Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li

And comes the first movie of the year which I did not enjoy. But I cannot say I was disappointed with this movie. Particularly because I never expected this to be a good one. But even though I didn't expect this movie to be good. I still watched it at the chance that I might be surprised and that it turns out to be fine. This movie met my low expectations.

Kristin Kreuk stars as Chun Li. She definitely has a very beautiful face. But that face of hers can't seem to properly portray any emotion on screen. Scenes when she cries comes off as exaggerated. And scenes where she's supposed to be fierce aren't effective because her face is so pretty and she still looks like a nice person.

The same goes with Chris Kline who plays Charlie Nash. He's supposed to be this really tough Interpol cop. And he tries to make his face look like he's a really tough guy. But it only results in him looking goofy. I laugh every time he appears in a scene and he's trying to act all macho.

I think Kreuk and Kline both have the potential to become brighter stars than they already are. They just need to hone their acting skills more. They can start by looking into a mirror and practice which face works in displaying a characters emotions on screen.

Michael Clark Duncan and Neal Mcdonough also star in this movie as Balrog & Bison. They're the villains here. Bison is the main villain and Balrog is one of his henchman. Both of them are respectable actors. But appearing in more movies like this could loose the respect they have. Michael Clark Duncan did rather OK however. He didn't do anything to further lower this movie.

Mcdonoughs portrayal of Bison however is rather odd. Bison is supposed to be someone of pure evil with no good left inside him. But like Kreuk & Kline, Mcdonough doesn't look at all evil. It's kinda hard to find him scary. And another weird thing is his Irish accent. In this movie, Bison's origin is that he was the son of an Irish couple who migrated to Bangkok. His parents died when he was just a few months old and he grew up in the streets of Thailand. If he grew up in Thailand, then why does he still have an Irish accent. It seems the Irish accent is genetic.

This movie basically did a lot of wrong things. They even forgot to put in subtitles. The few fight scenes, though short, were rather alright. I wish I could say that this is a movie is based on a video game and should not be taken seriously. But the way this movie is depicted on screen states that it should be. The first Street Fighter movie was a bit cartoonish and ridiculous. But at least it was fun to watch and it appeals to kids. This version attempts to be the cooler Street Fighter movie but only succeeds in turning the first movie to be the better one.