AKA: N/A

Genre: Action / fighting

Length: Movie, 155 minutes

Distributor: R1 DVD and VHS from Manga Entertainment, available streaming on Youtube.

Content Rating: 16+ (violence, torture, human experimentation)

Related Series: Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Street Fighter II V

Also Recommended: Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge, Street Fighter II The Animated Movie, Street Fighter II V

Notes: Based on the Street Fighter II video game series. This movie was originally released in Japan as a pair of OAVs - however, Manga Entertainment's funding enabled a spliced Western release that will be treated the same as the original for all practical purposes.

Rating:

Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie

Synopsis

Ryu and Ken are brought back through the death of their master. However, a dark cloud is hanging over Ryu, which only deepens as he meets his until-then unknown brother.

So, as Ryu fights against the inner darkness (or something like that) to remain in control of his soul, Shun is kidnapped by the Shadowlaw organisation. So, not only do Ryu have to fight against himself, he has to undertake a journey where he has to face himself, Akuma, and the kidnappers of who might very well not be his brother at all.

Review

I'm not going to say that this anime was confusing, but I really wish the people who made the script wrote the entire thing BEFORE they began the filming. As a fan of the Street Fighter games, I was really looking forward to this one. After all, the Street Fighter II movie was quite watch-worthy as far as pure martial arts action movies go. And this one began so very, very promising too.

The animation, for one thing, were mostly fabulous. And the art is pretty faithful to the Capcom style character designs. In fact, during the first hour or so, I thought I had another winner on my hands. And while it seems like Manga Entertainment saw themselves fit to change the music like they did with the European release of the SF2 movie, I had no big issues with that OR the quite decent dub. To be honest, I enjoyed the movie fairly much until a few things stared making themselves apparent.

The first thing were that Akuma, who should be well known to all SF players, was reduced to vague flashback scenes and one minor scene in the middle of the entire thing. In sharp contrast to what the DVD cover indicate, he's not the main badass playa. No, that role was relayed to my reason number two.

And who the hell was that? Who knows. For all the Street Fighting I've done both at the arcades and the home consoles, I don't recognize the guy. Some run off the mill bad (and insane) professor? One who was part of the reason this movie was dropped into a metaphorical hell of a plot-mesh. It reeked of quick work and sloppy writing, compounded in the fact that nothing much made sense. And speaking of badass bad guys, where the hell was M. Bison?

Yes, you read me right. No M. Bison. No sign of the guy who actually made the SF2 movie a cool watch, and no sign of Akuma, who made the Street Figther Alpha game series such a cool play. Could they mess up this movie even more?

Why yes, with the ultimate cop-out ending, which I won't spoil for you if you, for some weird reason, would want to see this. Hell, it's even close to being un-MST3K-able, and that is NOT good. Not good at all.

Stay away, people.

Two stars. It may look like a three or perhaps even four star at the beginning, but don't be fooled. — Stig Høgset

Recommended Audience: Not for younger audiences. Apart from the violence, there are some pretty gross experiments performed on someone and also a lot of DARK POWERS being shown. Oo-er. *rolls eyes*