Adaptation: Street Fighter II

The A-word.
It's the bane of cinephiles, everywhere.

That book you love; the comic you remember; the show you used to watch; the game you lost an entire summer playing? Oh, someone's adapted it and it's getting made into a movie! Whether a cause for pre-emptive celebration or foreboding caution, it leads to only one thing: expectation. And expectation is the death of the 'clean' movie-viewing experience; no matter how closely the film sticks to its source material, or how much it tries to distance itself, it will be faced with the hurdle of comparison.

And while the movie industry loves the pre-built marketing buzz of 'now a major motion picture!', they loathe the comparative references which will be made from the first review onwards. Because many punters will expect to get exactly the same reaction from a completely different medium, to a story they already know. And therein lies the problem.

In this monthly series, we'll look back at some of the most respected and best-loved properties which have made the perilous journey to the big screen; often with some controversy, and almost always with far too much hype. This isn't so much a review of the films themselves, more an appraisal of their suitability as an adaptation.

Super Street Fighter II:
The New Challengers (SNES)
Capcom (1993)

Moving on slightly from Mario but still at the heart of SNES gaming, Street Fighter II is the very paradigm of Bushnell's Law; ridiculously easy to learn, ridiculously difficult to master. The beat-em-up genre has been around as long as games have had the capability to represent fists of course, and the explosion of home computing in the 1980s raised the bar with side-scrolling, co-operative, multi-sprite brawling titles, and of course ushered in the End Of Level Boss. But as a sequel to their 1987 1-on-1 combat title, Capcom's Street Fighter II quickly developed a life of its own, in both arcades and living rooms around the world. The port to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System was the first, and is generally accepted as the purest, home-version of the game, and the title went on to have multiple re-releases with various tweaks and additions. For this comparison I've chosen to play 1993's Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers, the reasons being that 1) characters debuting in this release of the game are included in the movie adaptation I'll be watching (plus in the bonus-round), and 2) again, it's the version I've got upstairs with my SNES.

So. It's a classic, obviously. The secret to Capcom's success with SFII wasn't so much the array of characters, each with differing speeds, fighting styles and special moves, but rather that the player can choose to control any of them to begin with (as opposed to the 'character unlocking' method). What's more, when the player is beaten by an opponent, they can choose a different avatar to have another try (or just keep on with the same one and extra determination/optimism). While the first version of the game held the four 'bosses' off-limits, meaning only the original eight characters were playable, everything from second, Champion Edition, release onwards puts them on the selection screen. Additionally, The New Challengers throws an extra four into the mix, bringing the total to sixteen. Beating the game using all the players at your disposal is easily possible. Beating the game using only your favourite requires dedication. I imagine it's also theoretically possible to work through the entire game as every individual character, in completely separate sessions. And while I'd love to have that amount of spare time on my hands, even I have to admit I'd use it for something else. But as I said, Bushnell's Law and all that.

So, shortly after SFII's domestic release (meaning kids could play in the comfort of their own homes and didn't have to keep weighing down machines with 10p coins), the game entered that secondary level whereby it became part of popular culture. While it didn't quite have the broad demographic appeal of Mario, the fanbase was no less committed. And although the merchandising opportunities are slightly narrower for a property which involves each of its principals knocking the living shit out of every other one, the range of dynamic internal character design lent itself to numerous toys*¹, comics and anime movies, all of which have continued to be produced over the years, alongside sequel and spin-off entries on various consoles.

But at the heart of it all was one breakout game, held on a single 16mb cartridge. It's not the first beat-em-up (not even the first in its series), and it stands in a very crowded arena, but Capcom's Street Fighter II is one of the few that can be genuinely described as culturally iconic.

It's been 24 years and I can't always do a Hadouken.

Street Fighter
Steven E. de Souza (1994)

First things first, I should point out now that I haven't actually seen this film before*². And not that I was doubting anyone's previous judgement for a single second, but yeah it's bad. Indescribably bad. But bear with me dear reader, I'll try…

Despite the lack of narrative development in the famed 1-on-1 fighting title, the problem writer/director Steve de Souza faces here is not necessarily 'how do you adapt a game with no story?'. As of the New Challengers release, SFII actually has sixteen stories, some of which overlap, but are generally self-contained. The only points at which these characters meet in-game is, as noted above, when they're out in a street somewhere knocking the living shit out of each other. And that's not going to make for a great mainstream, family-friendly screenplay. Anyhow, Steve decided that the best way forward would be to write a new independent, thoroughly incoherent narrative, desperately shoehorning all your favourites together for no reason, many unrecognisably until they're either excessively introduced by the script or some other character name-checks them pointedly.

This really is all kinds of shite. Wobbly sets, costumes which look like they were designed for Flash Gordon but rejected and some of the worst ADR I've ever seen (and then heard around a second and a half later). From Raul Julia over-channeling his best Darth Vader*³, homages to schlocky Hong Kong action cinema, James Bond and 70s exploitation movies, the film would happily forget it's supposed to be adapting Street Fighter. That is, it would if it didn't have another yet character to reference, introduce or squander with alarming regularity.

The movie sets up a ticking-countdown-timer-ending before the fifth minute is out, then another one begins at 40 mins, then another one at around 80 mins. Incredible. Although I actually had to stop myself taking detailed notes after 22 minutes when a truck drives four feet away from Chun Li and she goes into a ground roll for no reason…

It seems clear that some of the cast thought they were taking part in something which would be better. I certainly won't blame them for trying, unfortunately everyone else has their tongue so firmly in-cheek that dialogue becomes impossible. Heading up the roster is Belgian Jean-Claude Van Damme as the American Guile, atrocious even by his own standards*⁴ and quite frankly so incompatible with the character that he'd have been more convincing as Balrog.

Australian Kylie Mingoue stars as the British Cammy, Chinese-American Byron Mann as the Japanese Ryu, American Andrew Bryniarski as the Russian Zangief*⁵, Native American Jay Tavare as the Spanish Vega, Native American Wes Studi as the Thai Sagat, and the Japanese sumo-wrestler Edmund Honda is now the Samoan-American Peter Tuiasosopo (although they've scripted his ethnicity into the film, that one's not just left out in the wild like the rest). Hey, at least Ken is still a white dude though, right? Shame Damian Chapa doesn't have the trademark blonde hair like his character, but that seems pretty fucking far down the list of issues to be honest. By the time Blanka emerges looking like Tina Turner playing The Mask, I'd all but given up.

How is this Street Fighter?

For an adaptation of a game which is 100% combat, there is surprisingly little fighting in the first hour (and even after that it's appallingly choreographed). But there's certainly no doubt that if you wanted to watch your sixteen favourite characters stripped of context, established backstory and jostling for position over 90 minutes of cinematic gibberish, this is definitely where you'd look...

How do you adapt a game with no story?
Well, how about you don't..?

Street Fighter II:
The Animated Movie
Gisaburô Sugii (1994)

What's amazing about this is that the animated movie was released four months before the live action one. Which is to say that there was a period between August and December 1994 when Steve de Souza could, I'm pretty sure, watch the publicly-released anime adaptation of the world's most popular fighting game, whilst also being one of the few people on the planet to know what was in store with his own… version. I admire the man for not having Universal pull the plug and claim that the dog ate the master copy, at any rate.

There is more attitude, anger and adrenaline in the first five, dialogue-free, minutes of this film then the entirety of its live-action counterpart. Kenichi Imai's screenplay centres around M. Bison's terrorist organisation and with Ryu and Ken at the heart of the story once again, but this time hops around the globe to meet its characters, rather than contriving to have them all coincidentally be in Raul Julia's lounge together. What's more, individual characters' backstories from the game are maintained, proving that it can actually be done coherently.

The artwork is classic Japanese anime, and I don't think I'll ever get tired of the clunky charm of a 3D scene rendered in hand-drawn 2D. It's a style which lends itself perfectly to a story which originated in the same cultural arena, and the fight-scenes are dynamic without having to go into clinical detail (exactly like the game in that respect). Which brings us onto the most important aspect - there's a lot of fighting in this. And okay, the characters are scrapping often for no reason other than 'having a street fight', but that already makes the animated movie thematically closer to the game than the live-action will ever be.

The English-language dialogue is hardly Dickens, in either its writing or delivery, but it still manages to piss all over de Souza's work. The western release also has a slightly over-engineered grunge/industrial soundtrack, with John D'Andrea and Cory Lerios scoring the incidental music and songs dropped in from the likes of Korn and Alice In Chains.

Although Sugii's movie came well after the arcade and home-releases of Street Fighter II, everything in it adds depth to the characters and increases replay value of the Nintendo classic.

Best bit: Henchman and chief scientist Senoh unveils Shadowlaw's new covert surveillance system to his master:

M. Bison: Is it ready?
Senoh: Yesss… a masterpiece of computer technology; it's splendid. We've created the ultimate high-performance monitor cyborg. It's state of the art. The images it receives are immediately beamed via satellite to the super computer…
M. Bison: (narrowing eyes) Goood…

…showing that all you needed to impress a global crime-lord in 1994 was basic internet connectivity. 2017 would likely blow his tiny mind…

It's better than good, it's definitive.



Hahahahahahaha...



If you wish to see the live-action movie, it's filed between Morbid Curiosity and Fucking Told You So...



In the game, there's not.
In the anime, there's not.
In the movie there actually might be, lost in a horrendous sound-mix, but I'm not going to go back and check...



Level 1: The original game's voice-cast appears to be a mystery. Seriously, not even Capcom are talking about it. However… the live-action movie has James McTeigue as the second-assistant director; he was first assistant director on Attack of the Clones*⁶. The anime movie (well, the English-dubbed one) features the voice of Zeb Orrelios.



*¹ Although let's be honest, the 1993 G.I. Joe tie-in line is pretty dreadful. That said, I suppose the figures make an ideal artistic accompaniment to the 1994 live-action flick. And I deliberately haven't mentioned the single they released up there in the main review. But since you're lovely enough to read the footnotes, don't click on this link. I'm not saying it's worse than the same era's Mario Rap, but I also definitely am. ^{[ BACK ]}

*² As buzzed as I was at the time about the mere prospect of a Street Fighter movie, younger readers should understand that even in the days before the advent of the domestic internet connections, the trailers and advance publicity for the Street Fighter movie began to paint an all-too-accurate picture of what was ultimately in store. A studio didn't have Rotten Tomatoes to blame for their movie tanking, back then. The feature was the subject of mockery and derision by the time it actually opened on UK screens, and the decision by my local cinema to not show it outweighed any curiosity I still harboured. Similarly, by the time the movie hit VHS shelves, I was not inclined to investigate. I have seen various clips over the intervening years, but this is the first time I have actually watched the film in its entirety. Because obviously, having pulled over 900 movies apart on this blog, I am now in a position to be incredibly forgiving to its perceived flaws... ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Although credit where it's due, M.Bison wearing a smoking jacket and mixing cocktails is fucking gold. ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ Coincidentally to *2, the same decision was made by that same cinema to not show Van Damme's Timecop either, despite running trailers and having a full-on display stand in the foyer. It should surprise no-one to learn that when I finally caught that movie on video, I wished the time-travelling technology existed, if only so I could go back and warn myself not to bother…
^{[ BACK ]}

*⁵ Whose Russian-accent keeps dipping into the 'Allo 'Allo representation of Italian… ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁶ I mean I love AotC, but seriously - imagine having that and the Street Fighter live-action movie on your CV… ^{[ BACK ]}



DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.