Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

Theatrical Release Date: 2009 02 27 (USA)

UPC: 024543588764

Studio: 20th Century Fox

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:null

Summary: As the Street Fighter saga celebrates its 20th anniversary, fight fans are invited to follow along with fearsome fighter Chun-Li (Smallville's Kristin Kreuk) as she faces off against a series of formidable opponents in this feature adaptation of the popular video-game franchise directed by Exit Wounds' Andrzej Bartkowiak. Previously adapted for the screen in the 1994 Jean-Claude Van Damme film, the series continues to thrive as eager gamers across the globe go toe-to-toe to determine who is the most skilled and powerful warrior in the video-game universe. Michael Clarke Duncan, Chris Klein, Rick Yune, and Neal McDonough co-star in the 20th Century Fox production. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Category: Action

Features: Disc one:
Unrated cut audio commentary by producers Patrick Aiello and Ashok Amritraj, and actors Neal McDonough and Chris Klein
Street Fighter: in-movie enlightenment trivia track
Deleted scenes
Marvel vs. Capcom 2 sneak peek
Becoming a Street Fighter featurette
Chun-Li: bringing the legend to life featurette
Fox movie: channel presents making a scene
3 Galleries: game-to-film comparisons, Storyboards, production stills
Disc 3:
Bonus full-length animated origins comic movie

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 06/30/2009

Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Cinemascope

Audio: DHMA null, DD2 Dolby Digital Stereo

Runtime: 97 Minutes

Sides: 2

Number of Discs: 2

Language(s) English

Subtitles: Spanish,French

Region: Blu-ray region A (North America, Central America, South America, Japan, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia)

Jeremy Wheeler

There's something special about this underwhelming mess of a Street Fighter reboot that many cinematic cheese-lovers will find very appetizing. The fact is that The Legend of Chun-Li is not at all a good flick, but it's filled with so much cornball ineptitude that one would think some rather broken mad movie genius was behind it. Broken, because for all the movie's unintentional laughs, there are plenty more dull moments and barely inspired fight scenes to yawn at in between chuckling at poor voice-overs and hammy performances. In its own way, it is a fine follow-up to the orange-haired Van Damme original in that they're both bonkers, but while the 1994 effort took the cartoonish route, this reinvention tries hard to find a balance between nonsense and fairly grounded dramatics. Sadly, it's this kind of bipolarity that undoes the flick, even through the eyes of a bad movie lover. Simply put, if you are going to go full-tilt bananas, then, by all means, commit to it. Largely, the big winner's circle in this stinker has to start with Chris Klein, the American Pie doofus who, at some point, thought it'd be a great idea to switch from his sensitive Keanu-clone persona to bootleg Jack Nicholson. From his first onscreen entrance to the finale of him leaping from a digital explosion, Klein raises the bar of suave overacting to a delicious degree. Also on the chopping block is lead Kristin Kreuk, who handles the combat scenes with vigor, but supplies a sloppy voice-over meant to connect the dots, yet only ends up connecting the laughs. Finally, fulfilling the trifecta of sorry performances is Neal McDonough as Bison, who's a far cry from the wide-eyed Raul Julia incarnation of years past, but thankfully, he made sure to give the character a junkshop Irish accent just to spice up the stupidity. Through it all, one wishes that the filmmakers had just decided to go all-out crazy (? la DOA: Dead or Alive), or just not at all. To be sure, Asian audiences and gaming nuts will be sorely disappointed in how little of what they know and love ended up on the screen. Instead, they get a modern action film that at its best is a ho-hum distraction that doesn't seem to know how silly it comes off. Fight scenes, while admirable for shaking off the shaky-cam aesthetic of their big-screen brethren, neither inspire nor find a good balance between martial arts and FX-laden power punches. Instead, the film is just there. Sleep-inducing at times and giddily fun at others, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li needs to step up its game if it dares survive another installment. Hopefully the producers will realize just what kind of crummy movie gold the new incarnation of Chris Klein really is -- or they'll just simply do the right thing and hire a talented Asian director to finally do justice to what its built-in audience wants to see, in place of what they think general audiences will flock to. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Ashok Amritraj  Producer 
Andrzej Bartkowiak  Director 
Stephen Endelman  Composer (Music Score) 
Patrick Aiello  Producer 
Justin Marks  Screenwriter 
Haruhiro Tsujimoto  Executive Producer 
Keiji Inafune  Executive Producer 
Toshihiro Tokumaru  Executive Producer 
Kristin Kreuk  Actor 
Chris Klein  Actor 
Neal McDonough  Actor 
Robin Shou  Actor 
Moon Bloodgood  Actor 
Josie Ho  Actor 
Taboo  Actor 
Michael Clarke Duncan  Actor 
Edmund Chen  Actor 
Cheng Pei-Pei  Actor 

Country: Canada,Japan,India,USA