDonough) who uses him for his ruthless quest to take over a Bangkok slum and turn it into a beautiful rich and posh city. In the process, all the residents are kicked out of the slum with no pot to piss in. Chun-Li grows up and is now pretty skilled in Martial Arts and after her mother dies, decides to pack up and just go to Bangkok after receiving an old Asian scroll written in an ancient language. She is told by a shop owner that it is telling her to go to Bangkok, which she does. There she meets up with Gen (Robin Shou) where he trains her to become an even better fighter and together they go after Bison and take him down.

Director Andrzej Bartkowiak (Doom, Romeo Must Die) has been making films that mostly are action-oriented and this is another one of those. The film was nothing to write home about. Michael Clark Duncan plays Balrog, Bison’s right-arm thug, and gave a believable performance that any huge muscle-bound man would need to play a mindless brute. Chris Klein plays the character of Charlie Nash and had some really ridiculous and boneheaded lines of dialogue that I just didn’t buy. The only saving grace that the film had was some very beautiful cinematography of Bangkok, Thailand and had some beautiful actresses, Kristin Kreuk and Moon Bloodgood (Det. Maya Sunee). The fight scenes in the film were pretty average and nothing special. The whole film was really nothing special, in fact. Robin Shou plays Gen, the sort of arch enemy of Bison who had been part of his evil empire, and you may recognize him as playing the lead character in Mortal Kombat. I do think that Neal McDonough always will be a great villain just because he was such a perfect jerk in Walking Tall playing opposite Dwayne Johnson.

I found it interesting that the film was cast with some really good Asian actors and actresses that were in some much better films than this one. Pei-Pei Cheng played the store owner that tells Chun-Li what the scroll says, and you may recognize her from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or the terrific Kung-Fu flick Wing Chun. Edmund Chen is in this film as well and is a very popular actor in Singapore, who really knows his Martial Arts and was the only shining point in the whole film. The Legend of Chun-Li is definitely not the worst film I have ever seen, but it is definitely around that ballpark, sitting at its doors and pounding to be let in.

The DVD:

Audio/Video: The sound for the film was good and on-par with most movies quality standards. It was very clear, not muddled. The picture quality was very good and looked great when the camera shot the very scenic scenes in Bangkok overlooking the city in its 2.35:1 ratio and 35 mm (anamorphic) film format.

Extras: The film had a fair amount of extras on it.

Audio Commentary: There is an audio commentary that includes comments by actors Neal McDonough and Chris Klein and producers Patrick Aiello and Ashok Amritraj, but these commentaries are only for the Unrated Version, as the DVD gives one the option to watch the Unrated or Theatrical Version. I watched and reviewed the Unrated Version.

Deleted Scenes: There are deleted scenes on the disc as well, none of them which really took or added to the film. One of the scenes that was deleted had made a scene later in the movie make more sense though. But, hey, the movie was pretty awful so it doesn’t really matter. None of the scenes deleted contained any action or fighting.

Marvel Vs. Capcom Sneak Peek: This was just a commercial for the video game accompanied by some really cheesy music that had me cracking up.

Becoming a Street Fighter: This featurette included comments by the producers, actors/actresses, and writers. It goes a bit into how the film came to be and shows some scenes from the video game and artwork of the characters to give you a little bit of background information. It was cool watching the martial arts training and the stunt scenes performed with the Hong-Kong fighting team. It runs almost 18 minutes long.

Chun-Li: Bringing the Legend to Life: This featurette focuses on Chun-Li, just as the title suggests. More comments by actors, actresses, and the rest of the filmmakers. It was interesting to see all the exercises and training that they had to learn to make the Martial Arts scenes look effective. Its about 6 ½ minutes long.

Fox Movie Channel Presents Making a Scene: This featurette is just more of the same from the two previous featurettes, but went into specifics and has Dion Lam, the action director on hand to talk about a fight scene that takes place in the alley. It picks a bunch of scenes and goes into how the filmmakers chose to shoot one particular scene and why. It is about 9 minutes long.

Recreating the Game: Arcade to Film Comparisons: This portion makes comparisons from the arcade game and the actual actors and actresses in photo stills. You navigate through the shots via your players remote.

The Fight in Black and White: Storyboard Gallery: This was pretty cool as it showed the storyboard artwork. They had really good artists doing the boards.

Behind the Fight: Production Gallery: Just a bunch of stills from the movie of the actors and actresses.

Trailers: A few upcoming movie trailers.

Conclusion: I would hope that anyone who watches this film really is not expecting it to be a masterpiece, or just loves to see Kristin Kreuk on the screen, for that is really all that was worth watching this film for. As for Martial Arts mayhem, this film is not one of the better ones that I have seen, if not one of the worst. I could easily have found another way to amuse myself for the 90 minutes or so this movie’s length was.

The Film: Rating:

The DVD: Rating: