Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie Anime Review

Plot Synopsis

Guile is a soldier with an unenviable task--join up with a Chinese Interpol agent, Chun-Li, and track down the most notorious international criminal in the world, Bison, head of the Shadowlaw organization. Bison has been picking out the world's best fighters and using his psychic powers to possess them, slowly building his empire. Most recently, Bison has taken an interest in Ken and Ryu, the two best street fighters in the world. The pair of martial artists trained as brothers, but have taken different paths in life--Ken as the flashy street fighting actor, and Ryu as a wandering brawler, fighting any taker in every corner of the world to increase his skill. Bison has at his disposal a number of other unpleasant henchmen, and Guile and Chun-Li, working with Ken and Ryu, are going to have their hands full dealing with them.

Notes and Trivia

Street Fighter II: The Movie is, of course, based on Street Fighter II, the seminal fighting game by Capcom. There is no Street Fighter 1 anime, and the original Street Fighter video game is obscure to put it mildly. The story of this movie contains a few references to the various plotlines in the original game, but it's basically self-contained. It also has nothing to do with the stories of the many other Street Fighter anime incarnations.

Some random bits of trivia: Akuma appears briefly in the background during the film, but has no speaking part. Funaki Masakatsu, who voices Fei Long in the Japanese version, is a pro wrestler in addition to an actor. Kusaka Takeshi, who voices the main villain (Vega in the original, Bison in the US naming scheme), is better known as an occasional live-action actor; his best-known performance is probably a role in Akira Kurosawa's final film, Madadayo.

There has been so much confusion and misinformation about the varioius versions of this title floating around over the years that I'm going to go ahead and take some time to clear up as much as I can here. I've double checked all of this, so there shouldn't be any mistakes.

Naming Quirks

On the topic of confusing names: In the English version of the games (and therefore the dub of this movie, as well as the English subtitles), the skinny guy with the mask is named Vega, the big boxer is Balrog, and the main villain is Bison. But, in the original Japanese versions, Vega is the main villain, the masked Spaniard is Balrog (Balrog Fabio La Cerda, apparently), and the American boxer is M. Bison (the M. ostensibly stands for "Mike," obviously a reference to the famed real-life boxer). I've heard rumor that the boxer's name was changed due to the threat of a lawsuit from Mike Tyson, but even if true I'm not sure why the rest of the shuffle happened. Another funny name is E. Honda, who despite being a Japanese sumo wrestler is named Edmond (even in the Japanese version). Finally, the evil organization is dubbed as "Shadowlaw," while in the Japanese version they're saying "Shadowloo."

Edited Versions

Now to cover the seriously confusing situation about which versions are available where.

The movie was released theatrically in both the US and Japan, although the US theatrical version was edited significantly to get a PG-13 rating. There have since been two additional edited versions released, for a total of four versions. They are:

1. An edited PG-13 version for the US market that saw a limited theatrical release as well as a VHS run. It is sans much of the gore and most of the Chun-Li shower/fight scene. The video is now out of print.
2. An "unrated" US version that is less edited (a few cuts for time and both shots showing nudity in the shower scene). This was the only version available in the US until 2006, first on VHS, then on one of the earliest anime DVDs; both were dub-only.
3. The "UK" version, which is as far as I can tell nearly identical to the "unrated" US release with the exception of one additional upper-body shot of Chun-Li in the shower left in. It still contains several minor edits for time and has one shot removed from the shower scene. This version is now available in the US on the dubbed side of the 2006 DVD release from Manga.
4. The original unedited version, which was not available in the US at all until Manga's 2006 DVD re-release; it's on the Japanese side of that disc.

Due to the editing and exaggerated runtime numbers, there's some confusion about how long the movie actually is; the older US DVD version claimed a 96-minute runtime even though it's actually 98 including the credits, while the "UK Edition," regardless of what the box says, is an almost-identical 98 minutes and a few seconds, including the credits. The fully uncut Japanese version is 101 minutes; more than half of that difference is just because the Japanese credits are longer.

For all the fuss that's been made by fans over the years about the missing shower scene, I must say that there really wasn't much cut--all of about 10 seconds of nudity. The other cuts are not substantive--mostly bits here and there to pick up the pace a little.

Exact Edits Made

For those who just have to know what the edits are, I went through and compared the English ("UK Edition") and Japanese (completely uncut) versions on the 2006 Manga DVD release; here is a list of every single cut (warning: spoilers, if you care).

1. About 20 minutes in, at the very end of the section with Fei Long, about 12 seconds are cut from the part where they silently part ways, mostly from a long shot of Ryu walking away in silence.
2. Later, in Calcutta, about 8 seconds are cut from the scene where the kid spills the milk--bits and pieces throughout to speed up the scene slightly. At the end of the same scene another 6 seconds are cut from the end of the shot where Ryu walks away.
3. In the infamous lead-up to the Chun-Li fight, about 25 seconds are cut; most of the edits are pans of buildings, but there is one long pan of Chun-Li's exposed backside in the shower removed as well as part of a pan away from the closed shower door. The Unrated US version also cut one more shot of Chun-Li's chest. Interestingly, the UK and US scenes are exactly the same length, and the breast shot appears in a different place in the UK version compared to the original; it appears that they just replaced one of the other shots in the US version with the footage of Chun-Li to avoid having to re-do the audio in the scene.
4. Around an hour into the film, there is a total of 13 seconds cut from the build-up to the villain's jet running Ken's car off the road; the edits are all shots of the lights in the sky and Ken driving in silence.
5. When the head villain is finished telling off Sagat, a shot of the boxer following his boss out of the room and a long shot of Sagat left standing alone are removed, for a total of 10 seconds.
6. Finally, in the establishing shot of the mountains in Thailand immediately following that scene, the shot starts a little later, making the total pan 4 seconds shorter overall.

The total of these minor edits is 75 seconds or so of runtime. The Japanese credit crawl is additionally a minute and 45 seconds longer, for a total difference of about 3 minutes of runtime.

Reader Tom, who went to considerable effort to create his own ultimate fan-edition DVD to make up for shortcomings in Manga's release, helped confirm the edits listed above and pointed out a couple of additional differences between US, UK, and Japanese versions:

1. A one-second fade-out of Ken driving away after the encounter with Thunderhawk lacks the fade, instead cutting abruptly to the next scene. This difference even exists on the Japanese side of the 2006 US DVD; the fade only seems to exist on versions released in Japan (or at least some of them).
2. While the UK version and 2006 US uncut version have the same video apart from the single Chun-Li cut mentioned above, two bits of profanity were changed in the US version's audio. Specifically, Dee Jay's line "Yahoo! They are some badass mothers. I am honored." and Guile's line "Bison, I'm gonna rip your lousy heart out, you filthy bastard!" both included an F-bomb in the UK edition.

DVD Mastering Notes

Tom further noted that the Japanese DVD release appears to have been done from a different master than either the UK or Japanese versions on Manga's 2006 US release. Most noticeably, the DVD released in Japan has significantly brighter video, which, given the relatively dark scenes, is a plus; the sharpness and clarity otherwise appear similar, and all of the above are letterboxed rather than anamorphic widescreen.

Based entirely on the fact that the Japanese DVD is 30fps interlaced, while the Japanese side of the US version is 24fps without interlacing, the video on that US release apparently comes from a different master than the Japanese DVD version, which would also explain the differing fade mentioned above. This is just a guess, but it's possible that this non-interlaced 24fps master was the one used to produce the interlaced PAL version for the UK market, which would explain why the color balance would be similar between the two, and why both would feature the different fade in the scene with Ken.

US DVD Review

Manga 2006 DVD

Manga has finally replaced its old, inadequate DVD version with an "Uncut" 2006 disc. The new release is far from perfect, but relieves the confusion by finally including the long-overdue unedited version with a Japanese language track (it's about time). It's being advertised as having the UK soundtrack (in the dub) by KMDFM, although this is no different from the score used in the older US release and there's no particular reason I can see to single out that band from the others on the English soundtrack.

The disc itself is a bit of a disappointment; since even the "UK Edition" is slightly edited, it comes on a 2-sided DVD, with the uncut Japanese subtitled version on one side (thankfully with soft subtitles), and the English dubbed version on the other. Both languages come in your choice of Dolby 2.0 or 5.1, but both, sadly, are letterboxed, rather than anamorphic widescreen.

This isn't a videophile site, but the video transfer in the two versions are noticeably different. The English version has interlaced video and the transfer looks a little less vibrant, but is brighter, making it a little easier to follow the action in the darker scenes (of which there are a lot). Since it's a proper film-style 24 fps and claims to be the "UK" version, I wonder if it wasn't converted from an interlaced PAL master. The Japanese version is not interlaced, and richer-looking, but also seems to suffer from a little more color fringing and is dark enough that it was hard to pick out details in some of the darkest scenes. It's also a proper 24 fps progressive. Overall, the Japanese version looks a little better (and benefits from not being interlaced if you're watching on a computer or modern TV), but it's sad that neither is a proper widescreen transfer.

To illustrate the fairly subtle differences, here are a couple of images (they only show a small part of the full frame, to highlight details):

In the top image, the left is from the Japanese side of the DVD and the right is from the English one (neither is deinterlaced, since there was no motion in this shot). Note the color fringing on her bow on the left, and the slightly softer colors on the right. In the bottom image, the left is from the Japanese side, the middle is computer-deinterlaced from the English side, and the right is interlacing-intact from the English side. This shows some of the color difference, but mostly just illustrates what interlacing will do if you aren't watching it on an old-fashioned TV.

Extra features are limited to basically just the trailer for the film on the English side and some simple character bios on the Japanese side (with clips from their fight scenes). There's also a decent-looking full-color promotional mini-comic included in the box--it's a scene from the movie to whet your appetite, nothing more. The box, by the way, is a standard clamshell case, but comes with a paper outer slipcover that is bright red and has an embossed fist on it. Depending on whether the product photo shows the outer cover or the actual box, it can look like there are two versions, but there's only the one.

Original 1997 DVD

The original 1997 release from Manga is not what you'd call a stellar DVD (although to their credit, it was one of the earliest anime DVD releases, period). The US-release disc features widescreen, letterboxed video (not anamorphic), and includes the English stereo soundtrack (no Japanese at all--highly disappointing), and an English subtitle track. It is the American "unrated" version, which is still slightly edited from the original, as noted.

Parental Guide

Soon to be available in the US in two versions, not including the old PG-rated one which removed much of the gore, nudity, and harsh language. Both the unrated and completely uncut versions probably qualify as 16-up on account of the violence and nudity, though 13-up isn't entirely unreasonable.

Violence: 3 - Not extremely graphic, but plenty of violence and some gore.

Nudity: 2 - A brief shower scene and one long fight with Chun-Li in her nightclothes. The dubbed versions remove some of the already brief nudity.

Sex/Mature Themes: 1 - Some romance between Ken and his wife-to-be, nothing more.

Language: 2 - Some expletives.

More info on what the numbers mean.

Staff & Cast

Japanese Cast

(Japanese names listed family name first)

Ryu: Shimizu Koujiro
Ken (Ken Masters): Haga Kenji
Chun-Li: Fujitani Miki
Major Guile: Tsukayama Masane
Vega (US: Bison): Kusaka Takeshi
E. Honda (Edmund Honda): Gouri Daisuke
Fei Long: Funaki Masakatsu
Deejay: Matsuo Ginzou
Thunderhawk: Iizuka Shouzou
Cammy (Cammy White): Sasaki Yohko
Dhalsim: Kishino Yukimasa
Blanka: Ishizuka Unshou
Zangief: Kanao Tetsuo
Balrog (Balrog Fabio La Cerda) (US: Vega): Shiozawa Kaneto
Sagat: Sasaoka Shigezou
Bison (Mike Bison) (US: Balrog): Nakata Johji
Eliza: Tsuru Hiromi
Gouken: Amamoto Hideyo (aka Amamoto Eisei)
Girl: Toyoshima Machiko

Gouki (US: Akuma): Appears, but doesn't speak.

Crew

Director: Gisaburo Sugii
Writer: Kenichi Imai, Gisaburo Sugii

Availability

As of 2006, is finally available in the US from Manga Video on uncut hybrid DVD. Previously available as an "unrated" dub-only DVD with minor editing. There were also two VHS versions, both long out of print, one of a heavily-edited PG-rated version, the other the same as the slightly edited "unrated" DVD.

RightStuf carries the new uncut DVD.

Looking to buy? Try these stores: RightStuf (search) | AnimeNation | Amazon