Sci-Fi Bulletin: Exploring the Universes of SF, Fantasy, Horror and Spy-fi!

The Game Awards were last weekend and, in amongst the colossal trailers, their colossal cost and the growing sense the show is far more about hosting the show than promoting and honouring the games in its name, something rather weird and fun happened: the first look at the Street Fighter movie. Here’s what Alasdair Stuart found.

0.05 – He is bad guy, not BAD guy!

Olivier Richters, beloved in these parts for a lot of his work, including the most recent series of Reacher as Zangief. I love that he’s training by pulling a tractor with a couple of big slavic lads hanging off it. Subtle? Not at all. Fun? Hell yes.

0.10 – The Hair

My God they actually gave Cody Rhodes the best/worst hair in video game history. Incredible.

0.12 – M Bison

David Dastmalchian throwing the cloak open like glamrock Dracula. Instantly gets the assignment.

0.14 – Vega

Brilliantly, this is noted masked country and western singer Orville Peck as noted masked killer Vega!

0.16 – The hair! The mask! The mask and the hair!

And here’s Orville Peck(‘s stunt double) being kicked through a wall by Cody Rhodes’ Guile!

0.18 – Cammy vs Vega

This goes by fast (it all does) but this fight between Vega  and Chun Li, played by Callina Lang, is happening in Bison’s office. You can see him in the background.

0.20 – Ken vs Ryu! FIGHT!

One of the most impressive things about this is how remarkably faithful the costume designs are. Noah Centineo as Ken and Andrew Koji as Ryu are both wearing sleeveless karate gi, barefooted and in MMA gloves for example. And it looks… good! Which if you’ve seen the original Street Fighter movie, is a surprise!

0.22 – Crash zoom

The crash zoom on Ryu here is such perfect ’70s kung fu movie cinema visual grammar!

0.23 – Akuma

Roman Reigns has been in movies before, most notably the surprisingly fun Hobbs & Shaw. But as Akuma, one of the franchise’s most interesting and complex characters, he looks fantastic and may well be getting a larger role than he’s had before. Looking forward to seeing it.

0.23 – Ouch

This appears to be 50 Cent as Balrog punching a man in the junk. That’s it. Other than OWWWWWW.

0.27 – Hey Joe!

This is a DEEP cut. Joe is a non-playable character from the original Street Fighter. He is, in pro wrestling terms, a jobber, a character who is mostly there to make you look good. Like all characters from this remarkably complex and obtuse series, there’s a lot more to him than that and the movie even makes him the subject of a fun metatextual joke. While there are several pro wrestlers and martial arts practitioners in the cast, Joe is played by Alexander Volkanovski, an Australian professional martial artist, current UFC lightweight champion and a man widely regarded as one of the best in his weight class of all time. So having him play a tiny little character is a fun nod to the ludicrous scale of the series.

0.32 – Don Sauvage

And onto another meta gag! Don Sauvage, ring announcer and commentator, is played by Eric Andre, legendary and uniquely odd American comedian. He’s here I suspect because the movie is directed by Kiato Sakurai, who directed a lot of episodes of Andre’s legendary show. Sakurai has also done Twisted Metal, the movie Aardvark and is notable for getting his start as a child actor in movies like Dogma and Best of the Best 3. If you want the platonic ideal of an increasingly ludicrous martial arts franchise by the way, it’s Best of the Best.

0.34 – Alasdair gets nerdy

This is a tiny little thing but as someone who’s dabbled in various martial arts and has the trick knee to prove it, this combo move just makes me smile. Ryu uses a Judo throw (I think a variant of Tomoe Nage, Captain Kirk’s favourite) to put an opponent in range of Ken’s karate-looking kick which delivers the goon into a wall. It’s a fun beat, it speaks to how dangerous they are when they’re on the same side and it looks GREAT.

0.44 – The car! Is! Toast! Also Alasdair gets nerdy again

One of Street Fighter II’s most iconic moments is the bonus round where you have to destroy a car inside a set time limit. Nice to see that here. Interestingly, the competitor we see doing the demolition two step is dressed like a Muay Thai or Thai Boxing practitioner. There are three major Muay Thai fighters in the series, legendary villain Sagat, Nuakan and Adon, one of Sagat’s students. Adon has legendarily weird hair even for a video game character, but his colour scheme feels off for this. In freeze frame though, the red shorts and the hair make this look a lot like Ken. So maybe he’s left the path Ryu was on and that’s why they fight and then team up?

Punk Tactics

The entire trailer is scored, in an inspired choice by Joey Valence and Brae, video game obsessed Beastie Boys style rappers. It’s loud, raucous, fun music and it sets the tone perfectly.

Street Fighter’s a weird one and some of the choices it’s made don’t work for me at all, most notably the use of a fat suit on legendary pro wrestler Hiroki Goto as E Honda, every choice made about the female characters and the presence of a truly rancid right-wing comedian on the cast. But the rest? I’m interested. Let’s see who’s in the ring on October 16th when it releases.