The Lore Lounge
A weekly podcast where your hosts Haile and Vonzell invite you to kick back, revisit gaming history, and talk about the creative legacy it left behind.
The Lore Lounge
You Deserve More Than “Fun and Crazy” | The Street Fighter Movie Review *Spoilers* (S1E06)
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For you, this is another conflicted Street Fighter movie review; for us, it was Tuesday. Is the reference fully dead yet? Too soon?
Finally, our 100% spoiler review of the new Street Fighter live-action movie is here, and we’re not coming at it from a “gotcha” angle. We’re two longtime fans with industry perspective, and we genuinely wanted the film to land as a new standard for video game adaptations, not just a loud reference machine.
If you watched it, we want to hear your take, as we know the community is severely split on how this movie was received. We’ll admit some things about it were fun if you admit we deserve better.
Subscribe, share this with a Street Fighter friend, and leave a comment so more of us can find the conversation. We got a lot to talk about.
We hope you enjoyed the episode! Let us know in the comments what character or topic you want us to cover.
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Character Illustration by Angelli Barrientos https://www.instagram.com/artgelli
Cold Open And Spoiler Warning
SPEAKER_05What am I looking at?
SPEAKER_02Why am I here? What is going on? Giving Dan that moment. Akuma's here. You know, like and he's like, it's time for me to key up. Like, what is what are you gonna do? Right, exactly. What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_03Exactly. Testing one, two, one, two. Uno, dos, three. I'm Haley Lee. I'm Von Zell.
SPEAKER_02And welcome back to the lore lounge. So we're here. We just finished the movie. Um, I I don't wanna bury the lead here, but obviously, we don't have a golf bucket with us. I'm not wearing it. Yeah, he's not wearing it. I'm not eating out of it. So that means we have some thoughts. This will be a hundred percent spoiler. Like we're we're just gonna get into it right away. By the time this is uploaded, we'll be at a point where everyone probably had a time to go see it. And if you haven't, it's okay. You don't have to because you can just listen to us talk about it and then catch it on on demand later, you know.
SPEAKER_05I'm not gonna say you don't have to watch it. You certainly can if you want to, right? But there's a reason I'm not wearing this the the popcorn hat.
SPEAKER_02Ooh, this is coming from him. I was very heated last episode when we were talked about, you know, it was a couple weeks ago we shot that. I think the reason I was so passionate, obviously, is because I had a lot of hope, you know, a lot of hope, and I've been betrayed in the past. Right.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02And that was that was difficult for me to like because don't don't put me in this space. Don't don't put me in the in this space to love again. Right, yeah, and get my heart broken again. Like that's basically what it was. But now that we've seen it, I feel like I was glad to have my guard up. But everyone from the episode, I feel like everyone knows where I was coming from. Let's let's start with you.
SPEAKER_05Oh, okay. Well, we should we should be clear, these are just our opinions. We're just two people. We have a certain perspective uh being in the industry, being fans for as long as we have, uh playing through the games and that kind of stuff. But at the end of the day, hot takes or not, it's just the opinions that we share. If you enjoyed the film, by all means, we're not poo-pooing on that at all.
SPEAKER_02Also, full disclosure, we have a couple friends and people that we know and and in our other circles who who not only worked on it, but even some stump people and stuff who've like put their blood, sweat, and tears into this movie. We uh not only see and appreciate all the stuff that they have done for what it's worth. All the actors not only look like they had a great time, look like they were trying to give their best, look like they were trying to like do something really important and powerful for this project and make sure everyone has a good time watching them. But yeah, things fell through, and I don't think it's any of their fault.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
First Reactions And Broken Promises
SPEAKER_05I said that my feeling was that this was gonna be a lot of fun, but it was probably not the street fighter that I was hoping for. Well, only part of that was right. Definitely wasn't the street fighter I was hoping for. I didn't really think it was a whole lot of fun either.
SPEAKER_02Ooh, I'm just okay. But every cast interview, every thing with the director, you know, uh Kitao Sakurai was like, hey, I want to get the fun. Let's get this fun, it's kind of crazy. Kind of crazy.
SPEAKER_04What makes Street Fighter a classic game is that that tone of like fun and craziness, a sense of fun, the kind of craziness of the world. Capture the fun of the game and and the craziness of the game, the craziness of the game.
SPEAKER_02I mean, it's crazy. It is crazy. It is, is it's crazy but not fun for for you.
SPEAKER_05Not for me. Okay, no, not not fun for me. Um, I felt like just overall broad view, I felt like there were moments in the film that worked, and then they were interrupted by something. Right, yeah, and every time that happened, I got more and more upset because I felt like there was something there that could have been special, right? And I don't know what the malfunction was that it was interrupted by something that I did not find fun.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_05Some of those were the jokes.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Serious moments happening, moments of vulnerability, moments of tension, and then it's undercut by something that's supposed to be funny, and I'm not laughing. Now I'm thinking, why did this happen? And that happened way too many times, I think, for me to find enjoyment or fun in the overall film.
SPEAKER_02Because then you couldn't you couldn't trust any scene. Like anything that was like, oh, they may be tackling, they may be getting into something really cool here or whatever. You're just waiting for like the the dick or fart joke.
SPEAKER_05But also, right, exactly. But also at a certain point it becomes predictable.
SPEAKER_02Right, right, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05The moment things start heating up, I go, okay, well, let me just wait for the joke to to land and and this whole you know tension to be cut or something like that. It's like a it's like a scary movie that relies on jump scares. At a certain point, you're like, well, there's a jump scare coming, let me just wait for it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay. So that that that's
Jokes That Kill The Tension
SPEAKER_02a good point. Like, as film fans and horror fans, I actually hate horror movies that just rely on the jump scares. You know, they come out every year where it's like our movie premise wasn't good, wasn't established well, the tension wasn't wasn't there. So they're like, okay, cool. We throw in four or five like crazy jump scares, we we we put up the audio or whatever, and then this counts as a horror movie. We get to put it in in theaters, make a whole bunch of money and leave and whatever, we're cool. Whereas good horror movies, like you can have like the jump stairs that that gets us, you're like, oh man, you got me. But then if that is backed with like a good story, and I'm like invested if the characters are gonna live or die, or what's gonna happen, if it's super if it's supernatural, like if it makes sense, then all of a sudden that's great. And this is like the divide in between right now, where I feel like everyone's all like, oh, we we talking about this. This movie was fun as hell. Like, as a Street Fighter fan, you appreciate it. We had a couple people in the theater, like, once they saw Shorukin, once they saw Hadokin, they were like, Yes, yes, this is like literally like clapping and getting all hype. But for me watching it, I was like, the the the build-up for this and or the payoff wasn't wasn't worth it, you know. Like I I didn't care at that point, and even if it was just like a music video hype moment or whatever, I was like, okay, cool, you know? So that I feel is the weird divide. You have people who love film and narrative and stories, they're not gonna get anything out of this. Then you have the Street Fighter fans, right? And they're they're in two groups. They're like, hey, you know what? I just I put in some quarters and I push some buttons, and what and it's it's cool. I like I like Ryu, I like Ken. I want to see a live action sharukin, I want to see a Tatsumaki, and uh that I'm I'll be happy. I can eat some popcorn, have a have a drink or whatever, and and and then they can move on. And then you have the people who are like, Yeah, I want these characters that I've been living with, I want to really feel for them when they make a decision, be there rooting for them, and or uh falling with them if they fall, or like all that stuff, like yeah, and and showing that Street Fighter is a lot more, it or it can be so much more than the 100 plus Easter eggs that they kept advertising was included in the film. Right.
SPEAKER_05You're gonna recognize the hundreds of Easter eggs.
SPEAKER_02I was going for uh a good representation of Street Fighter and a good story and good characters, not for Easter egg hunt. Like I didn't I didn't want that.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, that's for Easter.
SPEAKER_02We're close to Halloween, aren't we? So we're like it's wrong time of year, baby. Wrong time of year. Wrong time, wrong, wrong season. I'm a street fun. Right, sorry.
SPEAKER_05Man.
Animation Versus Live Action Whiplash
SPEAKER_05In the same vein as sort of moments of tension or vulnerability being undercut by bad jokes. Yeah, there were parts of the film that were animated, yeah, and all of those were amazing.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_05And then we got back to the live action, which visually didn't match, at least in terms of style. In some cases, the emotional tension didn't match, and sometimes that was that made sense because there's a character thinking about stuff in the past because a lot of the animated stuff was from the past. But at that point, I just I just want to see the animated part. And I get it, we have a Street Fighter 2, the animated movie, which is goaded, but just give me that, please.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it was weird that the live action was 10 times more goofy than the animated part, which had a lot more like uh moments of like we're we're trying to take you into this, you know, crazy world, and you know, the the Satsui No Hado is like turning off and off on like a like a light switch in in viewers' eyes and stuff, and they're trying to trying to get you there. Everyone was really to just jump onto that uh pretty easily, and and they didn't take that earnestness and put it into the live action, which you would think would be easier, you know? It's like Kitao Sakurai shot all the the live action stuff, and it's like, oh yeah, we don't have any heart in this film, and we don't have the budget to do uh to shoot the heart, so maybe we can get some anime heads like in this and be a callback and go to a decent animation house and get this done, and then they'll they'll be the heart for us, and we can go off and have fun in Australia. We can let stunt stunt guys do their stuff, we can blow up shit or whatever, and then the animated will will have the heart that will get us through, and that wasn't the case at all.
SPEAKER_05I mean, at least there's a cynical interpretation of that, which is to say that they couldn't be trusted with it, and I don't want to think that that's what the director or producers or anybody was thinking that these actors can't be trusted with moments like that, and you need to have something animated for it. I don't want to think that, but goodness gracious, if the heart is in the animated sequences and not necessarily in the live action.
Stunt Casting And Wasted Screen Time
SPEAKER_02I mean, it could also go like uh we were talking about what is Sakurai done before, and obviously Eric Eric Andre show. When we talk about that, the fact that Eric Andre was like so heavily featured in this a main character.
SPEAKER_04Like legitimately, watch the goddamn movie, you filthy pigs.
SPEAKER_02Him being a reporter or announcer that got caught, um, bad mouthing bison, and then him setting up things for the Street Fighter. Okay, cool. Actually, that's uh a clever use of your homeboy, like you know, like if I was ever uh directing a film and there wasn't a part for you, but I was like, I want Von Zell to be in it. I know he's talented, I can throw him in this one one area. I wouldn't just throw you all up into the movie because you're one of my best friends. You know what I mean? Like that's why not that is messed up. I would wait until there's a part good for you.
SPEAKER_05I will leave this podcast.
SPEAKER_02Don't you want me to be responsible? This is isn't a good part, but I have uh I'm gonna put you in as this announcer, and you could be you could still be a part of this project, okay, you know, and hang out with us.
SPEAKER_05Okay, well I can do anything. But I hear you.
SPEAKER_02Oh, that's true. That's true. You can't do anything. I hate to. Um, anyways, that was a good setup. And then he was just in every scene and just making things longer, and it sucked because there was other characters and other things that were cut, like, or I don't I don't know if they were cut or not shot, but like they could have focused on, they could have spent some more time to make me care about something. So then every egregious dumb jokey scene with Andrew Schultz or Joe, Joe, or Eric Andre, I was just like, You're you're wasting my time and you're you're making me more angry.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you reminded me of something too. When he gets released from prison, one of the things that's repeated to him from Cammie is something like no digging deep.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_05No more digging deep.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05He didn't. That's a character flaw. If he's that kind of journalist that should be ingrained in him, there should be some digging deep that happens, but he didn't. He spent the rest of the time. I'm not gonna say it.
SPEAKER_02What?
SPEAKER_05I'm not gonna say it. Nope, nope, nope. That's not for it's not for uh that's not for network.
SPEAKER_02It's not for network.
SPEAKER_05It's not for network.
SPEAKER_02Being a minstrel. That's exactly what I wait, no, not that second part. Not that second part, okay? Not the second part. Being a minstrel somebody.
SPEAKER_05And no disrespect, because I love Eric Andre. I love his comedy. Right, right. And it there's a time and place. There's a time and place. Even in this Street Fighter movie, there was a time and place.
SPEAKER_02And I'm not even mad at him. Everyone is just legitimately stunt casting 50 Cents music popping in as soon as he starts coming out. Okay, yeah. That's like and he's doing his thing. It just felt like I'm not looking at Balrog right now, I'm looking at 50 Cent or 50 Cent boxing, and he's and it's and his own song is playing.
SPEAKER_05Like, what is this is his own song playing in fight that he's featured in is a choice.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you know, Roman Reigns casting, it just made me feel like that this was just a uh a way to get butts in seats.
SPEAKER_05We can talk about Jimmy, we can talk about that whole scene, which really felt like a different movie.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah, all right.
SPEAKER_05Where did those prisoners come from?
SPEAKER_02The FGC. Who are Let's Go! Yeah.
SPEAKER_05I respect y'all, man, but oh boy.
SPEAKER_02I I I wish y'all were in a better Street Fighter movie. Let's put it, let's put it that way. Yikes, Justin Wong and Max Million. I wish y'all were in a better Street Fighter movie.
SPEAKER_05But no, what were the prisoners doing there? And you know, if they're dragging Jimmy, but Jimmy decides that he wants to just swing him around, then why didn't he do that before?
SPEAKER_02Yeah. It just within that movie, I don't know what you would do with him. So that's why it felt like they made a different movie to put him in. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's that's that's the problem.
SPEAKER_05I appreciated how abnormal he seemed, abnormally large, abnormally quick, abnormally strong, abnormally innocent in a sense, or at least mischievous, like a child.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05But this is He wasn't a part of the tournament. He was an experiment of sorts.
SPEAKER_02Was he though?
SPEAKER_05I think I think we're not. Yes and no. Well, I mean, clearly he's being held for a reason, but we don't know what that reason is.
SPEAKER_02What if he was like powering the entire that would have been interesting if he was just like, you know, like the reason why they're all all the lights were working or the tournament and they're like ready, my street fighter! You have blonde in the back going. I'm a street fighter. You know, like that was difficult. Why don't we talk about Guile a little bit? Casting Cody Rhodes could have been cool. That wouldn't have been my first choice for Guile, but I feel like his WWE persona had more what Guile represents than whatever he was doing in this film.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Again, I'm not trying to attack Cody Rhodes. I feel like if he was given something cool or like more character than just a 90s joke piece, right? Even if they wanted to go more eccentric and make it like a martial arts top gun type character, okay, you know, like I would still have a swagger. Right. He would still have a swagger and he'd still be intimidating and he'd still be, you know, an integral part of this whole thing. They just gave him one-liners, gave him a flash kick, and just got him out of there. And which is still made him a walking joke. And I know you want to look at his hair and just write him off as a joke character, but nobody in the Street Fighter universe is a joke.
SPEAKER_05No contender in the Street Fighter universe.
SPEAKER_02Right. Right. So if we were gonna support what they were doing with Guile, then he needed to have some really cool payoff moment. And like they try to allude to him and Dulsom having some sort of like, oh, back in we were we did some operation back in the 82, and like they're on they're on some secret mission, but then Chung Li's doing that kind of too. So like everyone's everyone's doing a secret mission, but we're seeing none of it.
SPEAKER_05Yes. We we learned that Chun Li was working undercover.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and the only person that she had in support of her undercover was Kyle Mooney. I was like, why do I need to watch him like kind of goon over Chung Li right now? Like, why is it?
SPEAKER_05There was definitely gooning happening.
SPEAKER_02Like, why is this habit? Like, there's so much shit that needs to be focused on or tackled, or or I would love to see. So when you make these decisions on, like, yeah, let's you know, give this whole character some weight and helps Chung Li make all these decisions and and is the only one in her corner, but just is just a goon guy that she kicks the shit out of anyway. Yep. I'm confused on on a lot of the decisions made on the movie, you know. I mean, there's just so much shit that I don't I don't even know where to go from here.
Action Scenes With Messy Editing
SPEAKER_05We can talk about the action. It is one of the the few things that I thought had some promise. My disappointment in that isn't so much in the in the fight choreography, not in the integration of the special moves. All of that stuff worked. It was great. If I could see it, I don't know what was going on with the editing, but there's a lot of stuff I wished I could have seen and didn't. There were some fights that seem to have been cut short.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05That I don't know if they were cut for time or if they were just cut for creative reasons. I I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_02If you are gonna have like really interesting creative fight scenes, the choreography can be one-to-one as the characters are trying to uh feel their way out, exchanging regular regular attacks, and they're they're doing the regular choreography, then you build up to the moment where a super move or something happens, and there was no payoff, things were just happening. There was there was the the Shorukin moment, there was the Hadokin moment, and characters were were doing things, but I didn't I didn't feel like oh okay, this is what makes this guy a world warrior, this is what makes this this person a world warrior. And I wanted that hype, like I wanted some cinematic expression, like it doesn't have to be crazy like an ultra combo, but just enough to to let people know that even if they haven't seen a shirukin before in their life, they're coming into the movie. This is the first time they're seeing a representation of Ken, a representation of Ru. Uh, when Ken does the Shirukan, they know that's something special. It just it just seems they did it and threw it away and checked it off a box, right?
SPEAKER_05Okay, yeah. An example of that, I think, when you when you speak about something that has a cinematic feel of an ultra combo, in the animated portion, in the beginning, where Rue is fighting Sagat in the first World War uh World Warrior tournament. Yeah, um, his finishing move on Sagat as he is already sort of drenched in the Satsu No Haru, yeah, is an example of that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05There is a parallel later on with Ken facing against Delsim, and Delsim's like, Come on, you need to figure out why you're doing this, unlock this, yeah, this power within you. I couldn't follow like I could in the animated sequence in the beginning of the film. I couldn't follow what this Shoriukin is that Ken was doing until we got that you know poster shot at the end.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_05So it's like that's just kind of what you're saying. There's some muddle stuff here, and then there's something, there's the payoff, but I don't understand where the buildup was for that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, not to jump all over the place, but the fact that Dulcin got that, it seemed like a throwaway scene where Guy was in the bathroom, was like, hey Dalson, you need to inspire Ken. And Dulce was like, Yeah, okay, I got it, you know, and then he's he's then trying to be a guru in the middle of a fight. In the middle of the fight, and like then that payoff happens, and then Dulce's gone. Like, did he need him to unlock who he is, so then they they can go and fight bison together? Like, no, that wasn't the case, or it it it felt like it could have been, but then that didn't that's not what happened. So, what what was going on? You know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of just shit happening. That was the problem. I would have preferred, and this is uh this is I think another issue. They showed the first world warrior tournament in an animated cutscene in the beginning of the right. Just start with the first world war tournament because there's fewer characters, there's fewer characters, you can establish the kid and you relationship, you can establish the guy, you can have hints of Shadowloo and Bison. Yeah, you can hit of hints of everyone, you can introduce a young Chung Li. You can see Chung Lee's father get killed. Like you you could do these things where it's like it's it's slower and it's building. Like, I wanted to build a story that we can uh follow and feel something for. It was just a lot of shit that was thrown at us in this movie, and that was the problem. They could have introduced characters who could have trickled in and we could have understood that people who'd never seen a Street Fighter thing at all could be introduced to the lore and the characters and made a connection with people. So then when they do do something like crazy and insane, and or at the end we reveal there is some some concept of the Satsuino Hado or Dark Otto, and that's not just this random like vampire dark side curse that everyone's going through that. You know, like it's like by the end of the movie, everyone's like, what the fuck is this? You know?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, what a strange transformation that Ryu's Ghee had when he uh accepted the Satsu no Haro in full. Like the thing, he's like, it's like he's becoming uh heartless or something.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I I I didn't know Satsu no haro dyed your clothes.
Satsui No Hado Rewritten
SPEAKER_05Yeah, let's let's get into what their interpretation of the Satsuno Haru is, and by extension, what the on Satsuki is, because in the game you can throw Hadokins as many times as you want, whenever you want. Sometimes you can be in midair and do it. And in this movie, they were very limited. Almost as if this was part of the forbidden technique where you are when when you are able to execute this, you are towing the line between being the fighter of the light and a fighter of the darkness.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_05So that Hadokin, whenever it connected, because it only really connected twice, it incapacitated the opponent.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_05That's what the Hadokin is in that film.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And Satsuno Haro is vampirism. Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_02Dandyism. Um, it was very crawling, my skin, these will not heal, miss. Like that's what it felt like. Okay. Angsty. Yeah, it felt like and uh it like like turned on and off like a light switch in his eyes. And I get what they were trying to do. Like it was it was a call, it was a lure. Like we even kind of were playing with that in Devil Within.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02But our excuse was that the Devil Gene and Satsuino Hado essence was was communicating with each other, right? So it was like resonating, and and and then everyone who who felt victim to it, either side.
SPEAKER_05Game recognized game.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. And that so that was like a one-time feeling for uh Street Fighter Cross Tag and But for what it actually is, it's like becoming the purest form of Ansatsken, which is just single-minded killing, yeah. Right? Instead of just a full-on, like, oh, he's taunting me, he's pulling me, or whatever. That can happen if you're in the middle of a fight. There is one way where it's nothingness and you're you're not thinking about pride, greed, anger, or all of that is gone, and you're you're just in in the fight, and you and you you don't have any emotion to betray you either way, right? That's the go kin.
SPEAKER_05Right, right, the more nothingness, right?
SPEAKER_02And then you have what if you took all the pride, greed, anger, feelings, or whatever, and just channeled it into straight desire to kill, yeah, desire to destroy your opponent. Yeah, right. So those are the two things happening, and I feel the only way it would call out to you is that if you were a mid-act, you know, like you being uh hounded by it, or it's calling out to you as you're making like pigeon ramen, you know, like it's not I I don't I don't I don't feel it should be that. So their fundamental understanding didn't hit with me personally. It made me go, shut the fuck up, you like like I didn't care about it. It was like him losing himself within the fight because he's trying to figure out what's the best way to improve himself and become the greatest warrior. The killing intent path makes me stronger now, right? But finding the the other path is gonna take a lot more time, like that is the drama, right?
SPEAKER_05Not that, like, you know, oh my god, like I may become an emo rock band stuff, like and to be fair, there are other films where Ryu suffers the same kind of affliction um where it's just what's going on in my head, or okay, so you're referencing Alpha. Yes.
SPEAKER_02When Alpha came out, they're like, okay, cool, we're just gonna take anime tropes and throw this into Alpha. And that's why legitimately Alpha doesn't work. Like, there's some cool animation bits, there's some cool introduction of characters, there's some interesting choreography, some some of that is lacking, but right, but also that is why Alpha doesn't work either. Like, I I will give this complaint to this new Street Fighter, but also give the comp give give these complaints to other Street Fighter things, and that's why I feel we should have learned from those mistakes, yeah, and rise above and make something new. We can learn and grow, and that's what I was wanting, you know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, which which brings me to another sort of overall overarching uh reaction is that what I felt was gonna happen is that this movie was gonna try to take the best bits of the 94 live action, Street Fighter 2, the animated movie, and any other, maybe not the 2009 one, but any other sort of iteration of Street Fighter in the animated sense and stuff them all together, including stuff from the game Super Street Fighter 2, Street Fighter 4, and we got a Chris Klein reference from Guile.
SPEAKER_03Song about Charlie.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_02I love this job.
SPEAKER_05I love this job. Ah, we're gonna get into that. But okay, so let's talk about let's talk about the big three then.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
Ryu Ken Chun Li Under The Microscope
SPEAKER_05I want to start this off by saying uh I am a professional actor. I don't like giving notes or critique of other actors. There's a teacher I had that said if you're on the stage or you're on screen, if you do well and people think you're doing well and they enjoy it, you will get some of the credit, the director will get some of the credit, but if you do poorly and people don't like what's going on, you are the only one responsible for that in their eyes. So I don't want to fall into that. The actors are doing the best they can with what they have, so this is no disrespect, no harsh critique to any of the performers there.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_05That being said, there were things that I did not appreciate with the depictions of some of the characters in the film. So we're gonna talk about Ryu, Ken, and Chun Li. I would say that Ken's personality was fire. And that's great when it manifests itself into the fire Hadokin, but again, we don't see that happening with him. We see all of the charging and the pressure and all that stuff from Ryu, and we don't see that at all from Ken, and that is a big disappointment. Could have been Dan, we never know. I wanted to talk about the big three. I don't want to talk about how much screen time Dan got in this movie. Yeah, because that was a little unnecessary, too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, he had his Trump Hadokin. Cut that, cut that, cut, cut that. Yeah, the only time we see Ken trying to do a Hadoken is in a hotel room.
SPEAKER_05You gonna do a forbidden technique in a hotel room? What is wrong with you?
SPEAKER_02He was like, oh god, I can't just blow out the Toby McGuire looking can't just blow out the room next to me and kill all the children inside. Damn it, you know, like I don't know. I was like, that's wild. Like him, him not finding a space on the beach or something to shoot it out into the ocean or whatever, like at least to trying to figure out just in case. Like the fact that they shot that there is like, yeah, there's just fundamental things that like it may seem dumb, but it's like, why am I thinking more about a certain certain repercussions of why characters are doing things and why isn't the movie more aware? Like, that's all I that's all I ask. It's like you are the Street Fighter movie, you're telling me what's important, this this lore, how powerful things are, and I'm like, none of this is making it.
SPEAKER_05I want to accept what it is you're giving me, so why didn't you give me this? Right. I really appreciated what Andrew Koji was doing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. He was given his all, like it felt like again, this was a dream role, which I understand like a hundred percent. Like from what the interviews that he was doing and what he was talking about, he was like, I dreamed of this day, you know. Like I I've I've I've waited for this and I want to give this everything. He was in it, like even when there was like some weird ass, like evil Ryu stuff that I'm like, why is this happening? He was committed, yeah. Yeah, so I I will give him him credit, you know. And it was it Ryu is an uphill battle, bro. Like, like, yeah, if you're not doing it for a full Japanese audience, and then also if you're you you gotta walk that line that it's like a uh Japanese embodied eastern values character for a western audience, like that is a tough hill to to to climb.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and we covered this in the Ryu episode, just how the simplicity makes it both very specific and very broad. Yeah, and stepping into that means that you not only have a uh an expectation from the audience about what you should look like, sound like, move like, but also you have to take us with you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and like how much of a heavy accent does Ryu have?
SPEAKER_05Like that is also that is never covered. Yeah, I've never seen that covered before at all because you know the animated stuff that I watched was dubbed. Right. And they were American.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Take care, Hotshot. Next time, muscle man.
SPEAKER_02What do you mean, Ken? What's going on? Top Tolkien. Yeah, it was yeah, but okay, so Ken.
SPEAKER_05Ken, yeah, Noah.
SPEAKER_02Noah.
SPEAKER_05You know, for I appreciate his commitment.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_05Um, when I went to watch the film, I made sure that I I wanted to accept it for what it was and not what I expected should be, knowing the lore as we're in the lore lounge, yeah. Um and the characters and all that other stuff. I wanted to say, okay, this is your interpretation, let me follow you and see where that goes. Right. And for what it's worth, I I think the commitment to it was admirable. I think it was enjoyable to watch. The only issue that I had with Ken's characterization is that I felt like he wasn't confident enough in his own power. Which they tried to explain at the end, where it's like Rue did this thing and it was a betrayal, and so then Ken spent the next seven to ten years doubting himself, and that's the space he was in up until the end of the film.
SPEAKER_02Can we talk about that a little bit? Because that was wild. I I didn't like it. I mean, I I I appreciate writers trying to you know give some sort of view or aspect to something that we may not pick up on the games. I I can sympathize, but that just it made everything that they were going through a little a lot more petty.
SPEAKER_05That was the cause of the estrangement that was listed on the synopsis. Like jealousy?
SPEAKER_02Jealousy, like a scorned stepsister or something, he threw away, you know, Ken's invitation to just watching it burn, like you will never go to the ball, you know, like type of shit.
SPEAKER_05And also in the animated scene where he's like gloating about mastering the Hadoken first. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I don't know.
SPEAKER_05Because when I first saw that, and maybe this is maybe this is a good filmmaking trick. When I first saw it, I thought, well, this he's just excited that he got it first, and Ken's like, I'm gonna get it first.
SPEAKER_02You're right.
SPEAKER_05And then towards the end, we we realize that no, he did that as like a hammer, as a uh hammering the nail.
SPEAKER_02Right, right. As in, yeah, you will never be here.
SPEAKER_05You will never, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And like he he had that voiceover, like, I was jealous of of Ken's light, yeah, like on what he can do or whatever. Yeah, we didn't see that. We didn't see that, we didn't we didn't feel that. We didn't I we didn't see that with Ken at any point, like you know, uh so having you as a mental block, okay, cool, but I wanted to see evidence of this light that you're talking about. If he's like was able to harness like like Hado closer to Master Goken immediately, where drew every time he was in a fight, he was being pulled to the Satsuina Hado, like and Ken didn't even have to go through that, but he was still doing amazing things. That would have been like, oh, okay, like I can I can maybe give you the benefit of the doubt of this oh the step system. Didn't you not go to the bowl? Like, I would, I would okay, I would maybe jump on, but it wasn't shown, you know.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, and they also threw in a little bit of a red herring because m what I thought was that the estrangement came from Ryu not doing everything he could to save their master. And it was like, oh, you you don't save it and then you run away, right? Like who are you and who am I for thinking that you were a brother of mine? Yeah, but it wasn't that, yeah, it was Ryu being jealous.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Alright, so it is Ryu's story, and yet Chun Li is the one that has to gather everyone, yeah, put them in the tournament, and then orchestrate the undercover operation to stop the evil bad guy. What did you think?
SPEAKER_02Trying to figure out a uh interesting way for Chung Li to be involved and not just like building up to a meeting with bison. So trying to find a new way to incorporate Chung Li as a as a spy, I get it, and I'll give the writers credit for trying something. But overall, on how it paid off, I didn't like it. Like how it paid off, like if it paid off better, I think I would have been cool with it, you know. Like it just it just felt like she she was in too deep, and then she had her Gunnar Interpol guy trying to like, hey, you you gotta be more careful, you gotta whatever. And then hey, I told on you anyway, so then everyone's coming to come pick you up. Oh, you're just gonna beat the shit out of every everyone and go rogue anyway. So I was like, why was this even necessary then? It would have been one thing if she gathered enough evidence or something so Interpol can move. So when they had like the big prison break or something was happening, Interpol was there to like, okay, now we believe that Bison's a fucking maniac or whatever, we need to take him down because of what you figured out, because of something that she went undercover for this reason. But she went undercover and said, fuck anybody, fuck everybody, anyways.
SPEAKER_05And said I will do it myself. Yeah. Interpol is a weak police uh outfit. They are weak sauce. Yeah, you have one of your agents beat their supervisor and go off and try to save the world on their own.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, in the end of the end of the movie, they're like, okay, cool, let's hunt bison now. It's like, no, you're Chung Li, you're a war criminal.
SPEAKER_05The cast of characters they go and and do the thing that the international police organization is supposed to have been doing for the last several years. Yeah, cool.
SPEAKER_02Now now Chung Li is a war war criminal and needs to be arrested and put in jail for treason or whatever. And it's like, okay, well then if that was if that was gonna be the outcome, why even do this? You know, maybe if they were gonna do this spy thing, just drop the interpole aspect of it and have her infiltrate because if she doesn't have again, if she doesn't have interpol, she would maybe do something this this reckless and crazy, and that would justify this kind of this version of Chung Ling.
SPEAKER_05It could, yes, it could justify her having a parallel track with Ryu going as far as they could to even into the darkness to get what they wanted, which at the end they felt was justice or victory or something like that.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_05That would make sense, yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So it's like they wanted they wanted their cake and they eat it too, right? Like that that's what it felt like, and that was that was unfortunate.
SPEAKER_05Props to Kalina.
SPEAKER_02Yes. She did she did do a good job. But with what she was given, you know, I want you to look in camera and be as real as possible and be like, bitch, please! Bitch, please! You know, and she did it. So I with what she was given, she was she was fun, but I was like, for as much effort as you're putting into this Chung Li, this version of Chung Li, I wanted it to really pay off for you.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I also felt like there was probably too much on her shoulders.
SPEAKER_02Oh, 100%. I mean, at the end of the day, she she was fighting Yuli and Vega all by herself and bison, and like she she was in so deep that I was like, God, like, can this girl get some help?
SPEAKER_05I want to transition into that because I feel like with everything that was placed on her shoulders emotionally, there was almost no room for the kind of vulnerability that does not end in rage or anger or violence. There was one moment that, you know, she was branded, and there was a point of fear in that particular scene with bison.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And I felt like that was another one of those moments that the tension was great. Yeah. Where we're going could be great, and then it was undercut by something.
Bison And Akuma With No Dread
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05But when we're talking about the big evils in the film, that would be bison and that would be Goki.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I would have preferred God just everyone called him Goki, and then someone like say he's like he's like a Japanese demon, he's like an Akuma or something like because like everyone trying to say uh Akuma Akuma or whatever in their apparently both were said. Kind of ticked me off a little bit. I was like, this this isn't this isn't working for me.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well, they're the big evils, and they should be intimidating, they should strike fear into the hearts of those who are around them, and yet no Street Fighter contender seemed scared of bison.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05The only people scared of bison were the fledgling scientists that kept getting killed and Eric Andre's character at least for one moment in the beginning. And I think that's a problem when your main villain does not seem to carry the energy, the force of someone who needs to be stopped because whatever it is that they're doing is so severe, is so dangerous. Yeah. I didn't necessarily get that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they they they try to explain it away real quickly, like even in the beginning where he's like, I'm not strong enough, I'm not powerful enough, or whatever. Him bitching about it is supposed to sell us on like this bison's.
SPEAKER_05It's the reason he's doing all of this. Yeah, I don't know if that interpretation of bison was enough to have these characters do everything they can to stop him.
SPEAKER_02I would've maybe jumped on if this was a faulty body transfer.
SPEAKER_05Yes.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. That's that's what immediately when I saw him cast, I was like, okay, cool. He just lost, and then he he did a body transfer. And that body is failing. Yeah, the body is failing. It's a it's a temporary case. That's so that now has put urgency urgency within him to find do you to find someone capable so he can do another transfer, and that's that's why everything is happening so fast and happening now, and what that's what the tournament is. If you wanted to go that route, this body is like literally like I wanted to see like sparks of psychoenergy like popping off of him, like he's he's or maybe reveal a part of his body, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like like this is a last resort, yeah, type of thing. And that I thought would have been cool, and immediately they they didn't do that. And I was like, uh, and then I was like, okay, what are they gonna do? It's just a dude who's just trying to look for psychoenergy, hotto energy at full power, yeah. Let's let's do this.
SPEAKER_05That psycho energy is on E.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like instead of yeah, him just sucking out like a like a siphon, him just sucking, him just sucking out psycho. They did make that joke in the movies, and they did, they did him just you know, siphoning psych psycho energy from strong fighters, like him literally doing a like a uh body snatchers type type thing, that would make him scary, and him being a huge, hulking, like physical, formidable force. That's double scary. But if you wanted to just go one or the other, that would have worked, but they didn't, they did neither, you know. And I was just like, what am I supposed to feel here? And and we were talking about you know, introducing bison as this antagonistic force, but then you have um Goki and Akuma as this antagonistic force, and them existing in the same movie. I just needed these two forces that have nothing to do with each other but are banes of everyone in this movie's existence. When they do clash, one to cannibalize each other.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, or have these two forces so great, so unstoppable that when they clash, one has to win.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. And not in a weaselly way where like bison steals the steals a couple of things. Right.
SPEAKER_05Or yeah, wait until that man's unconscious and he's like, Gotcha, I'm about to get all my satsuinohado.
SPEAKER_02Yo, I I felt like like if he's like grabbed Akuma and like put him in a helicopter and then they took off or whatever, just Akuma wakes up and like like like chops the helicopter in half. And that would have been the end of the movie. Just bison dies because Akuma wakes up while they're in a dies. Yeah. So I didn't have any urgency on dealing with Bison. I didn't care when Akuma finally showed and he was like, let's have our final battle. And like his promise on like, I'm gonna fight the winner of the tournament. Oh, yes. Him showing up because Joe was crowned champion doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_02He would look at Joe like he's a fly. Like he wouldn't care.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_02Like if he showed up, and either you or Ken would have been in a state vulnerable to the Satsui No Hado or something. Like you wanna pull play that? Okay, cool. Then he shows up, but if he shows up and then Joe was standing there, he'd be like, the fuck? Then him showing up like I predicted, I said Rakuma doing the first Street Fighter fatality in the movie, and Joe being like being raiding fatality.
SPEAKER_05Turned to dust.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, turned to dust. I said it. Him screaming his name and blowing up Joe just didn't make it make enough sense. And it wasn't like cool.
SPEAKER_05It didn't feel goky, it didn't feel it seems like this is one of those moments where actually being faithful to the lore would have helped.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_05This criticism has more to do with who we feel Goki is in the broader Street Fighter universe because that's how he makes sense. Yeah. He doesn't make sense any other way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05He was fighting Rue. That was the clash. Yeah. Rue won, in a sense, which was also a little weird to me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_05To have Goki's unconscious body laying there. Like, really?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Like, no, Goki would just get stronger.
SPEAKER_02Like, you just needed Chris Tucker to just jump out. Like, that's that's and just Goki's just like, you know, like and then immediately after fucking Rue just like backhanding Chung Li. Like when they came up. Like, Rue, hey, you did it. I was like, oh shit, okay. That's what's he's in it. Yeah, he's in it. He's in it. Ken also just shot the Hadoken, fired Hadoken. Yeah. Fired Hadoken, the Sasu no Hodel out of Rue. That I thought it was funny. Like, I that it wasn't even cool. We didn't even see him do it. The big the big payoff for his character for that whole arc would have been us turning and seeing Ken do his Hadoken if that's what you wanted to do, what you were alluding to, didn't do it, and then you just you know at the blackout of his gi with your Hadouken, you know, like Yeah. I'm like, okay, what do what are we what are we doing here? And they tried to have the the heart with the song at the end and it played off as a joke. And I was like, can we wrap it up wrap this up now?
SPEAKER_05Like at that point, I was just kind of staring at the screen, like, what is happening right now? What am I looking at? Yeah, why am I here? What is going on?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I and giving Dan that moment where he's like, you know, going against Akuma and the way he knew like he saw the clouds manifesting. He's like, it's like Akuma's here, you know, like and then he's like, it's time for me to key up. Like, what is what are you gonna do, bro? Like, what are you talking about? Exactly. I don't know. I don't know. We can go on forever, uh to be honest, because like the lore lounge brain aspect is starting to like like okay, let's break down how you know how this is different, why this is different, what could have been better, what what could have been worse, like all these things. So obviously we can talk forever about
Final Verdict And Asking For Better
SPEAKER_02this. I can say we can just maybe wrap up this review. For sure. Just say that it wasn't for us, we didn't like the movie, and and I and I want to say that like people the people who did like the movie, I am in a boat with you of understanding on wanting to see a big screen representation of things that you love. Like the seeing the Hadouken Shore can seeing Black Hadoua's stuff, seeing you know, uh Dalsimbias kick-asses, seeing uh aspect of Cody Rhodes doing a flash kick, and you're like, Yeah, this is I want to see this shit. But there's also part of me that's saying, bro, you deserve better, bro, or bro, et what's what's the what's the female version of bro? My nerd brethren, my nerd brothers and and sisters out there. Okay, just letting you know you deserve more. You deserve more, you can have more. You you could have hype stuff happening on screen, but also story-wise, it's it's compelling you. I'll I'll I'll leave with this and then you can have your final thoughts. For a period of time, people were talking about Batman, where Adam West Batman holding a uh a bomb and running down a pier, having Bat Shark repellent. That was their idea of what Batman is. And that was that was it. When you when you had any thoughts and talks about like, yeah, but maybe it could be a more of a detective story, maybe could they laughed at you. Then you have Tim Burton come along, and then you have Nolan, and then you have Reeves or whatever, and now everyone wants the Dark Knight, everyone wants they can see what Batman is. So that's my rebuttal to this weird fight on it's Street Fighter. What do you expect? There's a giant green man, it's a dude with a headman, throws a Hadokin. You're you're sounding like those people who said Adam West Batman is the only Batman that could exist, in my opinion. You could ask for more, and and better things can be given to you, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_05The only thing that I would really say is this is just our opinion, man. And there's really no reason to get too emotional about it.
SPEAKER_02I mean, is that is that directed at me?
SPEAKER_05Or that's just is it directed at you? No, it's not, it's not, but you know how it is online, man. People got stuff to say, and they're like, man, I love pancakes. Why don't you like waffles? Why you hate waffles? It's like, no, man. It's just we feel like there's something we better on the horizon.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we we also have friends who would dig it a little bit more than others, like so it's it's it's a constant conversation, yeah. Uh, and I feel like at the end of the day, I just want what's best for the the community, and I just feel like I just wanted to throw it out there. We can ask for more, we can ask for better.
SPEAKER_05You know, the other thing that folks would say in response to perhaps a heavy critique of something is well, why don't you just do it yourself? Why don't you go out and make a Street Fighter movie? Well, we've we've done some shorts, um, and even looking back on those, there are things that we can improve on. And at the time we did the best with what we had.
SPEAKER_02With nothing? Yeah, we had nothing.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. This could be the best that they could do with what they had. We've got episodes that will be coming out that are really getting into why these individual elements matter so much to us in this world. We've talked about what Street Fighter means to us, yeah. What makes Street Fighter Street Fighter. We're going into more detail as to why this excites us so much. Right.
SPEAKER_02Look out for the interviews that we have coming up. I think we have Ruben Langdon on the on the way.
SPEAKER_05Uh oh.
SPEAKER_02He might be coming through. But Michael Lear. We have we have we have some cool people coming through.
SPEAKER_05Cool people.
SPEAKER_02So all right, cool. Thanks, everybody, and uh catch you on the next one. Bye! Street Fighter!