Though many Street Fighter fans would shriek to hear it, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li wasn't a terrible movie. It was bad in parts, but it had some merit as well. When compared to the original Street Fighter movie starring Van Damme and Raul Julia, this new addition to the Video Game Movie genre suddenly seems like an instant win, but, most things look nice next to wet cat shit.
Before dissecting the negative, some solid, good choices made by the producers and crew should be examined.
Casting Kristin Kreuk as Chun-Li was a very solid choice. Nobody who would ever be eligible to appear on the screen (read: has an "in" to Hollywood) looks even 90% as close to a young Chun-Li as does she. No faults of this movie were wholly her own, and she should appear in more movies, very soon.
Casting Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog was a good choice, Robin Shou as Gen, really good, and even Neal McDonough as Bison was not completely terrible.
However, it became completely obvious that Chris Klein should never appear in another movie. Watching any scene with him in it was an uncomfortable and shameful event. He is easily the most unwatchable actor I have ever encountered, and this performance only paralleled in horrific over-acting by Dominic West in Punisher: War Zone (I hope they both either stop making movies or die tragic deaths). How can you be given as cool a character as Nash and completely blow it?
Also, highly disappointing was Vega, who, if you've seen the Anime movie of Street Fighter II or played any of the video games, has an awesome persona and an incredible fight with Chun Li. Not in this movie. No dramatic fight, just an underinspired roof chase and really lame fight. What was that mask? Who is this guy? Never cast him again for anything, please... it's understandable to go for the dollars the crowd of idiots who like the Black Eyed Peas, or maybe giving a hollywood friend a role, but, for the love of God this guy sucks a dick as Vega. Whoever made the mask should get a new job, too.
Other cringe moments included the spinning bird kick multiple opponent disarmament in the night club, and many of the plot decisions that seemingly make the rest of the Street Fighter series pretty much impossible to pull off with any semblance of accuracy to the original games or even anime series.
The scenes between Gen and Chun-Li were actually well done. Also impressive was the portrayal of Bison as a true-to-the-game hardcore badguy with no remorse. It's very unfortunate that he won't likely be back for another movie. Work much harder on fight choreography in a movie called "Street Fighter". More fights would have been welcome, as well, honestly, and less unnecessary gunplay. Why do people like Brandon Lee get shot to death on set but turds like Chris Klein somehow survive?
Overall, the movie outdid expectations. Mediocrity is the best we could have hoped for from a video game movie. When will Hollywood learn to involve real fans in these projects from the ground up, and to stop handing roles out as favors to friends?
It would be nice if they made more Street Fighter movies, but they need to learn from the mistakes of this installment, or those movies will all be straight to video.