Just finished watching the latest Street Fighter movie, The Legend of Chun-Li. It is basically a regular revenge story where Chun-Li (Kristin Kreuk) goes after M. Bison (Neil McDonough) who has kidnapped her father years ago. There is also the wise old man character Gen (portrayed by Robin 'Liu Kang' Shou) who trains Chun-Li to master the martial arts in order for her to get even with the crime syndicate.

The story itself is told many, many times before and I might add, many many times better. What the most annoys me in the movie are some of the lines the actors deliver that sound odd or out of place, at least. There are really only two characters that have any kind of depth in them and to no surprise they are the titular character and her nemesis. The plot also has some odd moments where things happen in a bit "off" way. Corners are cut and logical structures crashed as the plot proceeds. The action is fairly good in most parts and Chun-Li delivers some cruesome attacks. I cannot say so much about the characters portrayed in the film since I am not that big fan of the game series (even though I have a fairly good image of the series in general... well, who hasn't?). M. Bison's actor was a bit weird choice allthough mr. McDonough can be quite intimidating at times if he wants to. Michael Clarke Duncan was pretty good choice to play the gigantic boxer but Vega's actor, Black Eyed Peas' Taboo? What were the film makers thinking? Why on earth would they cast someone like him in the role. I had the image in my mind, where Vega was this 'beautiful' looking man who weared the metallic mask to protect his face from damage (at least that was one of the reasons for wearing it). Besides, he was overcome rather easily by Chun-Li but I guess the girl knows how to handly those kinds of dudes. Rest of the cast was quite random people, Moon Bloodgood playing and Chris Klein playing the police officers after M. Bison's Shadaloo organisation. I read that some think Bloodgood's character is actually a nod towards Crimson Viper but whether this is fact, remains unknown.

Kristin Kreuk portrays Chun-Li and does a good job, especially in the fighting scenes. This is no surprise since Kreuk has actually trained in gymnastics at the national level until highschool but had to quit due to health issues. Kreuk is as cute and sweet as it gets but also shows that she has this dark side, being able to twist necks and gun down bad guys when neccessary. Kreuk clearly has the physique to do at least the basic tricks in the movie and I am glad for it. Nowadays we see so many 'action heroes' who had two weeks of martial arts and gun training before shooting the next big action blockbuster. There they pretend to know how things work while they obviously have no clue. I am not saying that Kreuk or the other guys in this particular movie know much more but it is still nice to know that at least some of the actors have some level of training, were it gymnastics, ballet or some other.

All in all, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li was action movie that can be watched if you turn your brain to certain mode where you don't point out every single plot weakness but instead enjoy the ride, how crazy it might be. Kristin Kreuk at least tries to put some emotion to her character where the first Street Fighter movie failed hands down (the characters were as deep as the pixel portraits in the games). People might get mixed feelings for the plot, at least some of the cast and the overall pacing but if you some day pick it up in the TV schedule, you might just check it out. There are still worse ways to spend two hours.

Might add that perhaps the reason this movie didn't have that negative impact on me is because I am not that big fan of the games in a way that I collect them and follow their development and so on.