Street Fighter Zero

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Street Fighter game franchise, Group TAC released "Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation" five years after the highly fan acclaimed "Street Fighter II: The Animated movie". Many reviews have criticized this movie based on what the reviewer thought SHOULD be in the movie. Some wanted a direct adaptation of the Street fighter Alpha game storyline, other reviewers dissed the show just because some characters were not featured. This will be a true review of the movie itself, not of what i expected to be in the movie.

True to its title, Street Fighter Alpha borrows the characters, setting and the "look" of the SF Alpha series while crafting a new story separate from the games.The focus is squarely on Ryu, a martial artists haunted by the death of his master and the presence of a dark power lurking within him. As the story begins, Ryu meets up with Ken to pay respects to their deceased master, but Ryu is having trouble controlling this dark power called the "Dark Hadou" and keeps having strange visions. They encounter a boy called Shun who claims to be Ryu's long lost brother. At first skeptical, Ryu soon embraces Shun as family and trains together with the boy, who also displays formidable fighting skills. Word of a new Street fighter Tournament reaches Ryu and Ken and they intend to sign up. But little do they know that the tournament is a front for an evil scheme concocted by Dr Sadler, a top scientist for the Shadowlaw organization.

Kudos to Group TAC for trying to make a more coherent narrative with a proper emotional center. While the previous Street Fighter II The Animated movie was a stylish gritty martial arts movie, SF Alpha plays out more like a character Drama about Ryu. While we do get some insight into Ryu's inner emotional turmoil, it really is nothing original. Ryu struggling with control over the dark hadou seems ripped straight from Star Wars' Luke Skywalker and his struggle with the Dark side of the force. Also, thanks to the strict focus on Ryu, the other iconic characters are at best reduced to mere stock characters with little to no development, or just cameo appearances that add nothing to the plot. Little side stories about Sakura's obsessive tailing of Ryu and Chun Li's Shadowlaw investigation are more an easter egg treat for long time fans than newcomers.

The biggest fault of Street fighter alpha: The Animation, is the animation itself which is merely on par with a typical anime TV series of that time. If one were to expect the gritty brutality and fluid choreography of Street fighter II: The Animated movie, one would be sorely disappointed. Street Fighter Alpha's fight scenes play out like something worse than Dragonball. Fighters flying and hovering through the air constantly was probably a way to cut costs by not animating the characters running, but for some reason all the fights seem to be done in slow motion. If it was intentional, it is a poor directing choice as it quite honestly makes every single bout a total bore. If not intentional, then it was a result of cutting corners again in the animation.

Artwork is also a hit and miss. While the art does a great job of replicating the designs used in the game, the characters go off-model quite often. The best example is Chun Li's eyes which keeps changing size and even shape in different scenes. The art constantly shifts from a dark and highly detailed style to a bright flat cartoony look, sometimes in stark contrast to the scene being presented, giving the entire production a very inconsistent feel.

It is a huge pity Street fighter Alpha: The Animation turned out the way it did. There were a couple of great ideas and a lot of room for a deeper story. Too bad all that potential got totally wasted on typical anime story clichés including an uber-powered robot and landscape-destroying fireballs. Like Akuma said, "a true warrior enters the arena with ALL his powers at the ready". Street Fighter Alpha: The Animation not only fails to bring all that its got to bear, but it figuratively pulls its punches and ends up with a mediocre final product. More effort seemed to be spent trying to cut corners in everything rather than going all out to deliver an experience as awesome as its predecessor or the games that inspired it.

Okay, granted, this animated film is based upon an arcade game. Not just an arcade game--an arcade *fighting* game. The requirements for a good arcade fighting game (especially back when Street Fighter set the standards) did not involve having a plot. If it played well and was fun, then you had a hit. It's a given that to make a film the creators are going to have to expand on the three sentences of backstory each character has, and the equally shallow endings they all have; sometimes even substancially change them . . . so why did they feel it necessary to invent a whole new villain with artificial fighters at his disposal? No.

Granted, I haven't played the original SF Alpha in ages, but I recall Bison (generally speaking) still being the villain in the Alpha/Zero series (yes, I know, not everyone fought Bison in the first one). I can understand them not wanting to introduce Bison in this film to preserve the storyline of the existing SF Anime, but you still have Sagat from SF1. Heck, this film even brings up Akuma (who would have made an excellent lead villain if given the spotlight) but he's not pursued. Instead we're stuck with a throwaway guy no one cares about who has no connection to the Street Fighter game universe. The only thing worse is they don't make much attempt to make him or his underlings as interesting as the "true" SF characters. He's just a cliche mad scientist. That's all.

Then the presence of annoying existing SF characters doesn't help either. I hated Sakura in the game; I hate her in the anime. Ryu's brother issue started out all right; however, it quickly dissolved into meaningless drivel as the "plot" involving the "villain" consumed him.

Much of Street Fighter Alpha/Zero's vast cast of characters is not utilized (understandably so considering the volume of faces they've developed over the years), but even the ones who are really don't do much but get beat up until Ryu overcomes his inner demons, discovers the true warrior spirit, yadda, yadda, yadda, and ultimately saves the day. Every Street Fighter player knows that Ken is just as bad as Ryu, if not he's even badder; they even fight to a standstill in this, and yet Ken can't put a dent in the android/robot/artificial guy/whatever he was supposed to be? No. If nothing else, Ken would be able to severly hurt the thing.

I liked the original anime and even the V series because in the end Ryu & Ken ultimately team up. One or the other (usually Ryu) has to get the final hit, but it takes both of them for a victory. Akuma would have given them both a run for their money with his raging demon; Street Fighter fans don't want the throw-away Sadler crap, we want the real deal--bring on Akuma.

Being a huge street fighter fan and thoroughly enjoying the previous film, Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, I was really looking forward to this one!

However, it seemed that the film had no real sense of direction or purpose. Most of the characters I could not associate with and it just lacked the intense action that made the other mentioned street fighter film so superior.

There are some good points however, the Animation is superb!!!

This movie was not quite what I hope it to be. I mean, is good in terms of animation, script and voice acting, but lacks in story impact for the fans of the game (and we know that the real Street Fighter story would work better than this one, while this has at least some basis). In this movie, we know a young martial artist named Ryu. His sensei Gouken was killed some time ago by a man named Gouki (we, the game's fans, know that Gouki and Gouken were actually brothers, but this is not mentioned in the movie at all, maybe because is just not relevant). This Gouki uses the power of the Satsui no Hadou, wich is no other that the 'Evil Intent'. Ryu is feeling that power inside him, and try to find out how to defeat it. Just in this stage of his life, a kid shows up reclaiming being his young brother. This boy also has the power of Satsui no Hadou and manifests it. Things are not getting any good to Ryu. The script open many storyline gates, but the one that really matters is Ryu's internal fight, while not the character's life itself. So, when the movie ends, all other storylines remain opened, while only the important one closes. This is very risky for a script, but I think it works fine. I mean, in the real life at the end of one dilemma, other possible dilemmas might not get solved. This is what happens to Street Fighter Zero. However, some of this dilemmas actually needed to be solved, like Sakura's. For example, Chun Li has her own dilemmas, but she actually gets in Ryu's way, so to know some about her was obvious. But what impact had Sakura on Ryu's trial? None. It was, in fact, in the other way: Ryu has a strike on Sakura's trail. That would work for a Sakura movie, but not for a Ryu movie. I felt Sakura's incursion very rushed, like a fan service thing. However, in the whole, Street Fighter Zero is a good, but not excellent movie. It could be better, just that. And an advice: This movie is not for those who look for a lot of anime action. This is more like Ang Lee's Crouching Tigger, Hidden Dragon. It has some action, but the spirit lays in the inner fight.

This was set before SF ll The anamie movie, and it does a really good job i mean a lot of people say there was not a lot of action, well that dont bother me one bit. I love this movie and its 2nd best, may be they are saving all the action for Street Fighter Alpha 2 due later this yeah?. Anyways i am a big SF Fan have been for the past 11 years now, and this is one of the best if not de best.