The year is 1994. Super Street Fighter II for the SNES was released. The sequel to the popular 2D arcade fighting game Street Fighter. While both Street Fighter and Street Fighter II were popular in arcades, taking the quarters of many kids who frequented the arcades, they were even more popular in their home edition form, because, well, you didn't need to pump quarters into a machine. In no time, Ryu and his street fighting buddies joined the ranks of Mario and Sonic as video game heroes and the Street Fighter series was an instant classic.
The year is 2007. The arcade industry is on life support. Instead, most video game players decide to stay home and play with Bill Gates' creation, the XBox 360. On this console was Dead or Alive 4. The 3D fighting game, in addition to it's good gameplay, was known for it's cast of fighters, which mostly featured buxom females wearing very little clothing. Although DoA had been around since the late 90s in the arcades and on the Sega Saturn and Dreamcast, it's full popularity wouldn't fully blossom until, holiday season 2001, when Dead or Alive 3 was released as a launch game on the original XBox. Showcasing the game's sex appeal with the infamous "She kicks high" commercials, the game managed to fight it's way into gamers hearts (and hentai artists' brushes) and became an instant hit on the system. In fact, thanks to this sex appeal, developers Tecmo were able to develop a beach volleyball game, featuring the former fighters playing beach volleyball in skimpy bikinis. Really.
What do these two game series have in common?
They were both made into terrible movies that bombed in the theaters.
Yep, both of these video game-to-movie adaptations were huge failures. A look on Rotten Tomatoes tells us that Street Fighter has a 14% freshness rating while Dead or Alive got a 35%. Both of these movies were filmed under the premise of taking a popular fighting video game series, and trying to turn the small amount of plot from the game, into a full feature length movie and knowing die-hard fans will show up and hoping that you put enough action in the trailer to get people who know nothing about the games to show up. As a result, today, people of the interwebs, I am going to compare these movies side-by-side, using a professional process of comparing each in various categories that I just made up. Because this is my blog, bitch. If you want Roper and Ebert, you can go read their blog.Plot:
Street Fighter:
Street Fighter's story starts out in some fictional country that evil general, M. Bison wants to destroy and turn into "Bisonopolis" complete with food court (he actually says this) and it's own awesome currency. Meanwhile, the All-American-Hero-Who-Must-Have-Studied-Abroad-In-Europe-Because-Jean-Claude-Van-Damme-Is-Playing Guile and his forces are trying to stop him. Unfortunately, Bison has kidnapped some of his troops and would kill them all unless he was paid $20 BILLION DOLLARS. Also, Bison took one of these soldiers (Blanka) and decided to perform an experiment on him that would turn him into the ULTIMATE WARRIOR! He does this with the help of a reluctant Dr. Dhalsim.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, conmen Ryu and Ken try to sell Sagat toy guns. Once he realizes they were up to no good, causin' trouble in his neighborhood, he forces them to fight Vega in an underground street fight. But before they can, Guile comes in, spoils the party and arrests everybody.
Sometime, it's explained that Chun-Li, Balrog and E. Honda (who turned Hawaiian from Japanese) are posing as a news crew, when they're simply out for revenge because M. Bison killed Chun-Li's father, and prevented Balrog from winning a boxing title and E. Honda from becoming Yokozuna. Or something.
(Also, it's worth noting that the SF characters shown on M. Bison's side are Zangiev and um... Dee Jay. As for Guile, he's teaming up with Cammy and... T. Hawk. Seriously.)
So, Guile fakes his own death in order to get Ryu and Ken into M. Bison's hideout as spies. To make it less conspicuous (or something) Sagat and Vega are also let free. I never really understood this plan.
Basically, from here on out, it's just your classic "good vs. evil" fight inside M. Bison's headquarters. The hostages are freed, Guile defeats M. Bison, everyone escapes (except Dhalsim and Blanka who decide to stay) Zangiev joins Guile's force, DeeJay and Sagat try to steal Bison's money, only to find out that it's the worthless "M. Bison Bucks" from before. Everybody poses. The End.
Dead or Alive:
The film opens up at Princess Kasumi's kingdom. Hayabusa (no, not the former FMW wrestler) tells her that her brother, Hayate, is dead. She tells him that he's lying and she's going to leave the kingdom to find him, despite the fact that she'll become a Shinobi. As she leaves, she runs into her brother's lover Ayane, who tells her that if she leaves the kingdom, she'll kill her. She doesn't care and leaves anyway via the ancient Japanese technique of hangliding. As she's flying away, she gets this flying shuriken invitation to fight in the DoA tournament.
Meanwhile, on a yaht is former wrestler Tina Armstrong. Basically, all that happens is that she tells her father, Bass, she doesn't want to wrestle anymore because she's "Done being fake" and then some Southeast Asian pirates show up and try to take her boat, but she kicks all their asses. Clearly, we should have called Jamie Pressly wearing an American Flag bikini top and some Daisy Duke Cutoffs to take care of those Somalian Pirates. She also gets an invitation.
We then go to a hotel room in Hong Kong, where Christie (above) is questioned by the police for some robbery. She kicks their ass while simultaneously getting dressed. As she escapes on a motorcycle, she gets one of the invitations too.
So, basically if you've played any of the games you know that DoA is this fighting tournament where the winner takes home a large amount of money. That's exactly what happens. Donovan is running the whole tournament, blah blah blah. Other than a lot of fighting, the only other things that happen are:
*This nerdy guy named Weatherby who helps oversee the tournament with Donovan develops a crush on Helena.
*Ayane is on the island to fuck up shit for Kasumi occasionally.
*Christie and her lover/associate Max who conned his way into the game, want to steal the money and run.
*Kasumi, Tina, Christie and Hayabusa are the ones to advance into the semi-finals. But Hayabusa is captured when he looks for Hayate in Hayabusa's lab.
And that brings us to the thrilling finale, where Kasumi, Tina and Christie go look for Hayabusa, when they're captured themselves. Donovan explains to them about his magical sunglasses that download information from fighters and uploads it to his mind, so he can fight amazingly. After downloading their moves, he brings out Hayate, and shows them THE POWER OF THE RAY BANS! After he kicks Hayate's ass, he sells the information he downloaded to buyers all over the world. But Weatherby is all "NUH-UH!" and stops the download and alerts the CIA. So, Donovan is all "FUCK!" and hits the self-destruct switch which was installed in 1962 when Goldfinger lived there. Kasumi, Tina and Christie go chase after Donovan and kick his ass by knocking off his MAGICAL RAY BANS and Kasumi uses the POWER OF ACUPUNCTURE to paralyze him while they escape and the lair explodes.
Six months later, Kasumi, Tina, Christie, Ayane and Helena are at Kasumi's kingdom fighting off mongols.
ADVANTAGE: DoA While I realized I heavily skimmed both movies plots because they simply weren't that interesting to write (and I'm lazy), until the end where it got all weird with magical sunglasses, DoA's was simply more interesting. Plus, there's alot of girls wearing very little. So, that's always a plus.
Accuracy to Original Game:
Street Fighter: So, other than the fact that there are characters with the same name and sometimes wear the same clothing represented in the game. Other than Chun-Li, Bison and Guile (I guess), the stories of each character were completely changed. Just reading my synopsis should raise a few red flags: Conmen Ryu and Ken, Balrog being a good guy (he's always been a boss), E. Honda being Hawaiian. However, by far the worst is the treatment of Dhalsim (above). As mentioned, he's turned into a meek doctor, who almost gets his ass kicked by an unnamed Bison guard until Blanka comes in and saves his ass. No YOGAONFIRE or stretch punches. Just a lame-ass scientist who turns Blanka good. I mean, I hate Dhalsim in the games, because one of my friends would always choose him and strech punch me across the screen while I couldn't get E. Honda close enough to do his One Thousand Slap technique. But nonetheless, Dhalsim has always been an important character in SF. I guess what pisses me off the most is that while Dhalsim is stuck being crap, guys like DeeJay and T. Hawk are pretending to be important characters. I mean, seriously, DeeJay?
Dead or Alive: Surprisingly, until that bizarre ending, it was following pretty closely to the stories of the game. The whole concept of the tournament is exactly what it says in the instruction manual. Except for Helena, who turns from that French opera singer into just some blonde chick, all the characters stories add up too and you can tell who they're supposed to be. All of the fighters from the 3rd game (and Eliot from the 4th game) are in the movie, albeit, in limited roles. Zack, Bass, Leon and Bayman are all shown prominently in addition to the main characters. While Lei Fang, Gen Fu, Jann Lee and Eliot are shown getting their asses kicked in earlier rounds. Hitomi's name is shown on the brackets, but you never actually see her. Shame, because that was who I always chose. Even some of the places they fight match the ones in the game.
Advantage: DoA
Nerd Factor (things that would make actual fans of the game applaud):
Street Fighter: So much. When Guile fakes his death by getting shot, he slow motion falls and yells like in the games. Capcom gets its logo on random barrels. M. Bison's flying podium has the arcade controls in it (above). Ryu HADOOOOUKENS (kind of). Ken SHORYUUUUKENS (kind of). E. Honda unleashes the Thousand Slaps. Cammy scissors (not in that way, perv). M. Bison uses lightning shit. There's tons more if you look closely. It's fun.
DoA: Well, they play beach volleyball in a scene. And when Weatherby is watching the fights on his screen, the camera moves exactly like how it does in the game. And like I said, a lot of the levels from the game are recreated in the movie. But that's it.
Advantage: Street Fighter
Characters/Acting:
Street Fighter: The late Raul Julia does an amazing job as M. Bison. And the M. Bison character is so awesome. His personal office is amazing, with paintings of him on a horse, and that clown painting you can sort of see in the picture above. Van Damme is unintentionally hilarious as Guile with his European accent and all. But M. Bison takes the cake.
DoA: You might recognize Devon Aoki who plays Kasumi as the ninja in Sin City. She does pretty well in the role, just being a bad ass. What you notice in Sin City though, is that she never talks. For good reason. She's a pretty terrible actress. Actually, all of the characters from that camp (Kasumi, Hayabusa, Hayate, Ayane) are pretty awful actors. All of them have a wooden delivery with absolutely no emotion. Jamie Pressly is pretty good as Tina, seeing as she is a decent actress. Though, I kept thinking that Crab Man was going to show up and Earl was going to walk by to cross off things off his list. Holly Valance was pretty good as Christie too. But it's no match for M. Bison.
Winner: Raul Julia/M. Bison/Street Fighter
And the winner is...
Not anyone who watched these movies. Alright, to be fair, if you're in the mood for a shallow action movie with lots of bouncing boobs and lots of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Wires effects, you could probably be entertained by DoA. And if you want a movie that you can laugh at for the wrong reasons, Street Fighter is a good bet. But honestly, if you're a fan of these series. You'd get more entertainment out of Street Fighter: The Later Years or one of those DoA porns out there, that a NSFW Google Image search could lead you to. Or hell, any porn for that matter.
You know, one has to wonder why they keep making movies based on fighting games. As there's a terrible Mortal Kombat movie made in the 90s, and plans for a Tekken movie. I mean, it's not like there's any fighting game with any deep plot. In all of the ending movies for Tekken Tag, I never understood them. Ever. And there are definitely video games out there that have larger fanbases and more of a plot to work with. Metal Gear Solid, anyone? So why don't they do movies on games like that?
I don't know for sure, but if I was to guess, it's that as mentioned, fighting games barely have a plot. Sure, some of the characters have backstories which the director may use (DoA) or use as a vauge suggestion and take a shit on the rest (SF) but other than that, it's pretty free reign. Meanwhile, a game like the before-mentioned MGS has such a detailed story, maybe they don't want to bother making sure there's no plot holes from the stories from the game. And if they can come up with a whole new story, why don't they just make a game from itt instead of making a poorly produced movie? I'm probably wrong, but that's my hypothesis.
Also, I guess fighting games are the easiest to have enough action so, hopefully, people who just like action movies, can find something interesting in the trailer. So that means, your viewing audience is 20% fans of the game, 10% people genuinely interested in the movie , and 70% empty seats. I don't know if I'll ever see the day where a director will actually make a decent movie based off a fighting game, or any game for that matter. But until that day comes, film companies should stop coming out with movies that only cater to such a niche market.
But wait!
While surfing the internet one day, I came across a banner ad for the movie above. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. I found this incredibly surprising. I guess Street Fighter is still popular in a nostalgic kind of way, and SFIV came out on all your new-fangled systems but it's in no way still popular enough to make a whole other movie on it. How many people on the street who see a poster for this movie or an ad actually knows what this means? 1 and 10? You're really stretching for a niche market when you're coming out with origin movies for something over two decades old.
But hey, there's still a possibility that it's a decent movie, right? I mean, how much interest was there in all those Marvel Comic movies before they came out? Those were pretty good nonetheless (well, except for The Hulk and Spider-Man 3). Could this be the mystical movie that's based off a game, and actually good?
Sadly, most definitely not. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 4% rating (and the funny thing is, the last time I checked, it was at 8%). Actually, it was because of this and a conversation with my friend that sparked the idea for this post anyway. The DVD comes out tomorrow, but I *ahem* obtained a copy in advance. Because of this, I'll go ahead and write out a review for this too. Expect it in a few days because I have nothing else better to do.
P.S.
The original Street Fighter movie leaves room for a sequel after the credits. M. Bison's hand is shown punching through some rubble and restarting a "World Domination" program. DoA was supposed to be the first in a trilogy, but the idea was scrapped when the original bombed so bad. And lastly, there were plans to make a The Legend of Ryu movie after this Chun-Li one, but it's unknown if they're still going to go through with it.
Street Fighter: The late Raul Julia does an amazing job as M. Bison. And the M. Bison character is so awesome. His personal office is amazing, with paintings of him on a horse, and that clown painting you can sort of see in the picture above. Van Damme is unintentionally hilarious as Guile with his European accent and all. But M. Bison takes the cake.
DoA: You might recognize Devon Aoki who plays Kasumi as the ninja in Sin City. She does pretty well in the role, just being a bad ass. What you notice in Sin City though, is that she never talks. For good reason. She's a pretty terrible actress. Actually, all of the characters from that camp (Kasumi, Hayabusa, Hayate, Ayane) are pretty awful actors. All of them have a wooden delivery with absolutely no emotion. Jamie Pressly is pretty good as Tina, seeing as she is a decent actress. Though, I kept thinking that Crab Man was going to show up and Earl was going to walk by to cross off things off his list. Holly Valance was pretty good as Christie too. But it's no match for M. Bison.
Winner: Raul Julia/M. Bison/Street Fighter
And the winner is...
Not anyone who watched these movies. Alright, to be fair, if you're in the mood for a shallow action movie with lots of bouncing boobs and lots of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Wires effects, you could probably be entertained by DoA. And if you want a movie that you can laugh at for the wrong reasons, Street Fighter is a good bet. But honestly, if you're a fan of these series. You'd get more entertainment out of Street Fighter: The Later Years or one of those DoA porns out there, that a NSFW Google Image search could lead you to. Or hell, any porn for that matter.
You know, one has to wonder why they keep making movies based on fighting games. As there's a terrible Mortal Kombat movie made in the 90s, and plans for a Tekken movie. I mean, it's not like there's any fighting game with any deep plot. In all of the ending movies for Tekken Tag, I never understood them. Ever. And there are definitely video games out there that have larger fanbases and more of a plot to work with. Metal Gear Solid, anyone? So why don't they do movies on games like that?
I don't know for sure, but if I was to guess, it's that as mentioned, fighting games barely have a plot. Sure, some of the characters have backstories which the director may use (DoA) or use as a vauge suggestion and take a shit on the rest (SF) but other than that, it's pretty free reign. Meanwhile, a game like the before-mentioned MGS has such a detailed story, maybe they don't want to bother making sure there's no plot holes from the stories from the game. And if they can come up with a whole new story, why don't they just make a game from itt instead of making a poorly produced movie? I'm probably wrong, but that's my hypothesis.
Also, I guess fighting games are the easiest to have enough action so, hopefully, people who just like action movies, can find something interesting in the trailer. So that means, your viewing audience is 20% fans of the game, 10% people genuinely interested in the movie , and 70% empty seats. I don't know if I'll ever see the day where a director will actually make a decent movie based off a fighting game, or any game for that matter. But until that day comes, film companies should stop coming out with movies that only cater to such a niche market.
But wait!
While surfing the internet one day, I came across a banner ad for the movie above. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. I found this incredibly surprising. I guess Street Fighter is still popular in a nostalgic kind of way, and SFIV came out on all your new-fangled systems but it's in no way still popular enough to make a whole other movie on it. How many people on the street who see a poster for this movie or an ad actually knows what this means? 1 and 10? You're really stretching for a niche market when you're coming out with origin movies for something over two decades old.But hey, there's still a possibility that it's a decent movie, right? I mean, how much interest was there in all those Marvel Comic movies before they came out? Those were pretty good nonetheless (well, except for The Hulk and Spider-Man 3). Could this be the mystical movie that's based off a game, and actually good?
Sadly, most definitely not. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 4% rating (and the funny thing is, the last time I checked, it was at 8%). Actually, it was because of this and a conversation with my friend that sparked the idea for this post anyway. The DVD comes out tomorrow, but I *ahem* obtained a copy in advance. Because of this, I'll go ahead and write out a review for this too. Expect it in a few days because I have nothing else better to do.
P.S.
The original Street Fighter movie leaves room for a sequel after the credits. M. Bison's hand is shown punching through some rubble and restarting a "World Domination" program. DoA was supposed to be the first in a trilogy, but the idea was scrapped when the original bombed so bad. And lastly, there were plans to make a The Legend of Ryu movie after this Chun-Li one, but it's unknown if they're still going to go through with it.
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