Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

Though it hardly seems possible, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li ultimately fares worse than its eye-rollingly campy 1994 predecessor – with the lack of a compelling protagonist and the egregiously deliberate pace certainly standing as the film’s most overt deficiencies. The storyline, which details Chun-Li’s (Kristin Kreuk) efforts at saving her father from the villainous Bison (Neal McDonough), boasts few attributes designed to echo the universe established by Capcom’s infamous ’80s videogame, as screenwriter Justin Marks’ decision to place an ongoing emphasis on hopelessly generic elements ensures that the movie primarily comes off as a run-of-the-mill actioner (and a particularly dumbed-down one, at that; Marks utilizes flashbacks for things that have just happened). Far more problematic, however, is the entirely underdeveloped nature of the central character, with the viewer’s inability to form any kind of rooting interest in Chun-Li’s success effectively cementing the film’s downfall (Kreuk’s competent yet bland work only exacerbates such concerns). Only Chris Klein, of all people, manages to make anything even resembling a positive impact, as the actor (cast as cocksure cop Charlie Nash) offers up an impressively go-for-broke performance that almost feels like a parody of an action-movie authority figure – complete with a permanent sneer and absurd instances of tough-guy dialogue (eg “you don’t want a ticket to this dance, Detective!”) Director Andrzej Bartkowiak’s notorious incompetence is certainly reflected in the movie’s uniformly underwhelming fight scenes, with such moments drained of their energy due to the filmmaker’s obsessive (and lamentable) reliance on eye-rollingly hackneyed cinematic tricks (eg slow motion, shaky camerawork, etc). It subsequently goes without saying that Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is sure to leave most viewers checking their watches on an all-too-frequent basis, and one finally can’t help but walk away from the film with a new appreciation for Steven E. DeSouza’s failed take on the title (ie at least DeSouza tried to evoke the videogame’s landscape).

*1/2 out of ****