Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (1994) User Reviews

Pure Street fighting action, dag nammit! HADOKEN !

[knowledge · 8/10 · 28 June 2003]

Street fighter the animated movie is a well animated fight fest that serves as a superior companion piece to the revolutionary fighting game on which this anime is based .

Its silly plot is full of holes and would make little sense to a non street fighter fan but not to worry, the story is merely an excuse for street fighter characters to dragon punch and shin kick the hell out of each other, and its in this department that the film delivers on a huge scale.

The battles that these characters have are truly incredible to watch! Well thought out, well animated and just astounding to gawk at, they work just as well as the best live action fight sequences out there. The two stand out fights are a masterfully executed battle between Chun li and Vega that will make your jaw drop and the final climatic battle of the film which wraps everything up in an adrenalin pumping fashion .The animated fighting on display here more than makes up for the films faults like its annoyingly slow establishing shots that seem to go on forever.

Street fighter the animated movie is first-rate animated action that does its source material justice and allows you to contemplate on how good that garbage live action version could have been.

Knowledge gives this : 4 out of 5 (It makes me want to throw fireballs baby!)

Better-than-average animation and production quality.

[toqtaqiya2 · 6/10 · 21 October 2010]

Anime based on popular fighting games have the problem of trying to string a series of fights into a coherent plot. Gisaburo Sugii, the director of gloriously beautiful, yet extremely slow-moving features like Night On The Galactic Railroad (1985), might not seem the obvious choice for the anime of CAPCOM's hit game, but his trademark has always been his ability to get inside his material and get the best out of it, whatever the genre. Setting up his scenario and characters without wasting a second, he plays to their strengths in a string of stunningly tense and atmospheric fights choreographed by live-action fight master Shinichi Shoji, exploiting to the full the fact that his actors would bruise and bleed only when necessary for the script. The fight between fan favourite Chun Li and dangerous pretty-boy Balrog is a masterpiece of high-tension editing worthy of Alfred Hitchcock, so well cut that only when it's over do you realize how little actual violence you saw. A TV series, live action film, and another video release followed, but none of them matched up to Sugii's object lesson in how to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Much better then the live action version.

[Blinking_Fish · 8/10 · 29 February 2000]

Now this is what the live action street fighter should have looked like. At least in this movie the characters stories are right (most of them). The fight scenes in this movie are really good. Especially the bloody fight between Vega and Chun-Li, for the most part of that Chun-Li is dodging Vega's claw as KMFDM is playing in the background. The soundtrack was changed for the dubbed version, adding bands songs that we know or don't know so well for a few scenes but leaving most of the film score the same during most fight scenes. The songs actually fit with what's going on. The only one that I think was playing in a fight scene was Ultra, and that went really good matching the fast paced action that was happening on screen. The only thing that bugs me a bit is that part of the shower scene was cut. It was a scene that showed Chun-Li's breasts for about 5 seconds. It's not the fact that the nudity was cut out that bugs me it's the fact that I don't like it when I movie gets cut and I find out about it knowing that if I was in another country it could see it. The movie was great overall and anyone who wants to see a good Martial arts film should see it.

My review 8.

Everything you could ever wish for in a Street Fighter-anime

[action-6 · 25 February 2004]

"Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie" is an anime that packs everything you could ever wish for in a Street Fighter-anime, and it is everything that the movie starring Jean-Claude Van Damme should have been. I think of myself as a fan of the glorious Street Fighter videogames, and especially the original Street Fighter II videogame. This movie brings you brilliant martial-art-sequences and it really captures the atmosphere of the videogame. Pretty much all of SFII`s characters appear in this movie, and although Ryu and Ken are the main characters, every character from the game that is present here gets to fight. An excellent musical score is also worth noticing. This is in my opinion the finest pure martial-art-anime available today. This movie`s intro, where Ryu fights Sagat, is probably the best intro ever for an anime, and it really makes you expect an extraordinary film, and this movie more than delivers. Everyone with an interest in action-anime will love this, and it is completely perfect for the fans of the videogame-series. So, if you fancy watching an anime where you get to see old favorites such as Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li go head-to-head in explosive battles against villains such as Balrog, Vega and Bison, then this is your movie.

10/10

What do you see beyond your Fist??

[xamtaro · 7/10 · 22 April 2009]

Many fans will argue that THIS is THE Street Fighter movie. The prefect adaptation of a popular fighting game franchise.

Is it good? yes. Perfect? Hardly.

Lets start with the Good stuff. 1)The animation. This anime, along with a number of anime movies in the late 80s to 90s break free from the stereotype of anime utilizing more animation short cuts and lower frame rate than western animation. The frame rate here is exceedingly smooth, it almost looks rotoscoped. Characters aren't stiff and are always in motion with expression in the faces and body posture portrayed very nicely in the art.

2)The art. One would think that with a higher frame rate and smooth animation, the detail of the art would suffer. This is not the case here. The artwork is beautiful and finely detailled. Shadows and blacks are heavy lending to very nice gritty look and feel for the show. And the painted backgrounds are works of art on their own. The character designs are true to the game and pleasing to the eye, though some like Guile and Balrog tend to border on unrealistic.

3)The fights. Beautifully choreographed and realistically played out, the fights are the main attraction here. 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. Characters act and react to their opponents like how real fighters would and unlike other fighting anime like Dragonball, special powers are not thrown around. In fact, special powers are very rarely used in this movie and only as a last resort. Most of the time, we have 1 on 1 duels that look better than some big budget kung fu movies.

The Bad 1)The story Weak and clichéd, the story in this movie teeters between juvenile and logic failing. A power hungry dictator capturing the world's greatest fighters to turn them into his own army, seeks out one particular fighter just cos his "power level" is higher than the others. This just reeks of typical shonen anime like Dragonball or Naruto. The story plays out very straight forward with no hint of intrigue or build up, and hearkens back to the cheesy spy movies of the 60s with evil crime empires and giant sky ships.

2)The characters Aside from Ryu, most of the characters are 1 dimensional stereotypes of different cultures or races. Perhaps that comes from trying to cram in too many characters into one movie, something many game adaptations suffer from. The motives of the other characters are never explained or only briefly touched on and they are never developed as the movie progresses. Even Ryu gets little development. The there are appearances by Zangeif, Blanka, Sagat etc who seem to be just there to make the game fans happy. They lend nothing too important to the plot, especially Zangeif and Blanka whose appearance is totally non-essential to the story and could have been cut out, that time and money used to actually further the plot.

3)The scripting and dialogue Cheesy lines and over the top speeches abound in this movie. Thankfully, unlike other anime, characters don't talk to each other and spew lengthy monologues in the middle of fights. Honestly, i preferred the English version to the Japanese version. The Japanese version is a lot more over the top wheras the English version has more realistic, subdued acting and some lines are changed to make them less cheesy. Plus it is more believable to have the majority of the characters which are non-Japanese, speak English. Not to mention that the animators never bothered to properly sync the lip movement to the Japanese dialogue in the first place.

Overall 7/10 A greatly enjoyable movie that captures the spirit of the games and likely to please fan and newcomer alike. Aside from the simplistic story and cookie cutter characters, the animation and fight choreography definitely sets the bench mark for fighting genre anime.

One of the greatest animated features ever!

[Movie Nuttball · 10/10 · 10 July 2004]

I am a big fan of the Street Fighter II video games. If anyone wanted an alternate source for the title other than the game and the live action movie then this is your great alternative! All of the classic characters are in it! M. Bison, Ryu, Ken, Blanka, Zangief, T. Hawk, Chun-Li, Sagat, Vega, Guile, E. Honda, Fei Long, Dhalsim, Cammy, DeeJay, Vega, and Balrog! In My opinion all of the characters look exactly like they do in the video game. The male characters look super and the female fighters look absolutely gorgeous! The animation is so crisp and clean! I have read that are two versions but I have seen the American version. This film may not be suitable for youngsters because of the minor language such as "hell" and "damn" and blood coming from the characters' wounds. Another is a very surprising scene where Chun-Li is taking a shower and then she puts on a night gown type shirt and some underwear and when she fights Vega you see this and even though that this may be uncalled for in an animated feature but I thought it was cute and animated very realistically. More on that in a second. Another thing was the music. Really music though out the entire film! M. Bison and his men were really introduced properly. It was like this was a real movie. One thing to explain is when Chun-Li was in her apartment minding her own business after she got out of the shower and Vega just came barging in. I really liked the fight between Chun-Li and Vega! That scene was really animated well. Another is near the end when M. Bison, Ryu, and Ken are fighting. I believe that the fight scenes in this feature are some of the greatest fight scenes I've seen and I'm commenting on an animated movie! The fighting in the animated feature is simply amazing and I really liked how realistic everything was! If you like the Street Fighter II video games and the Street Fighter live action movie with Jean Claude-Van Damme and the late great Raul Julia (which by the way I think Julia's role as M. Bison was arguably his greatest ever!) then I strongly recommend that you watch this movie now!

This SF movie should've been in theatres!

[serpent-4 · 7/10 · 9 May 1999]

If movie justice existed, this movie would've been in theatres instead of that disastrous movie version. It has action, drama, even a bit of humour. Although I could only see the dubbed version, it was still excellent. The main characters are portrayed well, much better than your typical action flick. The only (possibly) sorry part is how some characters are given bit parts just so they could be there, this does nothing to detract from the movie. I enjoyed every minute of it. Let's hope movies like these encourage more people to check out anime. The only reason someone might not like it would be because their favourite character wasn't given enough screentime!

Everything the movie wasn't

[CuriosityKilledShawn · 10/10 · 22 April 2001]

In my opinion the movie didn't exist. This Animated version of the Streetfighter story is a zillion times as good. The characters are stronger and although there are quite a few of them they are all developed enough for us to sympathise/hate them. It seems as if the makers of this film paid extra attention to every area of production in order to make a film that couldn't possibly be improved upon. They almost succeeded.

Unfortunately I saw the "Americanised" version of the film which replaces an awesome musical score with grunge rock music and cuts out Chun Li's nudity before her fight with Vega.

Speaking of Vega, doesn't he remind of Jason Voorhees. He was definitely a cool character. They all were apart from M. Bison. He is the only fault the film has because for a central villain. He doesn't do much apart from stand statue still and say in a very deep (that MUST make him evil) voice that he is superior to everyone else and that they are all "weak pathetic fools" and that his henchmen must "seize them". Boring. It is such a shame that a great movie had such a lame villain.

But it's the set (?) pieces that make this film stand out from other Anime movies. The fight on the wing of the plane is ultra cool. Ken Masters is just driving thru the Pacific Northwest countryside when this huge plane comes out of nowhere and he is suddenly fighting M. Bison on top of it. The final battle outside Honda's shack in the mountains is also very cool. I reckon Honda is my fave character.

The ending was a little suspicion tho. Just what is the deal with that truck? Anyways, the Streetfighter franchise knows it's full potential and I recommend that you check out all of the DVDS that are available out there.

Behold a decent video game movie

[Mr-Fusion · 6/10 · 23 July 2015]

I haven't played a Street Fighter game in twenty years, so I didn't approach "The Animated Movie" expecting spot-on character treatments, backstories, etc. The story on this thing's fairly nonsensical, everyone's either a mercenary or government op. But it does benefit from great production values; this looks damn good. And no one comes to this expecting anything deep, I mean it's full of 'roided out physiques squaring off against each other. It's whether or not the movie delivers on the fight scenes, which are top-notch (especially the tense Vega/Chun Li face-off). I imagine that, were I a more devoted fan of the games, I would've given a rip about the story. But again, fights and quality animation are the focus. My only gripe with the U.S. version are the songs, none of which fit (Korn, seriously?).

Scratch that, I've got one more gripe. Internet lore tells of an extended Chun Li shower scene, the juicy parts of which were missing here. Manga Entertainment apparently forgot that "sex and violence" is a package deal. You put that T&A back where it belongs! Are we really pretending teens aren't this movie's target audience?

6/10

Amazing look at how manga is done right.

[darknoxuk · 10/10 · 24 February 2023]

One of the greatest manga's ever made with the English version having the best soundtrack ever heard in a manga especially during that period. An absolute classic and a must watch to see how its really done. This showcases all the major characters in the series as well as some of the lesser known ones with a few easter eggs thrown in here and there. The portrayal of M bison is particularly awesome with his voice acting and the charisma of his character really shining through. I will always fondly remember this movie as being a true example of what a manga can be when done with care and respect.

A Great Movie for Fans And Newcomers Alike

[princesskodi · 7/10 · 8 April 2023]

Well you don't have to be familiar with the lore of the games to enjoy this movie, it would definitely enhance it and clear up any confusion. The action scenes definitely make this movie feel somewhat believable. It's well choreographed, and well illustrated. Another place where this movie shines is in its writing. Now don't get me wrong, sometimes the dialogue sounds so far in left field it doesn't even remotely sound like a normal conversation. But some of the conversations between Chun-li and Guile are great and they seem so cute together! My biggest complaint is the unnecessary panning shots of unimportant scenes, and unimportant fights. And by unimportant fights I mean fights that don't have enough time or story relevance to be impactful. But over all I enjoyed it! It's a good movie for it's time and sense I knew the lore of the main characters I feel like they did a great job staying faithful to the series! 7/10.

Awesome

[cmandrade82 · 9/10 · 13 December 2018]

Why isn't this movie on digital or blu ray to buy I need it.

An action packed, though weak take on the franchise

[Comiccritic83 · 6/10 · 20 September 2005]

9/20/2005

WARNING! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS! IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS FILM, THEN PLEASE DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING REVIEW!

Still with me? Good.

Let me just say "Street Fighter 2" has always been one of the greatest video games I have ever played. Ever. To me, it is even better than the Mortal Kombat franchise. But whenever the Street Fighters get TV shows or films, there always has to be something wrong with it.

"Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie" has a pretty good story idea going for it and good action. Lots of it. I mean, the film even opens with a fight between Ryu and Sagat! It's quite nice, too, with shots of a crack of lightning in the night sky and the wind blowing on the grassy ground in between footage of kicks and punches between the fighters. Ryu soon gets the upper hand, literally, by doing the famous "Dragon Punch" that knocks Sagat down. Sagat gets mad. Blue electricity comes out of nowhere and to Ryu's hands. Sagat charges at Ryu, roaring in anger. Ryu makes a "Hadouken" fireball with the electricity and tosses it at Sagat. Needless to say, the fight's over.

Later, after an assassination with a brainwashed Cammy (who, while she is a very cool character, has a brief cameo), Chun Li of Interpol reveals the evil Shadowlaw organization is brainwashing fighters into doing their bidding. Chun Li works with Guile of the U.S. Special Forces on finding Bison, though he's not too happy with it at first. The head of Shadowlaw, M. Bison, wants to find Ryu because of his impressive fighting level (over 3,000!) and because he beat his main henchman, Sagat. The problem: Ryu travels all over the place to test his skills and can't be found.

Bison isn't happy with Guile and Chun Li messing with his plans, so he later sends one of his other henchmen, Vega, to kill her at her home. Chun Li wins, but is badly hurt from the fight. Meanwhile, Ryu's old friend and former fellow student, Ken Masters, is waiting for his rematch with Ryu to test his skills. Ken is wealthy, has a lovely fiancée - and becomes Bison's target to replace Ryu. Elsewhere, after witnessing a fight with Dhalsim, Ryu befriends sumo Edmond Honda and stays with him for a while. Guile eventually finds Ryu and tells him of Ken's abduction. Bison arrives with his other henchman, Balrog (don't worry, he's the last one), and a brainwashed Ken. Balrog fights Honda and Balrog loses. Guile takes on Bison, but loses. Ryu fights his brainwashed friend, snaps him out of Bison's control and, after Ryu takes on Bison alone at first, a wounded Ken returns to help Ryu in the last fight.

However, despite cool fights and a wonderful, often beautiful musical score, the movie has a lot of weak points. The non-stop action is fun, but since the PG-13 version clocks in at 94 minutes, it's a short movie, which means short fights. Lots of them. And also lots of cameos of the characters from the game. But we don't even find out how they learned their fantastic fighting moves and powers! And most characters get little back story, if any.

For example, Sagat is a cool, tough evil fighter, but he gets one lousy fight. There are cameos from some of the coolest characters in the game, but they get brief fights and no explanation of how they learned their powers or where they come from. And while the brief fights can be cool, but most are just annoying, like the Zangief and Blanka fight. The characters are mentioned by name and share a brief fight, which ends when Blanka electrocutes Zangief in an unintentionally comical manner, but that's all we see of the characters and know of them. Other cool things that should have been further explored in the plot, though, are merely mentioned and briefly shown - such as the death of Chun Li's father from Bison's hand and Bison taunting Guile with how he killed his partner. But they don't get into the common hatred Guile and Chun Li have to Bison. Heck, Guile doesn't care much for Chun Li till she nearly dies fighting Vega.

Speaking of deaths, we don't know if any characters die in the film! Vega seemingly dies after the fight with Chun Li. Bison sends Sagat to kill him, if he isn't dead already, and Cammy, who has been in custody with no memory after the assassination. Zangief could be killed after being shocked by Blanka. But since most characters get cameos and underdeveloped roles, we don't know what's going on here. And don't even get me started on the corny ending.

This film is no Street Fighter 2. Heck, it's not even "Street Fighter". Some may have hated it, but I prefer the live action version over this film. Why? Because underdeveloped character development, brief lame fights and a weak story doesn't excuse the fact this is film, while good and entertaining, is certainly no Street Fighter 2.

Faithful to the game

[roadbytheriver · 5/10 · 22 March 2024]

I can say that it is completely faithful to the game, the characters and their actions. Despite the weak storytelling, they handled Ryu and Ken's friendship well. The fight between Ryu and Sagat in the opening scene makes an impressive start. The fight between Chun Li and Vega was interesting. Ryu and Ken's last fight against Bison can be called the best. The fights are short and some characters have little role or story. Since anime productions mostly satisfy fans of the games, they can add this movie to their to-watch list. There could have been more fighting and action. However, overall it wasn't boring. My favorite move in this game, the hurricane kick, was fun to watch a few times.

Good game-to-movie, good movie alone

[dtm666 · 20 December 2000]

When I first bought this film, I bought it for two reasons: it's based on the popular video game (of which I play often) and I wanted to start off my own collection of anime films. I probably would have trashed it right away because the live-action film version of the video game wasn't that great, but after watching my newly bought anime, I actually enjoyed it. The people who made SF2TAM managed to keep the movie faithful to the video game it was based upon and managed to fit every character into it in one shape or another. The characters themselves are portrayed the way they should be and the fights were well drawn. Worth watching if you're a fan of the series and even if you're not, do watch this film. It's a good movie on its own right.

Nearly everything a Street Fighter fan could hope for

[Hero-2 · 7/10 · 8 November 1998]

After the VERY disappointing release of the motion picture (ugh) I was completely certain the anime would do the series justice. It does. Most of the characters are there even the newer ones, surprisingly, and who else to center on than the favourite Ryu?

The storyline is very, very well done. All the characters are done well, especially Ryu, and to a lesser extent Ken. The animation is very smooth, and the fight scenes are outright amazing. The characters actually fight like they do in the video games, special moves and all. The dialogue wasn't so great, and the ending was good up until the last 10 seconds, but I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys Street Fighter II.

Hits Hard

[rr-56811 · 8/10 · 31 March 2021]

Viewed on: Amazon Prime Video.

Adaptation of the popular fighting game franchise of the same name, it follows a wandering warrior known as Ryu (the "face" of the franchise) as he's hunted down by the villainous M. Bison (series long villain & usual endboss in the games, here he heads off a terrorist organization known as Shadaloo that is capturing powerful "street fighters" & brainwashing them into supersoldiers). Interpol & the U. S. military (represented by series regular good guys Chun-Li & Guile) involve themselves by trying to warn Ryu before he's endangered.

It doesn't have a deep narrative, and it probably won't appeal to anyone not already familiar with the games, but if you do fall into the fan base there's a lot to like here. Ryu's wandering nature provides ample opportunities for most (if not all) of the playable characters of the time to make an appearance, most of which are involved in at least one scuffle. The fights themselves (as well as the true to the game character design) are expertly animated & detailed, with weighty, crunchy impacts that hit hard. The infamous Chun-Li shower scene is another plus (& uncensored on my viewing platform of choice), and is directly followed up by the most tense confrontation in the entire film.

Fan-service! With a capital F

[TheHande · 6/10 · 17 August 2006]

People would like to think that the Anime Film version of Street Fighter II - The Fighting Game is far more true to its origins than the live Hollywood version starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Well, we have every character from the Super-edition present, many of them perform their signature moves such as Hadoken etc., Blanka and Charlie are not the same person and they stuck to the original character back-stories.

Is it more true to its origins? Yes. Is it a better movie? Nope.

Here's why. Although the Anime had a lot more fight-scenes and on average they were quite impressive, the movie has no plot to speak of. The anime reeks of fan-service, starting with bit-appearances by Fei Long, Cammie, DeeJay, Dhalsim, Zangief, Blanka and T.Hawk and truth-be-told Sagat didn't get to do anything cool either. Plus, the film contains a shower-scene with Chun-Li where the director made a point of showing off her "womanhood" as often as possible.

By comparison, the Hollywood film at least had a plot and was rather funny. This film has that "anime-magic" about it, but is really nothing more than a theatrical "TV-special".

I loved it and I'm not even a fan of anime

[josiahferret · 8/10 · 23 July 2019]

Cheesy dialogue, mild stereotypes and a few one dimensional characters are really the only qualms I have with this movie. Not being a fan of anime some of the character expressions looked kind of weird to me but that's just a personal thing and it didn't hinder the rest of the viewing experience. Character expressions aside, I loved the visual style of the movie and the design of the characters was bursting with creativity and effectively brought to life set pieces that captured the backdrops of the video game in the very best way. I also loved the fight scenes. The music accompanying them worked fantastically, and they were no lazy, annoying cuts. It's clear the creators of this film actually cared and weren't just trying to cash in on the street fighter fandom by half-heartedly throwing together a horrible movie and giving it worldwide theatre release. I can recommend this to both fans of the game and also those who love a good martial arts movie

This is far from a classic movie but is fun for fans of the video game serie

[kevin_robbins · 7/10 · 13 December 2021]

Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (1994) is a movie I recently watched on Tubi and follows Bison as he searches the planet for warriors to join his army. As he encounters warriors in various militaries, fight tournaments and other circumstances that require hand to hand combat, Bison either recruits them or kills them. When he discovers Ken and Ryu he quickly determines these are two fighters like he's never seen before.

This movie is directed by Gisaburô Sugii (Street Fighter II: The Series) and contains the voices of Kôjiro Shimizu (Be-bop High School), Miki Fujitani (Fireworks), Masane Tsukayama (Ninja Slayer) and Jôji Nakata (The Garden of Sinners).

The storyline delivery in this movie was entertaining and fun to follow. The animation is classic early 90s and delivered the characters well. The voices were fairly well selected though I will say the writing for Ken & Ryu was inconsistent at times. The fights are awesome with some being better than others. The ending is excellent with some outstanding fight scenes with Bison, Ken and Ryu.

Overall this is far from a classic movie but is fun for fans of the video game series. I would score this a 7/10 and recommend seeing it once.

Video game adaptations can be good!

[ericstevenson · 9/10 · 4 October 2016]

While I haven't exactly seen that many of them, I keep hearing over and over that anything based on a video game is bad. This was a wonderful exception and it is without a doubt one of the best things ever made based on a video game! It's just great to see all of these wonderful classic characters together and looking and acting just like they do in the games. I admit that I am not that big a fan of the "Street Fighter" series, but seeing as how it's been referenced so many times, it's very hard for me to not be familiar with it. My only complaint is that some of the appearances of the characters don't mean that much.

I have yet to see any other Street Fighter adaptations at all, which mostly can't be better than this. Chun-Li is probably the best here. She is indeed represented as a powerful woman. She's also smart, funny and just enjoyable to watch. While I don't like the idea of her being taken out of commission halfway through the movie, it doesn't matter that much. I appreciate how realistic this was represented. The animation is absolutely gorgeous in this and it perfectly represents the characters. M. Bison is possibly the best one, if only because he's presented just how a villain should be, strong, stern, and scary. This more or less featured him trying to take over the world ("Of course!"). A pity the bad live-action movie came later this year. It still doesn't tarnish a wonderfully colorful film. ***1/2

Chun-Li vs. Vega

[pknair · 7/10 · 7 May 2004]

I love watching certain scenes from this animated romp through videogame-land. Frankly, you don't often see better fight scenes than the hotel fight between Chun-Li and Vega. Amazing!

The film isn't as bloody or gory as you'd expect (the level of gore being probably along the same lines as Batman: Mask of the Phantasm). That being said, neither was the video game. They did a good job of creating a storyline which didn't try and pack too much in, although I get the feeling some of the work got lost in the translation.

There are some other classic quotes in the film, many centering around E. Honda and Ryu. All in all, an entertaining film, even if you're not a fan of the video games, however, it's still not for everyone. Really, unless you're a fan of cheezy anime, you may not want to watch this movie. Still, it ranks as one of my favourites in the genre. Much better than the Tekken or Battle Arena: Toshinden movies.

Instead of wasting your time on the live-action Van Damme movie (poor Roshan Seth and Raul Julia should never have been associated with trash like that), check out this fun little film.

The best video game adaption ever made. Old school anime!

[aaronmoran-84427 · 10/10 · 20 March 2020]

Video games have a really bad track record when it comes to movie adaptions, especially live action, but thankfully anime gives us fans what we want. Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie is what you want in a film about the greatest and most important fighting game ever made.

Following the story of the rivalry and friendship between former fellow students Ryu and Ken and how they've carried on with their lives. Ryu becomes a traveller, seeking to understand and grow as a martial artist. Ken on the other hand becomes a greatly successful champion, with a rich lifestyle but feels unfulfilled. Meanwhile Chun-Li, a Interpol agent teams up with US airforce Captain Guile to seek out and destroy Shadowlaw, an international crime organisation led by the formidable M.Bison, who is creating super soldiers and wishes Ryu to join.

Brilliantly animated, fantastic fight scenes (in particular the Chun-Li vs Vega matchup), superb soundtrack and is as slick and entertaining now as much as in 1994. Whether you're a anime/martial arts/street fighter fan, you're in for a treat. Pure old school anime!

My First Anime...

[omega1 · 7/10 · 10 September 2000]

Not entirely my favorite but the style, fluidity, and detail of it were enough to make me fall in love with Anime as a whole. I revisited it a few weeks ago when I found out a friend of a friend had the DVD and though it still isn't my favorite, it gets a special place in my "movies I like" list because it's one of the few based-on-video-game movies that does the game justice (much the opposite of the live-action one, something that should have been attacked by MST3K).

Without question, still one of the best pieces of animation ever produced.

[Nishiko · 24 October 1999]

I was one of the many Street Fighter fans that left the theatre in withered disappointment after seeing the live action movie. One would have thought that, after several incarnations of this classic videogame, they'd at least get the storyline right. It was a massive letdown to see them mangle all the characters, too. So, when I heard there was an animated movie being released, I literally jumped with excitement; there was no way an anime would (or could) screw up as badly, after all. To my delighted surprise, it not only didn't screw up, it brought each character from 'Super Street Fighter 2: The New Challengers' to life.

I've heard people complain about it lacking plot and depth; IMHO, these people have missed the entire point of the movie. The main protagonist, Ryu, is a wandering warrior seeking to improve his fighting skills by constantly testing himself against other fighters in different parts of the world. He is an uncomplicated, unpretentious person with a gentle soul and the heart of a dragon (no pun intended), with no notion of the destiny that lies before him. He and his fellow trainee/best friend Ken parted ways ere they could settle who was the better fighter. The way this part of their fates was handled is well done; and the introduction of each supporting character within this deceptively simple storyline kept me rooting for more, with the buildup to the final minutes masterfully accomplished.

There is no debate whatsoever that both the art and animation in this movie is nothing short of amazing; every movement is smooth and clearly visible, from the flexing of Ryu's toes as he takes a step to every single punch and kick thrown in a fight. The music and dialogue, both in the original and the dubbed versions, is quite suitable (there has yet to be a soundtrack for the dub, pity), and although the dialogue at the end seems anti-climactic, what a setup for a sequel!

An elegantly simple story that captures the essence of the Way of the Warrior personified. I'm still watching it happily more than four years later.