Street Fighter: The Worst Movie of 2009

[Andy Chalk]

Street Fighter: The Worst Movie of 2009

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/].

What do you say about a movie like the 2009 edition of Street Fighter? If you're Rotten Tomatoes, you say, "The combination of a shallow plot and miscast performers renders Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li a perfectly forgettable video game adaptation." And then you give it a Tomatometer score of four percent. That score actually ties it with the "crass, poorly-made" Miss March, but The Legend of Chun-Li ekes out the top position by virtue of a slightly lower average rating: 2.4/10 version 2.5/10.

The movie managed to gross only Street Fighter [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0891592/business] travesty starring Jean Claude Van Damme, which has a Tomatometer score of 13 percent - still abysmal, but at least it's in the double digits.

So congratulations to Kristen Kreuk, Chris Klein and everyone else who had a hand in turning Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li into the year's most unwatchable piece of crap. Your kudos are well earned indeed. And for those who can't get enough of this sort of thing, Rotten Tomato's full list of the worst films of 2009 can be seen at rottentomatoes.com [http://www.rottentomatoes.com/guides/rtawards/moldy/].


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[vikeif]

... Wow I'm sudden stricken with a bad case of Deja Vu.

 

[Jared]

Cant say im surprised by that...never saw the film and by all opinions. I dont want to...

 

[rockingnic]

Um... surprise?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

You've no idea how much my heart jumped at the idea of a Chun Li film. And then dessicated away into this cold, lifeless shell as I saw it unfold.

They told me that nothing would ever be worse than the original Streetfighter movie.

They were so wrong...

Edit: Looking back on 2008 though...when Paris Hilton's film could only scratch #10, we've had a pretty decent year. Four films with 0%, yikes.

 

[DigitalSushi]

the movie with JCVD is so bad its good, it knew it was rubbish... think about it, Guile the all american hero is played by a Belgium beedcake and Cammie the British super girl is played by Kylie Minogue.

This one well I've not seen it, and I don't want too.

 

[TheGreenManalishi]

Roll on the Metal Gear movie!

*snigger*

 

[Nincompoop]

Street Fighter: Legend of Chun Li was a great movie. Better than the first. That's not really an accomplishment, but I really, really, really enjoyed it. The action was great, and... Well. The action was great. That's all you need. But to be honest, the rest was fine anyways.

And Bison was so totally much cooler than in the old movie.

To recap, the old was bad, this was better, but not just better, it was great.

 

[Dudeakoff]

travesty

starring Jean Claude Van Damme

Surely that's an oxymoron?

 

[Lord Beautiful]

At least the first one was fun to watch. This was just abominable.

 

[Armored Prayer]

Oh, Man that brings up horrible memories of that movie that I unfortunately watched.

It was just...bad.

 

[GrinningManiac]

I didn't even know this film EXISTED, let alone how bad it was

That might explain the poor sales...

y'know, it's hard to sell a movie when NOONE KNOWS ABOUT IT

 

[Andy Chalk]

Surely that's an oxymoron?

Hey man, I'm a fan - I think Universal Soldier is grossly underrated - but even I have to admit that JCVD drops the ball once in awhile.

 

[Crunchy English]

Street Fighter Movies always suck, and I have to believe that's because no Hollywood writer has ever actually been able to "piece it together". If there is a single, all-encompassing source for Street Fighter Canon, I've never seen it. (If you have, link it here please.) So your only recourse is to actually do a little leg work and piece it together. That or, I dunno, do something crazy like bring Capcom in on it since they know it all anyway.

But Hollywood writers would probably bristle at being told that they can't tell a better story than one that slowly evolved from a series of fighting video games. That would mean, in essence, that video games can tell a better story than movies without even trying, even in a genre where the story is, at the end of the day, completely irrelevant.

For instance, in Street Fighter 4, they gave you a character called Abel, he's French, he's a soldier. He's a nice guy, he's incredible fun to watch fight in a "grab/toss" style that's easy and cheap to recreate on screen and he has freaking amnesia. Cliched? Sure, but what better way to drop us into a new world and have us learn as our protagonist does?

Also, why does Ryu always get passed over for top billing in these things? The guy deals with demons, prophets, and lives solely to fight. He simplifies things a great deal.

Or, and this is really crazy, why not center the whole thing on a "fighting tournament"? Y'know, like the tournament that happens in all the games? Forgo the idea of "character growth" altogether. Film 90 minutes of thinly-connected action sequences and super-powers. Worked in the last couple Tony Jaa movies I watched.

Instead, we get a movie focused on Guile. Why? Because he's American and we're aiming for an American audience. Ok, so why did you cast a Belgium superstar with a heavy accent? And then why did you rewrite the two most heroic characters as arms dealers for no reason? And why in the name of all things game did you make Bison the most likeable character in the movie?

And finally, we get a movie about a chinese secret agent. Starring the least chinese person possible. Where she fights a person who wears a mask to protect his beauty. Except you made him ugly, and if I'm not mistaken, Irish.

I'm way past "rant territory" here, but these movies show Hollywood as a not only lazy, but also too stubborn to recognize when they've been upstaged by video games. And they were going to try a Bioshock movie? Seriously? You couldn't get Street Fighter right, but you think you have the right to interpret Bioshock on film? Screw you.

 

[Jharry5]

I've not seen the newest one and I'm not sure I want to.

At least the first one was watchable(ish)... the new one sounds like it really isn't.