"STREET FIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI" (2009) (Kristin Kreuk, Chris Klein) (PG-13)
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QUICK TAKE:
Action: A street fighter, an Interpol agent and a homicide detective join forces to try to stop a ruthless crime boss and his band of warriors from taking over Bangkok.
PLOT:
Chun-Li Huang (KRISTIN KREUK) always dreamed of being a concert pianist, a goal encouraged by her businessman father, Liu (SIRI SIRIJANE), who also taught her martial arts. Yet, that training wasn't enough as a young girl to prevent crime boss Bison (NEAL McDONOUGH) and his hulking right-hand enforcer, Balrog (MICHAEL CLARKE DUNCAN), from kidnapping her father for their nefarious means.
Years then passed and following the death of her mother, now young adult Chun-Li finds herself listless and gives up her life of privilege, moving to Bangkok where she ends up living off the streets. Her disappearance is a bit troubling to Bison, for he's using her existence to get Liu to deliver important business contacts to him, most of which he has Balrog, assassin Vega (TABOO) or his government contact Cantana (JOSIE HO) dispose of. Having grown up in the slums, Bison's goal is to instill enough fear there to drive down prices and thus allow him to buy the land and property for wholesale and later redevelopment.
His actions, however, have not only drawn the interest of gangland detective Maya Sunee (MOON BLOODGOOD), but also Interpol agent Charlie Nash (CHRIS KLEIN), both of whom want to bring him down. Chun-Li has the same goal, and with the tutoring of her new martial arts mentor, Gen (ROBIN SHOU), who was once a criminal alongside Bison but has now converted to good, she hopes to avenge her father being taken away from her.
OUR TAKE: 3 out of 10
Our reviewing policy for films that aren't shown in advance to critics is that we'll only provide a paragraph or two about the film's artistic merits or, more accurately, lack thereof. After all, life is too short to spend any more effort than that on a movie that even the releasing studio knows isn't any good (which is why they hid it from reviewers before its release).
Yet another movie based on a video game (and an old one at that - "Street Fighter" debuted way back in 1987), this effort doesn't stray far off course from its many predecessors. And that means that it's not that good, with a meager plot thrown in to try to flesh out the video game action and that it features mediocre to bad acting (the latter being done entirely by Chris "American Pie" Klein whose Razzie award is already waiting for him).
While some bits of the action are slightly entertaining, most are over-edited to the point of robbing any sort of building momentum. The end result is an instantly forgettable and entirely unnecessary entry in the hopefully soon to be extinct video game to movie genre. "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" rates as a generous 3 out of 10.
Reviewed February 27, 2009 / Posted February 27, 2009
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