Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (’09 review)

3 out of 5

Here’s a test if Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is for you. In one sequence, the heroine suggestively dances with another woman, then the heroine and the woman kung-fu fight in a bathroom as water sprays all over them, then the heroine beats up multiple henchmen over a rap song with the lyrics: “Street Fighter!  Street Fighter!  Uh!  Yeah!  Gonna be a street fight tonight!” You’re either going to find it A) Cheesy B) Awesome C) Cheesy / Awesome. The last option is the best way to view this. Street Fighter is very, VERY stupid.  But it’s never boring.  

This is the second live-action movie based on the Capcom videogame series (Which has released a new game coinciding with the film’s release.  What astonishing marketing synergy!) In this movie, sexy, young, and wealthy concert pianist / kung-fu fighter Chun-Li (Kristin Kreuk) tracks down the crimelord, M. Bison (Neal McDonough).  Learning fighting from Master Gen (Robin Shou), Chun-Li kicks her way through goons like the ruthless Balrog (Michael Clarke Duncan) or the deadly Vega (Taboo).  Also following Bison is a gritty investigator, Charlie (Chris Klein), and a sexy cop, Maya (Moon Bloodgood).  Any mention of street fighting is limited to the last 30 seconds with the arrival of an invitation to a Street Fighter tournament.  Various scenes involve fighting in the streets; that may count.

Who knows what the actors were thinking.  Neal McDonough is Evil (Capital E), killing everyone in the pursuit of money and power.  Looking like a hammy amateur, Klein overplays “gritty” every line.  Shou is the Mystic Asian character you always see in these movies.  When his student is fighting for her life, he yells encouragement instead of helping her.  As the title character, Kreuk (Lana Lang from “Smallville”) does a lot of crying and angry glares between kicking.  She also has a terrible voiceover, full of clichés like, “I felt like I was chasing a ghost.”  Laughing manically is Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog, one of the few actors striking the right tone. 

Adding to the film’s strangeness, some characters have unexplained magic powers. Example: Chun-Li’s Master teaches her to shoot electric balls of mystical concussive energy.  Or whatever.  They don’t tell you why, it just happens.  (The “why” is simply, “Because Chun-Li does it in the game!!”) After awhile you just roll with it.  When a movie uses mystical tricks, there’s an explanation like The Force in Star Wars or the computer-reality of The Matrix.  Not here. 

Every scene is hilariously campy. Vega slaughters business competitors as Bison sits calmly at the dinner table, eating caviar and drinking wine as screams of agony and blood splatter are heard.  Speaking of Vega, he’s built up to be supremely dangerous but Chun-Li kicks his ass in 30 seconds. At one point, Chun-Li abandons her wealth and goes to live on the streets because… who knows?  There’s even a moment when the heroine delivers a dry quip to a person who is dead.  Action heroes do that a lot.

Surprisingly, there’s decent action choreography.  Director Andrzej Bartkowiak (Cradle 2 the Grave) uses long shots and the action moves are nicely acrobatic.  A cool trick is when Chun-Li is tied upside down and she manages to escape and by some inventive swinging.  Street Fighter isn’t poetically beautiful like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but it’s straightforward and easy to watch.  At least they got the fighting right.

Somehow, these discordant pieces hold together.  The first Street Fighter movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme was a bad cartoon, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is a bad noir revenge movie.  This is not great filmmaking, and it’s not faithful to the source, but it succeeds as mindless entertainment.  Quite mindless.