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.

Review: San Andreas

San Andreas (3D)
Cert: 12A / 114 mins / Dir. Brad Peyton / Trailer



NO MORE STUPID, WARN MOVIE CHIEFS.
Scriptwriters' In Crisis as Reserves Run Dry

A press statement issued by Warner Bros today warned of a drought of cinematic stupidity following the release of their Summer disaster epic, SAN ANDREAS. In a Tinseltown first, the valley's major studios joined forces to trim the ineptitude from the season's tent-pole releases in order to boost Warner's earthquake movie to previously unimagined levels of face-palming. Critics and audiences had expected large amounts of idiocy from a film in which Dwayne Johnson is left in charge of a helicopter whilst half of America collapses under the weight of a clichéd script, but the studio has confirmed that the quantity of bone-headedness required by the writers and production team meant that the season's other releases have had to relinquish their share of absurd drivel. As a result, this year's average blockbuster movie will be 60% less moronic, with the worst-hit films containing almost no imbecilic qualities at all.

GRATEFUL
"We're incredibly grateful for the commitment of our colleagues right across the Hollywood studio-network that's gone into achieving this." said CEO Ian Warner, "After pooling our resources, we're mathematically certain we've made the year's stupidest film. Earthquakes, helicopters, Dwayne Johnson, fatuous scaremongering backed up by bullshit science, speedboats, the deaths of millions of people off-screen being nowhere near as important as the survival of the handful of inherently unlikeable stereotypes which the film follows, Dwayne Johnson, a script so unremittingly dense it's developed its own gravity-well, shaky-cam, screaming, someone spills their coffee, Dwayne Johnson… we never thought we'd top Into The Storm, but oh yeah, we did it."

WALKING
While the news has been favourably received by many who can now safely avoid San Andreas, not everyone is happy. Film blogger Stephen Keyboard told us "It's not like the year's other films have replaced the stupidity with subtext, meaningful dialogue or actual intelligence; they've just had the puerile elements removed, and sometimes the film doesn't have enough left to cover the gap. Mad Max, for example, should have been a gloriously incoherent montage of utter nonsense. As it stands, the movie is a beautifully filmed car chase through the desert in which everything is explained neatly, if noncommittally. It still makes little-to-no sense, of course, but without the idiocy needed to push the film through the stupid-barrier, the result is kind of boring. And how the hell can a two-hour car chase be boring? It's like the entertainment industry learned nothing from Roland Emmerich's excesses in that 2012 movie…"

DIA DE LOS
Professional film critic Roger Opinion is more optimistic. "This is great news for the films which aren't trying to be worthy Oscar-contenders, but which would usually put off more highbrow audiences with their array of explosions and ticking-countdown-timer endings. The best case example of this is Age Of Ultron; now that movie should have been monumentally dumb, but after Marvel Studios transferred 95% of the screenplay's stupidity to San Andreas, you're left with a story where a crazed robot builds a magic engine to lift an entire city into the stratosphere and drop it back down onto the Earth, and yet the film still works, somehow. That's even with the inclusion of one of the characters explaining that the film makes no sense. This type of move could bode well for the future of cinema, if we can scrape all of Hollywood's moronity into one, maybe two films a year, clearing the way for the rest of the release schedule. Although after watching Paul Blart 2, I'm wondering where all this year's comedy is being transferred. Because it doesn't look like it's gone into Spy…"

At Tuesday's press conference, Ian Warner concluded by saying "In terms of value for money, San Andreas will give viewers everything they could possibly want from a Summer blockbuster. Assuming of course that they value sheer stupidity above their money. Rest assured, Warner Bros, Village Roadshow and New Line Cinema share the public's value of imbecility. Although we value their money more. Obviously."

A representative for 20th Century Fox who asked not to be named later told us "While we were happy to help with the San Andreas project, superhero fans eagerly anticipating our reboot of Fantastic Four needn't worry too much. We made sure there was plenty of weapons-grade fuckwittedness left in the tank for that one…"



*looks over spectacles*.



*breathes intently*.



This film represents Dwayne Johnson finally giving up.



*shrugs*.



I… it….



I have absolutely no idea. It's basically two hours of people screaming. There could be a Wilhelm buried in there but I wouldn't have heard it because I was too busy punching myself in the head once the Hoover Dam popped like it was made of Lego during the kind of earthquake that The Scientists™ claimed they could finally predict, and yet hadn't actually predicted…



The film stars Carla Gugino, who appeared in the highly-questionable Sucker Punch, alongside Oscar 'Poe Dameron' Isaac from The Force Awakens.







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.

Review: Holy Motors

Holy Motors (2012)
Cert: 18 / 113 mins / Dir. Leos Carax / Trailer



Okay, this film's properly weird. To the point where it makes last week's A Field In England look like a documentary on accountancy.

More of a travelling art installation than a movie per se, Holy Motors follows Monsieur Oscar over the course of one day as he is chauffeured around Paris by his assistant Céline, performing (perhaps) a series of acting roles in various 'appointments' for an audience that's hinted at at the beginning of the story. There are some films that you don't quite get, but you patiently wait for the final reel to come along and put everything into context. Then there are films like Holy Motors where you know that context won't arrive, so you quite happily just sit back and enjoy the ride as writer/director Leos Carax blurs the lines between surrealism, the avant-garde and batshit craziness. While I'd probably describe the film as 'bewildertainment', I have to say that it didn't bore me for a second, and the central actor Denis Lavant is really is an astonishing performer as Oscar and his other ten interwoven roles.


But what's its meaning? After some careful thought (although not too careful, seeing as it's my brain, obviously), I think the film could be either:

a) a metaphor for the life of an actor/performer in the 21st century, as increasing audience/critical expectation demands that they immerse themselves fully in each role to the point where their own reality seems fractured and inseparable from their on-screen personae, or

b) a metaphor for the role of the entertainment industry in the 21st century, where surveillance cameras and an ever-intrusive and expanding media plays horrific events as hyper-reality programming, or

c) a metaphor for re-incarnation, with the soul wearily remembering each life on its journey and the white limousines standing in as angels, ferrying the soul between the end and start of each life (hence the 'Holy Motors' garage at the film's end), and the interior of the car being a limbo and the only area where actual reality is clear (or clearer, anyway).

Or d) a, b & c.

Although the fact that my linear-thinking mind has come up with those probably means that it's none of them, admittedly.

Also, after more careful thought (see note above), I've edited this review and revised Holy Motors' score from 5/7 to 6/7, as it's left me with more than it initially gave. I'd still be just as hesitant in recommending the film to anyone, but I can't deny that it's been rattling around my head since watching it, inducing a sort of post-Matrix reverie whereby my 9-to-5 office life was preoccupied with thoughts of simulated reality and the nature of consciousness. Pity the poor people in my office. I may not have fully understood Holy Motors, but I appreciated the fuck out of it; and that counts for a lot in my book.

Maybe not a film to watch with your parents in the room, though.
Not for the whole thing, but definitely for some of it.

Strangely, it wasn't shown at my local multiplex, and despite hearing plenty of praise I didn't get round to checking it out before tonight.



...I am.



Tentatively, yes. If you can handle weird French cinema, from time to time.



There isn't.



Holy Motors features Kylie Minogue, who starred in Moulin Rouge!, as did Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, Ewan McGregor.







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.