BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Lucia Ayala It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Francene Odetta It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

deepion by now, you've probably heard that Street Fighter Alpha movie is not as good as Street Fighter II: The Movie. However, Street Fighetr Alpha is still amazingly good. Take the example of Matrix Reloaded. On it's own, it would have been a major success and everyone would have loved it. However, before that came The Matrix. The Matrix was so unbelievably good, so perfect in every way that Reloaded didn't really stand a chance. And it is the same here. Street Fighter II movie was so good, exactly what fans of the game wanted to see that anything after that would pale into comparison, which is exactly what happened to Street Fighter Alpha. The truth of the matter is, Street Fighter Aplha is an amazingly good movie. Sure, it has it's faults, but so did Street Fighter II. Still, Street Fighter Alpha is very entertaining and sticks well with the whole street fighter universe, and it is perfect for those who have played the ASlpha games, introducing new characters in the movie. The whole movie is more dark and mysterious and incredibly fascinating. You will not be disappointed, although Akuma could have done so much more in the movie, it was a waste of a good character.

jaywolfenstien Okay, granted, this animated film is based upon an arcade game. Not just an arcade game--an arcade *fighting* game. The requirements for a good arcade fighting game (especially back when Street Fighter set the standards) did not involve having a plot. If it played well and was fun, then you had a hit. It's a given that to make a film the creators are going to have to expand on the three sentences of backstory each character has, and the equally shallow endings they all have; sometimes even substancially change them . . . so why did they feel it necessary to invent a whole new villain with artificial fighters at his disposal? No.Granted, I haven't played the original SF Alpha in ages, but I recall Bison (generally speaking) still being the villain in the Alpha/Zero series (yes, I know, not everyone fought Bison in the first one). I can understand them not wanting to introduce Bison in this film to preserve the storyline of the existing SF Anime, but you still have Sagat from SF1. Heck, this film even brings up Akuma (who would have made an excellent lead villain if given the spotlight) but he's not pursued. Instead we're stuck with a throwaway guy no one cares about who has no connection to the Street Fighter game universe. The only thing worse is they don't make much attempt to make him or his underlings as interesting as the "true" SF characters. He's just a cliche mad scientist. That's all.Then the presence of annoying existing SF characters doesn't help either. I hated Sakura in the game; I hate her in the anime. Ryu's brother issue started out all right; however, it quickly dissolved into meaningless drivel as the "plot" involving the "villain" consumed him.Much of Street Fighter Alpha/Zero's vast cast of characters is not utilized (understandably so considering the volume of faces they've developed over the years), but even the ones who are really don't do much but get beat up until Ryu overcomes his inner demons, discovers the true warrior spirit, yadda, yadda, yadda, and ultimately saves the day. Every Street Fighter player knows that Ken is just as bad as Ryu, if not he's even badder; they even fight to a standstill in this, and yet Ken can't put a dent in the android/robot/artificial guy/whatever he was supposed to be? No. If nothing else, Ken would be able to severly hurt the thing. I liked the original anime and even the V series because in the end Ryu & Ken ultimately team up. One or the other (usually Ryu) has to get the final hit, but it takes both of them for a victory. Akuma would have given them both a run for their money with his raging demon; Street Fighter fans don't want the throw-away Sadler crap, we want the real deal--bring on Akuma.

hiji Ok. Being an semi-anime fan for a few years, I once fell upon street fighter 2, as an animated movie it was pretty good. The drawing was top notch, and the plot made sense. Not to mention most of the fights were pretty well done. In this, street fighter zero(alpha?) I found it sucked. The drawing was nowhere near as good as SF2. The plot was crap, I mean, the kid shows up and this amazing hardcore die hard fighter dude just believes he's his little brother? What's with that? The whole dark ha-do(sorry, don't know how to spell) thing is kinda cool, but if this had been pursued as more of a sequal to SF2 using some continuity between them, not to mention better drawing in general, I would be more pleased. I can't say the movie didn't entertain me at all, I still like whatching people get beat up, but I think it lacks some of the more apealing features of most plain old let's kick some tail movies.

mc12000 It's true that movies adapted from arcade games have never had an original or involved storyline. All of them rely on action and special effects to carry them through . However, each movie has it's own style. Mortal Kombat followed a similar storyline to 'Enter The Dragon' where a group of warriors travelled to a deserted island and kicked the bad guy's butt. Street Fighter has stayed on the anime canvas all the way through this (apart from the s*** which featured Jean Claude Van Damme which I personally do not count as a movie) and the first feature made in Japan was a great success even though there wasn't a great storyline. The thing that did it for me was the character portrayal and the relationship between Ryu and Ken. I remember being so disappointed when they did not fight each other. In addition, the touching flashbacks to their past really added to the film's magnetism. As many a SF2 fan would know, the original Japanese script and soundtrack was taken by Manga and translated into English. The soundtrack was completely wiped and replaced with grunge metal. Imagine my disapointment when I found that SF Alpha contained the same sounding grunge. It became apparent to me that this was a Manga-produced project and it really shows in the difference in drawings. For instance, Ryu does not look Japanese at all. Whoever designed his facial profile should be lynched and whoever decided to give him blue eyes should be slashed to pieces as well. Ken, on the other hand, looks far better (though by no means an improvement on his original look in the first movie). Aside from all this, the film focuses far too much on Ryu's personal struggle with is powers. They really should've gone with sticking to a good guys vs bad guys storyline. A few characters from the Alpha game are featured but are cameo roles to make up the numbers. Chun Li is also present but the animators seem more interested in drawing her crotch than anything else. To summarise, disappointing storyline, disappointing animation and even worse soundtrack. Manga should've left this to the 'real' experts in anime.