Sick Product of a Sick System

It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Beautiful, moving film.

The late, great Raul Julia plays an insane dictator named M. Bison who rules the roost in "Shadaloo", a fictional South Asian country. Currently he's holding a bunch of hostages for a staggering 20 billion dollars, and is at work on a process of turning ordinary soldiers into inhuman fighting beasts. Fortunately, he is opposed by the dedicated heroes of the "Allied Nations", led by Colonel Guile (Jean-Claude Van Damme). Other characters caught up in the melee include hustlers Ken (Damian Chapa) & Ryu (Byron Mann), and a reporter named Chun-Li (eternally gorgeous Ming-Na Wen) who can't be taken at face value.Big budget adaptation of the popular Capcom video game throws in everything but the kitchen sink for the sake of an entertaining show. Don't even bother attempting to watch it if you want to be intellectually stimulated or want anything resembling "high art". It's purely for action fans who want to be dazzled by spectacle (although not necessarily fans of the game). It's got plenty to keep it lively: hilariously tacky sets, an over the top nature, tons of explosions, vibrant widescreen photography, and some colourful characters. Subtle it ain't, but it is amusing, even if lacking the real wit one would expect from debuting director Steven E. de Souza, whose credits as a screenwriter include "48 Hrs." and "Commando". As you can see, de Souza gives it some semblance of a story, instead of just having one fight after another, which is what you might expect of a video game adaptation.The international cast features some classy thespians like Julia, Simon Callow, and Roshan Seth, in addition to familiar faces like Australian songbird Kylie Minogue, Grand L. Bush of "Die Hard", Miguel A. Nunez Jr. of "The Return of the Living Dead", and Andrew Bryniarski (Leatherface in two of the more recent "Texas Chain Saw" pictures). Ordinarily it would be depressing to watch an esteemed actor like Julia in their cinematic swan song (especially since Julia clearly looks ill), but he definitely seemed determined to go out in a blaze of glory, and he makes M. Bison a wonderfully grandiose, scenery devouring bad guy. Van Damme is good, and charismatic, as usual, but he can't help but look bland in comparison. Ms. Wen is a delight.Is this a "good" movie? This viewer is not going to go out of his way to make a case for it being one, but it's damn entertaining. Sometimes that's all that matters.Eight out of 10.

What's not to like about this movie? Well, there's a lot actually. Like the characters, the music, etc. But because it's so terrible, it's what makes it such a fun, enjoyable movie. I've only played one of the Street Fighter games, that being the fourth one. So I watched this film not really expecting a faithful adaptation, but a fun, entertaining mess. The action sequences are so terribly amazing, the characters are laughably cheesy, the acting is so laughably awkward, and the movie has a very frail Raul Julia as Bison. Definitely a guilty pleasure movie at best. The final fight scene was pretty cool and I did like how they added the cliche of the main character supposedly be dead, but when he's really alive. A fun movie! If you like a good guilty pleasure movie, this might be the film for you. If you are a big fan of the video games, you're gonna really hate this movie.

Col. Guile and various other martial arts heroes fight against the tyranny of Dictator M. Bison and his cohorts. The first and 2nd act of this film was very cheesy and boring and i almost felt asleep and Jean Claude Van Damme's character didn't grow on me but the final act of the film the 3rd act was easily the best one there was a lot of action and fight sequences and the film became even more cheesy with 2 huge dudes going against each other and godzilla sounds can be heard on the back ground or even Bison gets powers and turns into Nuclear Man meets Magneto. This film has over the top acting, it's dumb and it's pretty cheesy as f*ck but overall it's a really good guilty pleasure and i'm gonna give it an 6/10

Video game movies are still more often disappointments than successes, but at least we've moved on from the era of crud like Street Fighter. Movies like this were made in such a way that they didn't appeal to the fans of the games or the casual movie audience.My primary complaint is the laughable casting. It's like the makers of the movie knew absolutely nothing about the games except for the sex, names, and races of the various characters. They make a huge effort to work the names of every character into the movie, just so the audience will (presumably) think it's cool to see their favorites on the big screen. But, Van Damme as an American soldier? Kylie Minogue as Cammy? Oh, and let's briefly mention the story. Balrog is a cameraman and Ryu and Ken (with brown hair!!) are some type of lovable con-men? Shadaloo City? Ugh. Actual street fighting wouldn't give me enough brain damage to want to ever see this again.