Movie Review: Street Fighter Alpha Pt. 2
The last time we left our heroes it was a veritable grab bag of confusion. After entering a secret fighting tournament, Ryu and his brother, Shun, were forced to fight a cyborg fighter bent on collecting data for his most assuredly evil master so he could use it for himself. Things didn’t quite go as planned after Ryu decided to give the cyborg an abdominal implant of pure energy, totally destroying the robot and any plans the evil tournament master had of getting any raw information. But being the evil malformed genius he is, he decided since he can’t get within a hundred feet of Ryu without him getting every one of his internal organs beaten through his various orifices, he grabs the next best thing, Shun, Ryu’s brother. After a quick moment of silence, gunfire erupts everywhere, a military helicopter kidnaps Shun, probably taking him to an unknown location for horrible and torturous examination. Besides, I seriously doubt he would go to all this trouble just to see if Shun could troubleshoot why solitaire is crashing his computer. Now with Shun gone and everyone else in a state of shock we begin our look at the second half of Street Fighter Alpha the Movie.
Street Fighter Alpha the Movie Part 2
Ryu has not taken this whole situation too well. He failed to stop his own brother from getting kidnapped, his friends are beaten and battered, and on top of all that he’s slowly turning into a demon with nothing more on its mind than to kill everything in its path unmercifully. To say Ryu isn’t having a good day would be an understatement, and it shows as we see Ryu stumbling through another dark alley looking incredibly depressed, but amazingly still looking serious at the same time. It seems that Ryu will not be growing in his range of emotions any in the second half of the movie as it now seems Ryu is not capable of producing any type of look on his face other than a frown and slight scowl. I think we’ve all gotten used to this so far but it’s still quite unnerving to watch Ryu be depressed, as he seems more like he is trying to pass a large kidney stone rather than looking sad and forlorn. Of course since this is a dark alley it’s only natural that a few more alley dweller people come by and kick his ass for no apparent reason. Ryu decides it would be best to just get beat up, but at least look very serious while doing so.
Chun Li eventually finds Ryu and relocates him to a hospital so that he may quietly stare out the window instead of wandering around getting the piss beat out of him from the always angry alley dwellers. Meanwhile it turns out Sakura got a nice sprained ankle from the explosion at the tournament and is taking it the way any young aspiring fighter with a sprained ankle would be taking it, by playing a Street Fighter game on her gameboy. Ken is also in the hospital wandering around, probably trying to figure out just why the hell the director even cast him in this movie since the most significant thing he has done so far is being the only character in the movie capable of facial expression.
After a while Chun Li and her cop friend do some investigating and finally find out the identity and location of the evil tournament host. Turns out that he is indeed some type of evil scientist that just so happens to own, live on, and operate his very own island that for some reason never really got noticed. Maybe they figured that a giant island filled with glass domes and strange machinery just wasn’t that important to report to authorities, and instead decided to write up a 12,000 page report on a strange looking log that washed up on the beach. Possibly with evil intentions. Chun Li informs Ryu of this stunning discovery, which he responds to by looking out a window.
Ryu ultimately agrees to go with them to the island but first he has to get some answers about what exactly is happening to him. And of course there is only one person alive that can do that. No, not that guy in the newspaper that gives out advice based on what color his underwear is at the moment, or the lady on the corner of the street that screams at random street signs. No we’re talking about Akuma. Yes, THAT Akuma.
Chun Li decides to accompany Ryu on his trip to Akuma’s home, currently located somewhere really creepy and foreboding I bet. Ryu is starting to get just a little more than pissed at this whole evil chi that is taking over his body and he figures that if he can meet Akuma face to face he might be able to get some straight answers, or at least get some lessons on how to look even more serious. If you think Ryu looks serious and unemotional then you obviously have not seen Akuma yet, who seems to literally be unable to move his face, even when he’s talking. He is obviously so powerful that he has no need to use his vocal chords to speak, and instead just communicates by sneering and grunting a lot.
Ryu and Chun Li keep moving along until they find a large opening filled with disturbing wooden people stuck in the ground everywhere. It’s obvious they are in a place of extreme evil because the music has gotten very evil sounding and for some reason the wooden people are starting to warp around and look menacing. Suddenly Akuma appears out of nowhere and asks Ryu why he has decided to disturb him and if he is ready to die in some horrible and violent way because of this. If you were expecting some sort of amazing plot to transpire here, you’re sadly mistaken. Below is quite literally what transpires on screen:
Ryu: (Looks serious)
Akuma: (grunts)
Ryu: (sneers and continues to look serious)
Akuma: (turns and walks away)
Ryu: (stares)
In the end though Ryu doesn’t find out anything more than what he already knew and has pretty much wasted his time. Ken however shows up out of nowhere for some reason and decides him and Ryu should fight each other. Ryu and Ken beat the shit out of each other for a few minutes until they are both thoroughly sweaty and decide the best thing to do is to go to the evil scientist’s island and get Shun back, even if Ryu is turning into an evil monster. If you are confused about the last couple of scenes, and why they needed to exist in this movie, you’re not alone. Let’s just move on and not question it too much. Maybe it’ll make more sense later. Hopefully.
It just so turns out that the evil scientist is having yet another fighting tournament, this time on his own private island. This just happens to be the perfect chance for Ryu, Chun Li and Ken to get to the island without being too overly obvious. Once there everyone seems to get the idea that this place may not be the most normal of fighting tournament locations. For the most part the entire facility seems to be filled with mindless zombies roaming around wearing only a hospital cloth and babbling incoherently. Actually it doesn’t sound much different from my local YMCA, just minus the drunken homeless man urinating on the basketball goal. It doesn’t matter what the hell this place looks like, or if it is more than apparent that it is a giant death trap, because our band of gruff fighters are here for one reason and one reason only: to be mindless filler characters until the director decides to forget about them. Which he does almost instantly.
Ryu, Chun Li, and Ken decide it would be best not to participate in the fighting tournament and instead go off to look for clues as to the whereabouts of Shun. Ryu decides to wander off by himself while Chun Li and Ken explore the inside of the facility. Of course this being a state of the art facility with the latest in security, killer cyborgs, evil ninjas, and a countless army of goons, Chun Li and Ken get in unnoticed. Except for a few guards which Chun Li dispatches with a few well placed kicks to the face. Soon however the awful truth is revealed after Ken and Chun Li find the fighters from the tournament shown no less than 30 seconds ago locked up, and wondering just what the hell is going on. One of the prisoners informs Chun Li that the winner of the tournament (which I must remind you, has apparently only lasted 30 seconds), Birdy, has already been taken away and it would probably be a good idea to find him because they will need someone else to get the shit beat of them in the upcoming fight scene. After a little searching Chun Li finds Birdy, suspended from several hundred wires hooked to him that are syphoning away his fighting aura. Chun Li quickly rescues him only to find out a minute later that we have gone way too long without an action scene and it’s time for some ass whoopin.
Ryu meanwhile eventually wanders into a large opening filled with more of the mindless zombie people. Only this time there’s one he recognizes, Shun. It seems the evil scientist has already gotten to Shun and given him the full treatment because he is now a complete and total fucking moron, even moreso than before.
Shun continues to ramble on about nothing in particular and eventually goes insane and starts yelling and crying, which causes Ryu to get even more pissed off and promises Shun that he’ll get him off the island and get revenge for whoever has done this to him. Probably because Ryu knows he’s gonna have to pay to have Shun put in one of those special schools that the best he can hope for is that they teach him how to not defecate on himself by the time he’s 30. Ryu runs off to find his comrades, which he does, just now in slightly more battered and beaten form.
One of the cyborgs from the earlier tournament had found Chun Li, Ken, and Birdy and decided against just letting them get off the island without any serious amounts of bodily harm done to them. Once Ryu finds them the cyborg is more than willing to do the same to Ryu. This is however exactly what the evil mad scientist wants. Now he’ll finally get his chance to get Ryu’s evil chi for himself, which I’m sure he will use later on as the final climactic battle. Hmmm.. It seems I have just given away a large chunk of the plot, and the funny thing is that I could care less at this point so just go fuck yourself in the ear for all I care. Meanwhile Ryu expresses his concerns by looking straight into the camera very seriously.
Ryu and the cyborg continue to fight it out, neither giving any ground. That is until the cyborg reveals his horrible secret. It seems that Shun is actually inside the cyborg, controlling him himself. Now I would try to explain how and why this is happening to you as best I can, but for the life of me I don’t understand what the hell is going on myself. Somehow Shun has ended up INSIDE the cyborg fighter and is controlling him, relentlessly bent on killing his own brother. Ryu is not happy at all with this, and is really getting tired of watching his friends get the shit beat out of them repeatedly. A person can only take so much, especially with the fact that he’s turning into a demon, his friends are basically dead, and now his so-called brother is located inside a cyborg’s stomach and trying to kill him. Finally Ryu just does what the rest of us would do and totally loses it, letting the demon take over and throwing an energy blast that literally blows a hole straight through the cyborg, blasting Shun into the air, free from the cyborg’s inner workings, and making the evil scientist have multiple orgasms because he finally got exactly what he wanted.
With his new found power our evil scientist friend decides to make his grand entrance to show off just how powerful he is. Unfortunately the scientist isn’t exactly the most intimidating of people, standing at approximately four feet tall and looking more like a mole on steroids, the scientist had better have some damn good moves to offset his rather humorous looks.
For the first time in the movie Ryu actually gets a “what the FUCK is this shit” look on his face, pretty much saying what the rest of us are all thinking. Meanwhile Ken and Chun Li are still half-dead, and Shun isn’t faring all that much better since he did just get an energy blast the size of an SUV straight to the face. The Scientist finally explains his evil intentions that all along he has been absorbing every fighter’s aura and strengths for his own use. And now that he has just gotten the ultimate power thanks to Ryu’s little temper tantrum, nothing can stop him. At least until he gets done talking, at which point Ryu tries to lay into him only to have the scientist slam his face into his forehead repeatedly.
Ryu can’t take much more. He knows if he uses the evil chi much more it will totally take over his very being and eventually destroy him and all those close to him. Kind of like eating at McDonald’s for days in a row. The Scientist sees this and begins building up his own aura large enough to totally wipe out Ryu in one blast. The only way Ryu can save his friends is to use the evil chi to block the energy blast and destroy the scientist, but sacrificing himself in the process. Oh MY!
Ryu decides there is no other way and begins to charge up the evil chi. Just as he is about to release it Ken notices that Ryu has become slightly more demonic looking and realizes what is going on. He yells out to Ryu, saying some type of emotional line that I cannot recall at the moment. Whatever he said it registers with Ryu as he suddenly sees through the dark power of Akuma to the light, stopping the evil dark energy blast and replacing it with the light blue super energy blast we all have become so accustomed to beating our friends with at the arcade. Ryu lets loose with his pimp fireball, totally consuming the scientist, killing him instantly and stopping his evil plans for world domination. Well, I think he was going to use his plans for world domination. He never really did say. So I’ll just go with the stereotype that all evil scientists will use their plans to take over the world. Besides I doubt he was just doing it to kill time until dinner.
Ken and Chun Li finally pick themselves up only to see Ryu holding a crippled and broken Shun. Shun explains that (I think) he is not really his brother and did the entire thing to help his sick mother. Ryu listens until Shun trails off signaling that he has in fact died, slowly letting go of Ryu’s hand. Ryu then does something that nearly sent me to the floor in outright shock. The man ALMOST shows emotion. You can see that he is really trying hard to do it. And just before we get to see a breakthrough in Ryu’s emotional capabilities, he throws an angry punch to the camera. Basically saying “fuck off and roll the credits.” Which we do, ending the movie and throwing us back into our own pitiful depressing lives.
There you have it. If you’re a Street Fighter fan at all then I suggest you go check out Street Fighter Alpha The Movie. Even if the entire movie has less emotion in it than a piece of plastic wrapping, it’s still a pretty fun eye candy for fans.
At least if you like anime.
And Street Fighter.
A lot.
Oh fuck it, forget I even mentioned it.
