Hi Hollywood, what’s new Capcom? I thought I should start this review here with a bit of Tony Robbins tough love and ask why you still feel the need to option movies whose origins live in the video game world. When will you ever learn that there’s no such thing as a good video game movie and there never will be? Hollywood, you’ve put us through misery for years trying to take plotless video games and turn it on its ear, and have also managed to simultaneously take games with narrative and structure and destroy it without fail. What’s the deal? Don’t the video game movie flops ever help you to realize that there’s just no point in adapting even the most popular games? I’ve lived through Doom, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil and we’ve yet to see something good derived from either of them.
What’s your problem, anyway? You’re like that dog constantly poking at an electric fence; you know you’re going to get shocked but you can’t help but insist on testing your luck. Why? And Capcom what indication was there that “The Legend of Chun-Li” would do better than the original “Street Fighter” movie? What’s the difference between that one and this monstrosity? Will you ever learn? Now you two need to sit down and have a long time out and just stop making video game movies. For the love of all that is good, just stop. It’s finally here “The Legend of Chun-Li,” and oh what fun and joy is to be had. I think their first mistake was casting a more American woman who can barely act in to such an important role. And there’s also not including pivotal characters like Ryu and Ken, but that’s moot. “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li” is bad, followers of “Street Fighter.”
As an ex-gamer I hope this is the last attempt at turning the famed fighting game into something other than a video game because now it’s just pathetic. I remember most of the revenge story panning out in the cut scenes of Street Fighter II, so it’s no surprise the legend of Chun Li and her quest for payback was used as a platform for a series reboot, it’s just a shame we couldn’t have had someone better than Kristin Kreuk. She’s adorable on screen and elegant but fails to convince us that she’s emotionally torn by her father’s kidnapping at the hands of M. Bison. The woman is the next Jessica Alba with the same acting ability. Under her lead the movie crumbles slowly as the inept narrative does away with much of the potential this attempted series reboot holds. The proof in the pudding being that the movie is incoherent we obviously need narration from Li every five or ten minutes in.
Let’s not forget Chris Klein whose character feels like a Keanu Reeves imitation as he delivers clunky one liner after another. And any hope of catching some brutal fight sequences fades away as we realize in the first fifteen minutes that the director is devoted to filming all of the action off screen with the emphasis on the violence safely hidden. “The Legend of Chun Li” has some of the most piss poor pacing I’ve ever seen and takes itself much too seriously to enjoy. After a while I just gave up on it and went home to kick ass with “Street Fighter IV,” now that’s what this series is all about. The best advice I can offer fans of the series is to focus on “Street Fighter IV” and completely ignore this monstrosity with all their might because it seems to work hard at not being fun. All I can say is it takes a special kind of talent to make me hate a revenge movie, but the crew succeeds.