Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Review
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)
Directed by: Andrzej Bartkowiak
Written by: Justin Marks (adaptation)
Starring: Kristin Kreuk, Chris Klein, Neal McDonough, Robin Shou, and Michael Clarke Duncan
Chun Li, concert pianist and martial arts enthusiast, is recruited into a war with a shadowy criminal organization that kidnapped her father and seeks to destroy the slums of Bangkok.
It’s easy to pick apart Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li for deviating from the details of the game, like the size of Chun Li’s thighs, but where it really falls apart is in abandoning the core concept, a premise as ludicrous as it is emotionally satisfying; that is, the only requirements necessary to destroy an international crime syndicate are flying fists and some well-placed kicks to the head.
Like its title, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li strikes the perfect balance of being unnecessarily complicated without being complex. The entire affair is fractured, bouncing across countless indescript locations, partaking in needless conversations with indistinct characters, and introducing plot twists without heft that are resolved without fanfare. There isn’t a single character arc in the movie, and while that may seem like too lofty a goal for a movie based on a video game, even the lowliest of genre movies strive to have at least some form of personal development, even if it’s as base as a transition from Good to Evil, or vice versa. Everyone in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li stumbles about wrapped in their own nebulous agenda, agreeing to quests that are doled out without reason or explanation and engaging in training that fails to bring with it any useful knowledge or skills. It’s a kung fu Waiting For Godot.
All this would be almost forgivable if the action in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li had any merit. Unfortunately, what fights there are on display are drowned in a seemingly bottomless sea of coffee shop philosophizing, and even the ones that get their head above water are, with few exceptions, filled with cookie-cutter choreography so painful that it will make you yearn for a return to the stilted dialogue. Possibly the biggest insult is that almost all of the fights lean heavily on melee weapons, props and, most tellingly, guns to mask the physical incompetence on display. Between the renaissance in stunt choreography coming out of Thailand and the decades-old development of screen fighting techniques from Hong Kong, there is no reason whatsoever that Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li couldn’t have had twice the quality of fighting at half the price. Like Redman said; it’s Street Fighter, boy, no one pulls guns out.
There are a few things that made Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li almost tolerable. The actors comport themselves as well as they could considering the script, though I admit I may have been swayed by pity. It’s always nice to see Robin Shou in action, and as Chun Li’s mentor Gen he provides some of the better fighting in the movie. Michael Clarke Duncan and Neil McDonough chew just the right amount of scenery in the roles of Balrog and M. Bison, respectively, while the legendary Pei-pei Cheng puts in a surprise cameo. And Chris Klein deserves special mention for his swaggering portrayal of Charlie Nash. While he’s been taking the brunt of the negative criticism, I felt that Klein’s ham-fisted throwback to the Golden Age of cinematic machismo was the best part of the movie.
Chris Klein’s performance isn’t so much bad as it is otherworldly, reaching for the Heavens from the squalid gutters of Bangkok. Perversely, he’s the reason the screening of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li I attended will go down as one of my favourite movie experiences of all time. The slow-building, fish-thieving insanity of it all finally came to a head during Charlie Nash’s penultimate appearance in the film, resulting in the audience completely losing it through to the closing credits, during which applause and high-fives could be dimly heard above the laughter. Shame that the rest of the movie couldn’t reach such heights.
When I returned home I picked up where I left off on Tiger Cage 2, a typical early-90s Hong Kong action movie starring Donnie Yen, and five minutes in I had seen more action, better stunts, and superior characterization to that found in the entirety of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, for a fraction of the latter’s budget. When it comes to action filmmaking, fortune favours the brave. — Wintle
SCORE: 
Recommended If You Like: Street Fighter (1994), DOA: Dead or Alive, Doom
Comments (14)
Steven, you neglected to mention anything about Kristin Kreuk! Were you trying to protect her from criticism?
I’ll have to wait to read further reviews from you to judge how your tastes differ from mine. I actually enjoyed Andrzej Bartkowiak’s Doom. I’m not familiar with Tiger Cage 2 which is kind of ironic since I’ve been coincidentally reviewing Donnie Yen movies for Killer Imports.
It sounds like you’re one of those many film goers who are willing to forgive the general crappiness of Asian films, but are especially harsh on Hollywood made films. No offense. Ha ha. I gave a good review for the Asian film Silver Hawk, which the majority have crapped on. Ha ha.
Posted by Reed Farrington on March 5th, 2009What are the chances of Macho Movie Review continuing on FilmJunk? That would be fucking awesome.
Posted by Henrik on March 5th, 2009I agree, or at least on Nagy’s site
Posted by Drew on March 5th, 2009You know what pisses me off the most about Street Fighter reviews? When people complain about the film straying away from the original material and “story”. What fucking story was there in Street Fighter and what other material was there other than two people fighting one on one?
Posted by swarez on March 5th, 2009For this wafer thin material you need to make shit up to beef up a script in order to make a proper movie out of it whether the end results are good or not.
Reed: I noticed I had neglected Kreuk when I gave the review a read-over, but when I tried to sneak her in, I realized she had been so forgettable in her own movie that it wasn’t worth the effort.
I tucked Doom in there because it was another video game adaptation by the same director, not necessarily because it was of the same quality.
It’s entirely possible that I’m more forgiving of the faults of movies from outside of Hollywood, but I like to think I’m just willing to forgive movies of shaky quality that nevertheless give me the goods.
Donnie Yen is awesome.
Henrik and Drew: I asked Nagy to bring his microphone that night to podcast about Chun Li, but he declined. I think he regretted it almost immediately after we left the theatre. It would have been a podcast to shake the foundations of Olympus itself.
swarez: Not sure if you’re including my review in that group or not. I love the Street Fighter games, but I was down with any changes they wanted to make, provided it was a decent action movie. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.
Posted by Wintle on March 5th, 2009Not bringing the mic will be the regret I have carved in my tombstone!
NASH OUT!
Posted by doug nagy on March 5th, 2009CHARLIE NASH! INTERPOL!
Posted by Wintle on March 5th, 2009What irritates me is that the actors never look anything like the characters, it’s like they don’t even make an effort to get it right. You’d think they’d care as surely the only people who want to see a Street Fighter film are fans of Street Fighter.
Posted by Christian on March 7th, 2009yup yup yup yup…. spinning star kick!!!
can I look forward to seeing these two moves in the movie??? =b
hah… Lana Lane as Chung Li… what in the HEEEEEELL.
She’s hot and gorgeous and needs to have my hands all over her, but come on… this movie made me shake my head and feel sorry for Street Fighter fans that the only type of movie that could do this franchise justice are the animated ones. nudity and all.
Posted by RichPea on March 10th, 2009I can see why they would try to appeal to more than just Street Fighter fans. it’s certainly worked for superhero movies.
And they only used a few of Chun Li’s moves in the movie, as I recall, and they were almost all entirely lame beyond belief.
Posted by Wintle on March 10th, 2009To ’swarez’:
You’ve clearly not played much Street Fighter. While the plot is often hokey and cliche, the characters have developed a proper backstory and Bison’s multiple attempts at world destruction/domination have been presented in a certain way.
Posted by Ken on March 13th, 2009It’s not that they slightly deviated from the plot or backstories, it’s almost as if they didn’t check them out at all beyond Street Fighter II. The original Street Fighter movie was more faithful than this. Hell, Chun-Li doesn’t even look as Asian as I believe she should. Where’s Ryu? They worked together before. And if they’re linked with Interpol, they’re probably going to be seeing some of Cammy and Guile, too.
I’m not defending stupid fanboys, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not as simple as you’re putting it.
I was quite disappointed with the action sequences; since when did Bison ever die at the hands of Chun-Li;Bison like all other top level bosses took great skill and time to defeat; if Ken, Ryu, Zangief,Sagat, & Guile had to develope great skill,time, and strength to face him only for the great Bison to be defeated by young little Chun-Li doesn’t say too much about the rest of the characters of Street Fighter; although I thought that Robin Shou did a kick@#$ job of portraying Chun-Li’s Master’Gen’…..Ah yeah Chun-Li’s thighs were alot sexier and bigger on the game and in the first Street Fighter movie than this chick.
Posted by BlackScorpion on March 15th, 2009jeez people…can Kristen get some credit? if you all atleast watch Smallville she has some very good fighting techniques. and she’s a new face. arent u all tired of the same actresses or actors getting the lead roles??? and she wasnt forgettable. basically the story was about her…and how she came to be. of course its not gonna stick to the darn video game. what movie ever does? if they stuck to the video game it would have been too predicatable and typical. as im concerned i loved the movie. for her first majoy movie, Kristen did a hell of a job than a lot of newbies. and now we’re wating for Ryu’s story..cant wait for u guys to critize that.
ttfn
Posted by Dezired86 on March 19th, 2009reality check for the poster above me. not stick to the story eh look at teh boxoffice rating; see how it turned out? oh i hope they dont make a second movie in the mold of the first one! poor style and cinematography
Posted by M. Ali on March 30th, 2009Leave a Reply