What is Going On?
The third oiled up, flying fisticuffs (and swords) nostalgia bait IP of the year has arrived. YOu know this.
street Fighter
Director: Kitao Sakurai • Writers: TJ Fixman, Kitao Sakurai, based on the game by CapCom
Starring: Noah Centineo, Andrew Koji, Callina Liang, David Dastmalchian, Eric André
Japan / USA • 2hrs
Opens Hong Kong October 15 • IIB
Grade: C+
In the world such as it is, it is incredibly difficult to parse the enjoyability of Kitao Sakurai’s Street Fighter. Oh, as a film it’s chaotic, dialled all the way up to 13, really gay (that’s not bad though) and fully completely nonsensical. It’s a hot mess but never boring, and its commitment to the dumb of it all is admirable. That said, it’s an interesting exercise in how we’re likely to pick and choose what we pay for in the coming years, or some of us might. Let’s take a look at the creative crew here. Hmmm… We have director Sakurai, a relative unknown whose few credits include a couple of episodes of Beef. Okay, that’s not inherently eyebrow raising. But the rest of the crew is loaded with distasteful bros, among them so-called comedian Andrew Schulz, who hosted Donald Trump on his podcast and performed at the Riyadh Comedy Festival; habitual loudmouth, felon and rape joker 50 Cent; Trump-voting (the second time) WWE star Roman Reigns; and its distributor is Paramount Skydance, owned by the whiny billionaire scion that’s about to fuck up the film industry forever, when he’s not radicalising the news and flattening television. Buddy gave Brett Ratner a job again. Get ready for the bullshit Bro Code 24/7.
On the other hand Street Fighter makes the most of the criminally underused Andrew Koji, a mocap Jason Momoa shows up because he loves this shit and has no trouble letting his nerd flag fly, there’s a LOT of fighting, a ripe, retro-’90s soundtrack, and is anything with David Dastmalchian truly bad? I’m not sure it is. So if nothing else there’s good goofy time to be had with plenty of appealing star power, and no need to be a gamer to follow along.
The tip of the bicep iceberg
So what does any of this have to do with the quality of the movie? Practically nothing, as Sakurai and co-writer TJ Fixman are, at the very least, fans of the games – there’s a real Dungeons & Dragons vibe here as relates to respect for the material – and the pair does a fairly respectable job of throwing nearly 40 years’ worth of game lore, mixed and matched character names and 1980s and ’90s chestnuts into a blender and making something mostly coherent come out. Is it perfect? No. Is it entertaining? Yeah, pretty much – and it’s infinitely better than the 1994 version that put Colonel Guile in the lead.
The story, such as it is, is also told in nicely animated flashback, with the well known fighting heroes Ken Masters and Ryu (why doesn’t this guy get a surname?) training with their sensei, Master Gouken (Ma Dong-seok, Don Lee to Americans). Their story is teased out all through the film and forms the backbone of the requisite Brothers Experience Tragedy/Betrayal And Go Their Separate Ways narrative. In the years after Ryu won the World Warrior title in 1987, Ken (a jacked Noah Centineo) has become an MTV-era proto-influencer and laughing stock that drinks too much and makes a living punching cars. Meanwhile, Ryu (Koji) is brooding over his dark power and a dark secret (of course there’s a dark secret), but after six years of silence, connects with Ken again to warn him away from the World Warrior II tournament. Seems M Bison (Dastmalchian) is on a quest for Psycho Power (sure) and Ken is bait. Cue a bunch of fights among the competitors, which include Guile (Cody Rhodes, Jean Claude Van Damme the first time), Ken’s manager and new bestie Dan (Schulz), Bison puppet and colour man (?) Don Sauvage (Eric André, absolutely, spittingly obnoxious), Dhalsim (Bollywood star Vidyut Jammwal), Vega (Orville Peck) and Balrog (Curtis Jackson, forever Fiddy).
Of the glossy, shiny, big budget who-is-this-for nostalgia exercises released this year, Masters of the Universe is the best, with Mortal Kombat II just ahead of this mostly because it has 1) Karl Urban and 2) that song, but hands down Street Fighter is the gayest. But the odd thing is there are some amusing throwaway lines that could be Skydance style neo-gay panic; it’s truly hard to tell. When Dastmalchian and Rhodes make cracks about handsome men and rippling muscles it’s funny. From Schulz not so much. Most of that is in service to getting Ryu and Ken into their familiar fighting outfits for a three-way boss fight, along with INTERPOL agent Chun-Li (Callina Liang), against Akuma (Joe Anoa’i AKA Reigns). M Bison gets away in order to make way for the sequel. Yeah, let’s just see.
Street Fighters is noisy and ’80s neon and in serious need of some Ritalin, and it tries really hard to be cool, but it also feels like what a C-suite corporate drone that was 15 when the game came out thinks is cool. It’s just a bit out of step. But there’s some decent fight choreography and everyone circling Centineo and a dour Koji seems game for the game. On that note, as wonderful and effortlessly shady as Dastmalchian is, he can’t quite get out from under Raúl Julia’s gloriously campy, long shadow, a performance that served as that great actor’s swan song. Julia’s delivery of “It was Tuesday” is in another league from Dastmalchian’s homage – Exhibit, what? Z in the argument for dispensing with shout-outs to past franchise siblings. It’s not as bad as the bitch line in Alien: Romulus but still. Enough of this.