Movie Review 20: STreet Fighter - The Legend of Chun Li

Title: Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

Director: Andrzej Bartkowiak

Running Time: 1 hour 37 minutes

Genre: Action, Thriller

You know, it's strange that whenever I told someone that I'm going to watch this movie, they would roll their eyes heavenward and sigh. It's as if they are saying that I'm just like any typical guy who's watching this movie just for boobs and pretty gals.

First of all, this movie is NOT a typical Chun-Li movie with those tight ass cheongsam, super short skirt and super big boobs. Sure, there are people in the movie who has the same name as the ones in Street Fighter game, but as the director himself said, it would be just ridiculous to have a have half naked claw wielding Vega posing as an assassin.

Okay, so the summary of this movie is that Chun-Li (Kristin Kreuk) is a half Asian half Caucasian female pianist who is on the hunt for her father's murderers. The main villain is M.Bison (Neal McDonough), but don't expect a red uniformed commander who can spin with dark energies surrounding him! :P

However, despite my arguments above, this movie is still a total failure. There were lesser than 20 people in the cinema! Initially, I thought this would just be some flesh to flesh punching and kicking type of movie, however when the director introduced the "qi gong ball" it pretty much killed the rest of the movie.

That and the fact that the villains of the movie are defeated just too easily. The fighting scenes are extremely short and before you got worked up with the fighting, it's all over. The same thing happened even at the final battle. M.Bison was initially shown to be a super powerful attacker, but in the end, he just suddenly lost to Chun-Li. And all those "transferring conscience into the baby" crap is just too ridiculous.

Kristin Kreuk is able to pull off as a strong kick-ass daughter with stunning effect. Sure, she doesn't really look like the original Chun-Li but damn, she can fight. I initially did not like her very much in the first season of Smallville (as Lana Lang), but ever since the episode where she was portrayed as a vessel for a witch, it was when I was showed her acting prowess. She can be weak, strong, evil and good at the same time! However, she has been constantly acting in B-Grade movies like Legend of Earthsea... and you can't really like a character too much in a sloppy film.

Neal McDonough as M.Bison is okay I supposed, since he does exudes a certain evil with his super fake smile. However what I don't understand is if he had "transfer ed his conscience" into his daughter, why does he keep his daughter alive? And what does it mean that his daughter is his weakness? If he is purely evil, he won't give a damn what happened to his daughter... afterall, he did kill his wife in cold blood.

And the other Street Fighter character, Charlie (Chris Ken) did not manage to get a fighting scene at all! The lines were inappropriate at times too... and the jokes are what we Cantonese called "cold jokes"... meaning after you heard the joke, your respond would be "duh". :P

Basically, it's just a promotion movie for the Street Fighter 4 game that is introduced recently to the consoles to get gamers worked up and buy that game. However, I would say that this film failed to do just that.

Observation: How on Earth did Gen (Chun-Li's teacher) failed to even touch M.Bison while Chun-Li managed to kick the crap out of him really confuse me.

Bottomline: Terrible movie

Bamboo Ranking: 2.0 / 5.0