Street Fighter Review: The Movie That Killed Jean-Claude Van Damme's Career (And Raul Julia's Legacy)

The Setup: A Video Game Movie That Missed The Point Entirely

In 1994, Hollywood was still figuring out how to adapt video games. The technology wasn't there. The writing wasn't there. The respect for the source material definitely wasn't there. Street Fighter is the perfect example of all three failures.

The film takes the beloved fighting game franchise and turns it into a bizarre military action movie with almost no connection to what fans loved. The characters look vaguely like their game counterparts, but they don't act like them. The plot has nothing to do with a fighting tournament. And the lead character — Guile — is played by Jean-Claude Van Damme, who is about as far from the stoic, blond-haired military man as you can get.

But here's the thing: the film was directed by Steven E. de Souza, the writer of Die Hard and Commando. He knows how to make an entertaining action movie. He just didn't know how to make a Street Fighter movie. What we got instead is a gloriously messy, bizarre, and unintentionally hilarious trainwreck.

The Plot: A Nonsensical Mission to Save the World

General M. Bison (Raul Julia) is a warlord who has taken over a small Southeast Asian country called Shadaloo. He's holding hostages and demanding a ransom of $20 billion. The Allied Nations send Colonel William F. Guile (Van Damme) and his team to stop him.

Meanwhile, Chun-Li (Ming-Na Wen) is a reporter who wants revenge on Bison for killing her father. Ryu (Byron Mann) and Ken (Damian Chapa) are small-time con artists who get caught up in the mission. Cammy (Kylie Minogue) is a military officer. Zangief (Andrew Bryniarski) is a Russian wrestler who is working for Bison for some reason. Dhalsim (Roshan Seth) is a scientist. Blanka (Robert Mammone) is a mutated soldier.

The plot is nonsense. Characters appear and disappear with no explanation. The motivations are unclear. The geography makes no sense. It's a film that was clearly rewritten and reshot multiple times, and it shows.

The Acting: Julia Shines, Everyone Else Drowns

Raul Julia is the only reason to watch this film. He was dying of cancer during production, but he brought every ounce of his formidable talent to the role of M. Bison. He's campy, over-the-top, and genuinely menacing. His "Tuesday" monologue is legendary. It's a performance that belongs in a much better movie.

Jean-Claude Van Damme is badly miscast. He's playing Guile as a stoic, quippy action hero, but he doesn't have the charisma or the screen presence to carry the film. He's just... there.

Ming-Na Wen is a bright spot. She's a perfect Chun-Li. She's fierce, determined, and genuinely emotional. She deserved a better film.

Kylie Minogue as Cammy is fine, but she's not given much to do. The same goes for Wes Studi as Sagat and Byron Mann as Ryu.

The Verdict: A Beautiful Disaster

Street Fighter is a bad film. It's a terrible adaptation, a poorly made action movie, and a waste of a talented cast. But it's also a fascinating artifact of 1990s Hollywood excess. It's a film that was made with no understanding of what made the games popular, and yet somehow became a cult classic anyway.

If you're a fan of "so bad it's good" cinema, watch it. Raul Julia's performance alone is worth the price of admission. If you're a fan of the games, watch it at your own risk.

Score: 2/5

Verdict: Skip. Unless you're watching with friends and making fun of it. That's the only way to enjoy this one.

The writer of this review has watched the "Tuesday" scene more times than he can count. It's the only good thing in this movie.