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List Price: $29.98 | | Label: Twentieth Century Fox
Salesrank: 18448
Released: June 30, 2009 |
| Our Price: $4.31 |
| Used Price: $2.27 |
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MPAA Rating: Unrated
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Studio: Tcfhe Release Date: 06/30/2009 Run time: 172 minutes Rating: Pg13
Description of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li:
The origin story of the characters from Capcom’s popular Street Fighter video game is detailed in The Legend of Chun-Li, a live-action martial arts thriller from Doom helmer Andrzej Bartkowiak. Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk gives a spirited turn in the title role, a concert pianist turned global crime fighter who cracks her share of heads while in pursuit of the mobsters who have kidnapped her father. Neal McDonough and Michael Clarke Duncan glower effectively as Bison, the nefarious mastermind behind the abduction, and his henchman, Balrog, respectively. The film’s offbeat cast, which includes Chris Klein and Moon Bloodgood as detectives, Black Eyed Peas singer Taboo as the claw-wielding Vega, and Hong Kong stars Pei-pei Cheng, Josie Ho and Edmund Chen in supporting roles, is the most inspired element of the film, which relies too often on well-worn action and kung fu movie clichés to fill out moments between fight sequences; the film’s target audience--fans of the game--may find this less engaging than younger, less discerning moviegoers with a yen for any flavor of punch-up. --Paul Gaita
Stills from Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li (Click for larger image)
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li Reviews:
KO'ed 
2009-10-27 - Capcom's second attempt at a movie based on their classic gaming franchise, "The Legend of Chun Li" star's Kristin Kreuk (Smallville) as the titular character, who challenges the nefarious M. Bison (Neal McDonough). And that's pretty much the one thing director Andrzej Bartkowiak gets right.
The mismatched cast play their stereotypical action movie roles to their hilt, the script has more holes than Bonnie and Clyde's car, and the movie crew simply didn't consider the ramifications of taking a video game story this seriously. The first SF film was silly and over the top, but that's where you found a hint of charm. What does this entry offer? Pretty locales, a so-so fight choreography, the mandatory movie explosion, and Chun Li seductively dancing with another woman. OK, that's two things Bartkowiak gets right.^_^
This film is PG-13: Violence, Adult Language, Adult Situations.
Good Action Scenes 
2009-10-11 - Not as good as I had hoped it would be, but good action movie.
Not bad for a video game adaptation
2009-10-03 - Not bad for a video game adaptation, but that doesn't mean it's good... The plot is lame and the characters are utterly paperthin. But, it has alot of action which carries the movie up to a certain point. In regards to the action, none of it is ground breaking or impressive though it is competently executed. I found movies such as DOA which is more unapolgetically cartoony to be more enjoyable to watch, plus DOA had some hot women in it. I'm not sure why movies like this don't try to push the envelope in martial arts choreography more, as its about the only thing they have going for them.
Hardly a legend 
2009-10-02 - Ever since she was a little girl, Chun-Li's sole ambition in life has been to become a world-class concert pianist. But when her businessman father is unceremoniously whisked away in the middle of the night by a ruthless corporate tycoon bent on ruling the world, Chun-Li agrees to be trained by a martial arts master so she can get her father back and bring the villain's empire crumbling down around him at the same time.
Burdened by kindergarten-level storytelling that makes "Kung Fu Panda" look like stark documentary realism in comparison, "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li" is a far-from-legendary, barrel-scraping fiasco marked by stock characters, bland performances and rote dialogue.
Heck, even the martial arts sequences fail to generate any genuine excitement or pizzazz. Stick to the video game instead. At least you can participate in that one.
Good acting, bad story!
2009-09-30 - When I finally got around to seeing this film, I truly expected a whole lot more than what had been presented. I expected a greater delving into Chun Li's development into law enforcement, but alas, her character in this film was just too young for that. And when the name Kristin Kreuk crossed my mind after hearing about this movie, I immediately thought, "There's just no way this can be good with her easy going personality."
I was surprised! Kristin played her role splendidly in this film. Far better than I had expected. Even though there were harnesses and choreography involved at simple levels for the normal-defying effects. And not just Kristin's role/character, Bison was rather good too!
But what really brought me down was the opposite effect. Rather than the actors being terrible picks or terrible actors, the story and plot was instead a total let-down for me. It was too fast paced (Chun Li finally getting her revenge for her father's death) and not enough quality was shown into the way these characters have always been depicted as. Such as Chun Li being reserved and disciplined. Instead, we get a rambunctious girl out for blood and revenge at any cost. Desperate enough to follow a secret organization's trail. We get a Bison who demonstrates practically no martial arts experience. But rather a brute force fighting ability that is derived of his killer personality because of how he tried to kill off his human factor of "good."
I fully understand that the director(s) and producer(s) had probably intended for a more realism-influence with as much fantasy components excluded, as possible. But I feel they've went too far in that ideal and just made another one-time flick. As in, I wouldn't be caught dead watching this again. But people need to look at the original picture here: Street Fighter is still rather reasonable in terms of realism when we get down to thinking of just the games and anime. There are so very few and minor amounts of fantasy elements that you could still make real-life movies without reducing the quality of the characters as we first know them as! Take away the sonic booms, the yoga flames, and the bright lights/flashes and you've still got a decent set of killer abilities/techniques that can be choreographed and filmed!
Some things just weren't meant to be depicted in a full-blown real-life aspect or angle.
