Anime! - a brief explanation
Reviews
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Neon Genesis Evangelion
Blue Gender
When video games get miraculously transformed for the big screen, the end result is almost always a big pile of horse poo. But this is where Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie defies the norm by being actually quite good to watch...
Just by viewing the opening scenes and sampling some of the most detailed artwork to ever have reached the drawing board, you can tell that the movie didn't cost three dollars to make. Tekken the movie is a prime example of poor production - more about that later on though.
DVD Front Covers
DVD - back DVD - CD
I wasn't actually surprised to notice an Animated movie branching off from the ever popular Street Fighter franchise. Yeah, I'd seen it before in Sonic the Hedgehog and Fatal Fury to name a few. SF2 relies on the martial arts aspect to grab the attention of movie watchers. The plot...well the plot doesn't matter! Fighting is what the fans want. Heck, it's even in the title!
Screenshots - 5
The fighting scenes are beautiful. Unlike Fatal fury the movie, the SF2 fighters perform traditional spinning back-kicks, uppercuts etc and don't rely on the use of energy burst techniques (Dragonball Z anyone?) to defeat enemies. Sorry, if this is sounding gibberish to anyone, but you have to play the game to understand. Basically, the movie follows what the characters can actually do in the video game, very well. Very well, is probably and understatement. The producers and artists must have studied the game really hard to produce such accuracy and likeness of moves from the game - applaud the artists please.
The scene where Ryu and Sagat fend off with each other at the start of the movie is very memorable. Originally the characters Ryu and Sagat faced each other off in a Buddhist temple somewhere in Burma. Ryu won that match but not in style, so the writers decided to shift-up the grade to a more suitable location to do just that. The movements are fluid-like and the lighting effects throughout the movie are superb. The fan-based Cyclone Kick (tetsu maki senpu kyaku) and the Dragon Punch (syo ryo ken) are both featured.
As the story goes, Ryu defeats Sagat with a fiery dragon
punch, burning a large scar on his chest, and act that would later become the
chief motivator behind Sagat’s hatred for Ryu. Following their epic battle, Ryu
disappears by going incognito while traveling to places as far away as
India & China. The
movie’s chief villain, Bison is introduced soon after, searching for the
wandering warrior who had defeated Sagat. At this point, we find Sagat now
working for Bison’s Shadow Law organization along with the 2 other boss
characters from the game, Vega & Balrog.
Later, more and more characters are introduced, some of which
would appear for about 2 seconds just for the sake of being in the movie. Often
these sub-characters had no play in the main plot whatsoever. Take the
Blanka-Zangief showdown for instance. This little scene was nothing more than a
10 second segment to showcase the characters before ditching them aside while
shifting back to the main plot. Other characters dragged in for the sake of
being a 5 second center of attention include DJ, Dhalsim, Fei Long & T-Hawk. As
mentioned before, none of these characters had anything to do with the main plot
but rather each would be given a 5 second cameo so as not to disappoint their
fans. Come to think of it, the writers did just that by not working these
characters into the already shallow storyline.
This is the exact same problem faced by other VG based animes
as well. There are simply too many characters to showcase while there isn’t
enough time to feature them all. Attempting to weave these characters into the
story can be difficult & as a result, many were relegated to doing short cameos
& worthless background scenes.
The sound is mediocre I guess. It's nothing special but does the job it's intended to do. The voice cast are stereotypical to the characters, if you know what I mean. In other words, you don't get a mildly-girly voice for a big tough Mexican fighter. Some controversial scenes consist of the Chun-Li Vega fight, where Chun-Li who's in lingerie, decides to have a go at the Spanish bloodsucking psycho - Vega. Also, Guile is back from the Hollywood SF, with his trademark looks and moves. Some special bond forms between Chun-Li and Guile, but disappointingly that's about as far as it goes. I suppose the viewer can make up the rest from there.
As the movie draws nearer to it's end, viewers are treated to a helping of Ryu and Ken, with a side-dish of an over confident M.Bison. This results in Bison literally being turned into whipped cream by the two. Overall, SF2 is a fantastic ride from start to finish. It's not as good as the action-thriller - Ninja Scroll, but it's up there sitting next to it, stroking it's leg. If there was one purchasing slogan representing the film, from me it would have to be: the fight scenes rock!
Casual movie enjoyers should consider renting this if they've got nothing better to do. Anime fans should definitely take a peep at it. Whilst you SF gaming fans need it next to your collection of other SF memorabilia and should treasure it like it was your own offspring.
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DVD Stats
Aspect Ratios: Widescreen
Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1 (English)
Subtitles: English, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Purtugese, Swedish
Support: Motion Menus, Chapter selection
Extras: Digitally re-mastered, Original European soundtrack, ROM Content, Trailers,
Rating: (violence and some nudity-not for children)
Original Release: 1994
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Ratings
(Out of 5 Stars)
Ratings (Out of 5 Stars)
Video Quality: * * *
Sound Quality: * * *
DVD Supplements: * * * *
Movie: * * * * *
Value: * * *
Overall: * * * * TERRIFIC