Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

By Broadside Style Writer Josh Hylton

I liked how the opening title looked.

Now that I got all of the good out of the way, let’s move on to the bad.

As the latest video-game-adapted-to-film catastrophe faded to black and the credits began to roll, I sat with my hands on my head, mouth agape, shocked at what I had just seen. I didn’t even know what to say because words could not articulate the dreadfulness of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. I could have used every negative word in the English language and it would not have properly conveyed the dismal quality of this film.

In a year where Street Fighter IV is setting a new bar for fighting video games, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is setting a new low for action movies. It is easily the worst film of the year so far and it may very well be one of the worst films I have ever seen.

While the original 1994 Street Fighter film certainly wasn’t an award winner, The Legend of Chun-Li makes it look like Citizen Kane. Everything, and I mean everything, was wrong with this shockingly inept motion picture. I could have made a better movie with a camera, a tube of Rolos, and a sock puppet.

Regrettably, it would take about six pages of this newspaper to point out every flaw of The Legend of Chun-Li and I’m only provided with about 500 words, so one must get to the point quickly. Forgive my brevity.

There are two massive problems with the film. First, it is unintentionally hilarious. Thanks to what could go down as some of the worst dialogue in film history, my buddies and I sat in the theatre cracking up. I laughed so hard, I peed a little. No joke. I felt like I had just spent 24 hours on an abs machine because my stomach was hurting after all of the muscle contractions. In a sense, it’s almost so-bad-it’s-good. Unfortunately, I don’t consider unintentional hilarity a positive trait.

The second major problem is the acting. What the hell is Chris Klein doing in this movie? For that matter, what the hell is Chris Klein doing in any movie? Every second he was onscreen was so pitiful, so wretchedly horrendous that I eventually got a crick in my neck from shaking my head back and forth in shame. Klein gives one of the worst performances of the decade. Amusingly, the best performance is by Robin Shou who actually played Liu Kang in the rival video game series’ movie adaptation, Mortal Kombat. Oh, sweet irony.

The worst part? They set it up for a sequel. If this movie gets a sequel, I’m going to film myself on the toilet and pitch it around to movie studios because me doing my business in the bathroom is infinitely more interesting than this trash.

What else can I say? The film is awful in every single way. The direction was poor, the action was bland and the characters were poorly written. To call them thin would be an insult to anorexia. I would rather watch my mother take a shower before ever watching this again. I urge you to avoid Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li at all costs.

Final grade: F