Rating: 1 Pulse
Starring Kristen Kruek, Chris Klein, Neal McDonough
Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak
Rated PG-13
Hot on the heels of the highly anticipated release of Street Fighter IV comes a movie nobody expected: another film adaptation of Capcom’s acclaimed video game series. Second maybe to Double Dragon, Street Fighter: The Movie (1994) may be one of the crappiest films of the crappiest genres (video game adaptations) of all time. Even without Jean-Claude, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li sadly lives up to its predecessor’s incredibly low standards.
Asian impersonator Kristen Kruek (“Smallville”) plays Chun-Li, the daughter of a wealthy businessman who teaches her tai-chi when she’s not practicing piano. One evening, her father is kidnapped by Bison (McDonough), an evil, wealthier businessman for reasons that are either never explained or too inane to remember. Either way, this act and a mysterious anonymous gift, lead Chun-Li to Hong Kong on a quest to find her father, and herself.
Injected into Chun-Li’s journey of self discovery are the dislocated politics of class wars, poverty and real estate scams (how timely!), all mingled into a superfluous cops-on-the-case subplot starring the inimitable Chris Klein, quite possibly the funniest man alive. While Kristen Kruek is busy giving Hilary Swank a run for her money as the next, next karate kid (complete with Miyagi-like mentor), Klein’s ham-and-cheesy portrayal of a grizzled cop eerily recalls my days of youth playing Bad Word Army Men (which is exactly what it sounds like). We didn’t really understand what we were saying, we just tried (and failed) to sound grown-up and badass.
However, credit must be given to Klein and Kruek for trying. A script of this caliber is usually written by committee. Riddled with voice-over narration (likely transplanted from the blue dialogue boxes of the 16-bit source material) and insulting in its flashbacks of scenes not five minutes passed, that the writing is credited to a single author is enough to make even the coldest soul take pity.
Somehow, director Bartkowiak (whose five films include two video game movies and three classics starring DMX) couldn’t distract the guy in front of me enough to look up from his iPhone, but the guy snoring five seats down did it with ease.
