Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li Review

Posted by Bryan Kristopowitz on 03.02.2009

A decent B-movie...

"Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" Review

Kristin Kreuk- Chun-Li
Neal McDonough- Bison
Chris Klein- Charlie Nash
Robin Shou- Gen
Moon Bloodgood- Detective Maya Sunee
Michael Clarke Duncan- Balrog
Edmund Chen- Xiang
Josie Ho- Cantana
Taboo- Vega
Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak
Screenplay by Justin Marks, based on the video game franchise
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and martial arts action, and some sensuality
Runtime- 96 minutes
Website: http://www.streetfighter.com/movies/

"Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li," directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak and based on the famous video game franchise of the same name, is a fairly decent B-movie fantasy action flick that clearly isn't afraid of being a B-movie fantasy action flick. Chock full of weird beard characters and situations, copious amounts of gunplay, and a bunch of weird beard kung fu hooey, your likely enjoyment of the movie will depend on your opinion of B-movies in general. If you enjoy them like I do (I do a column all about B-movies here at 411 called The Gratuitous B-Movie Column, which is the most popular B-movie column at the site by far) then you'll probably have a good time checking it out at a movie theatre near you (if you can find one that's actually playing it). However, if you're not a fan of B-movies, odds are you won't have a good time. In fact, you'll probably wonder why you wasted your time with it. But, again, since I'm a B-movie nerd, I thought "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" was a blast.

The flick stars Kristen Kreuk as Chun-Li, a young woman with a desire to find out what happened to her mysteriously kidnapped father Xiang (Edmund Chen) and to generally change the world for the better. After receiving a strange ancient scroll in the mail, and after the death of her mother to cancer, Chun-Li sets out into the dangerous world of the streets of Bangkok to find out what exactly the scroll says and, maybe, what the heck happened to her father. While in the midst of rampant street crime (muggings at gun point are a daily occurence), Chun-Li eventually finds someone willing to translate the scroll for her. The scroll basically the explains the origins of the spider web tattoo she sees on various people and that she has to find the mysterious Gen (Robin Shou), the head of The Order of the Web, to help her further. After walking around the streets of Bangkok looking for Gen and getting into a few spectacular random brawls with the local hoodlum thugs, she finds Gen and quickly learns not only what really happened to her father, but also basically how to harness her good guy kung fu energy. If she can harness that energy, she'll be able to take on the evil gangsters that took her father.

The gangsters, a shadowy crime syndicate called the Shadaloo (pronounced "shad-ah-low," because "shad-ah-loo" just doesn't sound all that dangerous), are headed by Bison (Neal McDonough), the abandoned son of former Irish missionaries who slowly worked his way up the Bangkok scumbag bad guy ladder to become the leader of the organization. With the help of his trusty lead henchman Balrog (Michael Clarke Duncan), Bison is terrorizing the populace of the slums of Bangkok's waterfront in a big land devaluing scheme similar to the one engaged in by the mayor in "Police Academy 6: City Under Siege," where he wants to eventually buy up all of the land on the cheap so he can then build living space for rich people. Of course, before he came up with this plan, Bison kidnapped Chun-Li's father Xiang and held him captive, threatening him with the death of his family if he didn't use his considerable business acumen to find a way to make the land buying scheme work. Xiang did as he was ordered.

If that wasn't enough plot (and, really, it is), there's also a massive international police investigation going on concerning Bison and his various business dealings and organized crime activities. Headed up by Interpol agent Charlie Nash (Chris Klein) and local cop Detective Maya Sunee (the incredibly hot Moon Bloodgood), they're trying to find a way to stop Bison's plans. They eventually cross paths with Chun-Li, and, as you'd expect in a movie like this, they all team up to take on Bison and thwart his evil scheme.

Now, I'll admit that the flick's plot is way too complicated for its own good. The flick could have used a bit of a plot trim, mostly on the cop side (none of it really has anything to do with the main story). Normally I'd be complaining about this kind of thing. There's nothing worse than watching a movie with an unnecessarily complicated plot. But this flick is one of the rare exceptions where the loaded up plot doesn't hinder the movie's forward momentum. Chris Klein's part of the story could easily have been its own movie, a buddy cop movie with Moon Bloodgood's Maya hunting down members of the Bangkok underworld beholden to Bison. Again, it doesn't really add anything to the main story involving Chun-Li, but having it doesn't really hurt that story, either.

Kreuk does a good job as Chun-Li. She gets to actually act a few times here and there (she cries quite a bit), she's believable in the action scenes, and most importantly she's never annoying. The same cannot be said, though, for Robin Shou as Gen. He plays a mean pseudo Yoda character and he's excellent in the various fight and training scenes where he has to engage in kung fu hooha, but in an overall sense he just doesn't have enough charisma to be believable. He's just way too bland to be much of a force for good, or even someone anyone would listen to and follow. Edmund Chen does an okay job as Xiang, although his best stuff happens right at the beginning of the movie. He teaches a young Chun-Li Wushu and actually has the charisma to pull it off. You completely believe people will listen to him. Why wasn't he cast as Gen instead?

Chris Klein is a bit of a wild card here because, at first, it's hard to believe that, even with his manly facial hair, that he's a grizzled, experienced international cop hot on the trail of a bunch of gangsters. He's too wide eyed, too young. But he eventually grows on you and you begin to kind of accept that he's a globe trotting cop (although he needs to work on his gun handling skills). He also has considerable chemistry with Moon Bloodgood, who is just fabulous as Detective Maya Sunee. You really don't believe she's any kind of cop anywhere (she's too pretty to be a cop), but she's working with a guy who doesn't look like much of a cop, either. They're both in the same boat, so it doesn't come as so ludicrous. And, again, they work well together, so it's not a bad thing seeing them playing cops.

And then there's Neal McDonough, as Bison the crime lord. He's simply a joy to watch, as it appears that he's having the time of his life hamming it up as a white kung fu gangster with an Irish accent. If the whole movie was just McDonough walking around, ordering his henchmen to kill people and uttering lines like "Even milk has an expiration date," the flick would be on the short list of greatest B-movie of all time. It really would be that dang cool. And Michael Clarke Duncan sure can play a mean, big, bad ass henchman. The only bad thing about this role is that he doesn't get to snap anyone's neck. How can you have a movie like this without having a guy that big not snap a guy's neck? Maybe it'll show up in a deleted scene someday.

Now, I have no idea how accurate this flick is to the storyline of the game franchise. I think I played "Street Fighter II" in an arcade once when the Jean Claude Van Damme movie came out in 1994, and I never played any of the home video system versions of the game so, again, I have no idea if the movie follows the game's storyline at all. I would urge the franchise fans, though, to go in with an open mind and remember that movies based on video games are not video games. They're adaptations. A movie is its own entity, just like the video game. So, basically, I'm saying turn off the video game fan section of your brain and turn on the action movie fan section before going in. You may enjoy enjoy yourself more that way.

So, in the end, let me reiterate that if you're a B-movie fan, you'll probably have a good time checking out "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li." I know I did. But if you don't like B-movies, don't bother. You won't like it.

I enjoyed it. So take that as you will.

So what do we have here? Gratuitous Capcom opening logo, gratuitous Golden Gate Bridge accompanied by somber piano music, gratuitous guy in white kung fu pajamas doing tai-chi in the front yard, gratuitous kung fu training montage, arrow through the window, gratuitous Michael Clarke Duncan, can throwing, a major league ass kicking kung fu fight where people use an entire dinner table as a battering ram, a bit where a guy sets his own hand on fire then spreads that fire to other people by thouching them, chain attacks, gratuitous Neal McDonough, gratuitous Neal McDonough with an Irish accent, a kidnapping, an icy staredown, a spinning bird locket, gratuitous ancient scroll, gratuitous random street crime, gratuitous spider web hand tatoo, a big bad guy meeting, gratuitous Chris Klein as a scumbum cop, gratuitous conference table with severed heads on it, gratuitous big Asian funeral, a rude street sweeper, gratuitous Kristen Kreuk walking around the streets of Bangkok, a Chinese food street cart, another mugging, a butterfly knife attack, metal shelving unit attack, another training montage, a magical sandbox, gratuitous public internet cafe, a joke about Esperanto, gratuitous urban renewal, gratuitous blindfold Tai-Chi with little metal ball throwing, ball catching, attempted table saw to the face, gratuitous Moon Bloodgood wearing her bra, gold bondage handcuffs, a hot lesbian henchperson, gratuitous dance club scene, a hot lesbian bathroom brawl, hot Asian chick pole dancing, split legged hand stand spin kicking, a dead body punching bag, gratuitous Chris Klein eating take out food with chopsticks, gratuitous flashback, an RPG attack, people running and jumping across roof tops, hair blowing, dock office guy ass kicking, street vendor abuse, pineapple to the face, street vendor vegetable attack, wound fixing, gratuitous Chris Klein acting manly by drinking Jack Daniels, exploding building, a bad guy ambush, a SWAT team battle, a helicopter, hand burning, gratuitous liquid nitrogen to the face, a final fight, a wood stick beatdown, a thunder punch, gratuitous flying neck snap with head cranking, and a newspaper ad looking for a "street fighter."

Best lines: "Chun-Li, don't you know it's rude to sneak up on your elders?," "It is okay. A gentleman would never hurt a school girl," "Now I know why no one wanted to play with you at Julliard," "This guy's nuts!," "Call me Nash," "You've just inherited a big problem," "Show a prisoner the world and all he sees are the bars on the window," "It's amazing to see what a man will do for his daughter," "Everyone has a price," "This is ancient Chinese," "This guy walks through the raindrops!," "Where you go, trouble follows," "I already know how to fight," "Why are you mad right now?," "Isn't this your old home?," "Only in the dark do all colors become one," "Tell me about the white rose!," "Are you going to tell me or should I guess. Go ahead and guess," "How's aggressive working for ya?," "No wonder you wear a mask. I'd hide that face, too," "So this is the girl that roughed up Vega?," "Sometimes you have to stand up even when standing isn't easy," "I love family reunions," "Even milk has an expiration date," "You will not stop me," "Is there anything you want to say before we get this over with?," "How's your arm doing?," "You know, you're a lot slower than you used to be," "If anything happens to her I'll kill you first," "Fathers always have a weakness for their daughters," and "Charlie Nash! Interpol! Hold your fire!"

The 411: "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" is a pretty decent B-movie, which is apparently all it ever wanted to be. Director Andrzej Bartkowiak has kind of made up for the crapfest that was "Doom." I encourage those of you who like B-movies to find out where "Street Fighter" is playing and go. If not, don't bother. And you can also take away about three-and-a-half points from the final rating as well.

Final Score:  7.5   [ Good ]