Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (Crunchyroll) 1994

Many fans will argue that Group TAC's"Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie" is THE Street Fighter movie to watch; the prefect adaptation of the popular fighting game franchise. I tend to agree. This movie replicates the thrill of flashy fights, the intense adrenaline rush of playing the game, and just enough of a story to coherently (mostly) string us from one fight to the next. 

 From the get go we are treated to some of the most gorgeous animation of the 1990s. Detailed, fluid, and just bursting with energy. Character movements are so smooth and lifelike too with excellent fight choreography. Every punch from wind up to the hit to the follow through is thoroughly animated. Close ups and long shots are used appropriately to give a very dynamic viewing experience. Shadows and blacks are heavy lending to very nice gritty look and feel for the movie. And the painted backgrounds are works of art on their own. A true visual treat!

 On the flip-side the Street Fighter games were never known for deep narratives. In this movie, a power hungry dictator, M Bison, has been capturing the world's greatest fighters to turn them into his own private army. He seeks out one particular fighter named Ryu after he defeated Bison's second in command, Sagat. Ryu's life as a wanderer makes him hard to track, so Bison goes after Ryu's best friend, Ken, who was trained in the same skills as Ryu. At the same time, Captain Guile of the US air-force and Chun Li of Interpol are looking for leads to take down Bison's Shadowlaw crime empire. But Bison is on to them and sends his best fighters to intercept. 

 The narrative is a simple one. Just two main plot threads, one following Ryu and the other following Chun-Li and Guile that eventually converge.  Character development is succinct enough that they each can by summarised in a single sentence. Ryu’s journey is one of reconnecting with his humanity, Guile’s is to place others before his own desire for revenge, and Chun Li’s is to be humble enough to accept help where challenges might be too much for just one person. 

 There are appearances by classic Street fighter characters like Deejay, T Hawk, Cammy who add nothing too important to the plot and most end up as one scene wonders. The most egregious example is in Balrog’s introductory scene where he’s watching another fight between Zangief and Blanka. The fight is very well animated once again but it just goes on for a bit and then cuts off just when it was getting good and you never hear from those two characters again. I feel the time could have been spent giving little more complexity to the core cast. 

 The Japanese voice actors deliver a solid performance exploding with intensity with every grunt and yell. A little cheesy but par for course for anime of its time. The English dub version has more realistic, less exaggerated acting (aside from one weird instance of Ryu imitating a high pitched Bruce Lee shout) and some lines are changed to make them more “mature”, which typically means swearing. Personally I preferred the English dub just because most of the characters are not Japanese. Not to mention that the animators never bothered to properly sync the lip movement to the Japanese dialogue in the first place.

 Different music also accompany the different language tracks. The Japanese language tracks comes with an orchestral and synthesizer mixed score, very mellow and unobtrusive, spliced with selected songs along the way. While it does not lift tunes from the games directly, the overall style of the music is very close to the style of the game music. The english language track however replaces that with a heavy hitting grunge rock style soundtrack, no doubt inspired by the soundtrack of Mortal Kombat. It is more "in your face" than the japanese one, dripping with badassery, to the point of completely changing the tone of certain scenes. It is almost like watching two different movies and In the end, it comes down to personal preference.  

Overall Street Fighter II The Animated Movie is a greatly enjoyable movie that captures the spirit of the games delivering solid feature length entertainment that holds up even today. Aside from the simplistic story and characters, the animation and fight choreography definitely sets the bench mark for fighting genre anime. Highly recommended.