Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is one of the biggest disappointments I've had at the cinema in quite a long time. Oh, I'm not talking about the movie. I just forgot that Watchmen was coming out next week instead of this week. Street Fighter turned out to be exactly what I expected from a cinematic video game adaptation directed by the same guy did Doom. If you liked Doom, well, you'll probably like this too and I hope they give you a pass from whichever mental facility you call home so you can go and see it.
Never having played any of the Street Fighter games, I can't say if any of these characters are faithful adaptations of their video game incarnations. I also can't say if most gamers even care since most games are judged by how much fun it is to shoot the bad guys or how satisfying it was to figure out if the door off to your left is just a door or if it's some sort of Easter Egg that's hiding a secret cache of weapons or money. Anyway, Chun-Li is an 8 year old girl in Hong Kong whose father was kidnapped by the evil Bison (Neal McDonough), the evil head of an evil corporation called Shadaloo, a company that somehow makes money by having gangs of tough guys kick bums and shoot randomly into crowds. Ten years go by and Chun-Li grows up to be a world class concert pianist played by Kristin Kreuk. One night, Chun-Li receives some ancient Chinese scroll that says she has to go to Bangkok to find Gen, the leader of the Order of the Web (which explains why she keeps seeing a guy with a web tattoo on his hand). Gen decides to be a douchebag about this and makes her live the life of a street urchin for some indeterminate period of time before he contacts her and agrees to teach her how to shoot glowy balls of lightning (and no, I'm not kidding) so that she can take down Bison and Shadaloo. As is always the case in situations like this, for some reason the supremely powerful and unbeatable Master can't just do all this shit himself but needs the help of some incompetent know-nothing, usually for no other reason that some dork thousands of years ago wrote down in a scroll that it was their destiny to do so. This, unfortunately, is the best part of the movie.
The worst part of the movie is when Bangkok law enforcement gets involved. This mainly consists of local Homicide Detective Maya Sunee (Moon Bloodgood), a character who apparently had attained a waiver to whatever dress code that applies to Thai police detectives since she mostly where tight jeans and tank tops. Not that I mind since generous helpings of Moon Bloodgood's wonderful body helped offset the presence of American Interpol agent Charlie Nash, a character who proves that they'll let any asshole who walks in off the street join Interpol. Maybe Charlie Nash was originally a perfectly decent character but he had the bad luck to be played by Chris Klein. I'm assuming that director Andrzej Bartkowiak cast Chris Klein in this role because he lost a bet since there aren't many other actors who can draw out unintentional laughter from the audience just by getting out of a car or walking down a hallway. Someone should tell casting directors the world over that this and his other laughable performance in the awful remake of Rollerball have satisfied whatever sort of Chris Klein needs that the world may have.
Anyway, a lot of guns get shot, a lot of bombs go off and a lot of horrible dialogue gets spoken. In addition, we get little gems like the least sexy/most unintentionally hilarious lesbian seduction scene in movie history between Chun-Li and the villainous Cantana and an embarrassing martial arts fight scene between Bison and Chun-Li, embarrassing because Neal McDonough obviously cannot do martial arts. There is a bit of comic relief at the end when a situation is set up for a possible sequel. Honestly, the way they thought that this movie would be popular enough to inspire a sequel was just downright adorable.
If you need further proof that this is a movie to avoid, check this out. It's very rare that a movie gets a zero percent rating on the Tomatometer. Still, at least the movie wasn't too long. Honestly, time flies, doesn't seem a minute since the Tirloean spa had the chess boys in it. ONE NIGHT IN BANGKOK AND THE WORLD'S YOUR OYSTER...oh, sorry, got carried away.
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