Come on, Dan, Chun Li _does_ learn something. She learns how to make a fireball, a key representation of her progress as a character, which is why the revenge plot ends with her killing her father's murderer by breaking his neck with her ankles.

Wait, if Bison was orphaned in Thailand as an infant, why the hell does he have an Irish accent? Do the filmmakers think accents are genetic?

Watching this video made me late for my job at I͡MP̸O͘RTAN͡T ̵BUS͝IN͠ESS

10:38 - *checks another window "We're going to put the movie on pause for a moment and talk about gays." Wait, what? *checks back Oh, gaze. That makes much more sense. *short time later, talks about how one character is a lesbian Well, then.

If you're not familiar with Streetfighter, the sentence, "her father was kidnapped by bison" is very amusing

No, the best line in the movie is "Your father was the milk of my organization. But even milk has an expiration date." *snaps neck*

I know I'm late to this, but I just watched Legend of Chun-Li for Bad Movie Night & I feel like Bison marrying & impregnating an innocent woman for the purpose of murdering her by ripping their unborn child out through her stomach means that he probably didn't need to do a ritual to eliminate his goodness. Feels very results-oriented. I'm not expecting ancient evil rituals to undergo rigorous peer review, but I feel like this one in particular has a strong sample bias towards "people who are already completely fucking evil anyway"

"Mario Mario and Luigi Mario" is actually one of the most important moments of our cultural history

The filmmakers were off by one degree regarding Chun-Li's character: the pianist should be her COVER STORY for why she's traveling all over! And for some emotional impact, she reveals in a quiet dialogue with an ally that "yes, as a kid I did enjoy the piano a lot"

The Legend Of Chun Li is one of my favourite movies. Whenever I'm feeling inadequate, I put it on and go "well at least I'm not _this_ bad."

Ahhh Legend of Chun Li. A movie where a Chinese girl got whiter as she got older.

I love how they changed Chun-Li from an Interpol agent to a concert pianist... and then added Interpol agents that don't do anything.

“We need to make street fighter more realistic for this movie. So instead of trying to adapt thd crazy special moves and stuff, we’ll try to make it a more gritty martial arts action movie.” “Also we’ll adapt the plot point of Bison expelling the positive emotions from his body, which became their own person, in exchange for magic powers.”

I'll be the Street Fighter nerd and throw in some SF lore tidbits here: -As dumb as the Bison ridding himself of goodness thing is, it is canon that Rose is his good side. He created Rose in order to gain Psycho Power (his magic mumbo-jumbo powers) and became super-evil. Rose is pretty powerful herself, but she's definitely not his daughter. -Gen is a bit older than he is in the movie, and is considered one of the best fighters in the world. He does teach Chun in the game lore, but his main motivation in the series is that he is dying, and hopes to have one last great fight (usually with Akuma). The movie actually really missed a great opportunity to parallel Gen with Chun's mother, and see how she would react to that news. Couple of minor things, but thought people might like to know.

The biggest travesty was the lack of sexily muscular thighs. The reason you go to a Chun-Li movie is to see some powerful legs doing powerful kicks. You start there and build the movie from there

"the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life...but for me... it was tuesday." HAS GOT TO BE THE MOST BADASS LINE IN CINEMA HISTORY EVER SPOKEN BY A BADASS.

Dan I can't fucking believe you really made this and I love you for it. Chun Li was like a personal idol of mine as a girl in the 90s and one of my friends, as a gag, bought me a ticket to this movie because we both knew it would suck and he wanted to see my reaction. Nobody in that theater took it seriously. The sequel tease at the end led to someone else in the theater screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" at the top of their lungs. Much booze was had.

I love watching your videos man, I feel like I'm getting cleverer! Sometimes when I watch a film now I have a tiny Dan on my shoulder who's like, "So in this scene, the filmmakers chose to edit this particular sequence in such a way that..." and I love it!

OK, but what about a video discussing why the "It was Tuesday" scene from Street Fighter: The Movie is one of the most perfectly constructed scenes ever made?

To me, the most intriguing question created by the "getting rid of all my goodness", is, *why* would he do that? What even is the motivation? Does he think his goodness is holding him back? From what? If so, how could he kill his wife with seemingly no hesitation? It's almost paradoxical. Trying to imagine what kind of person would and could commit cold-blooded murder to try and remove their own goodness is such an interesting question. "Because he's evil" can't answer it.

Its so weird that, of all the story elements they changed, they kept the Bison origin the same. In the game Bison is a ethereal being that hops from body to body, so him removing parts of his soul arent all that weird. In the movie he is just some evil real estate guy, so why did they keep this?!

To me, it's funny to imagine her trying to play some Chopin or whatever in front of an audience but her hands are all gnarled and broken from punching so many people so often throughout the course of the film. Like, the only sounds are uncomfortable throat clearing and coughing from the audience mixed in with the sound of grinding bone fragments in her mangled knuckles. Just a few plinks and plonks here and there as she shakily manages to lightly press down a key or two.

I found the film rather informative. Now we know the details of the ritual you have to perform to become a billionaire.

To be fair about the Rose thing, that was sorta from the games. But also to be fairer, they didn't have the daughter thing but rather had her more directly as a piece of his soul, given in the games Bison was more an evil mysterious body-hopper with an unknown past (Cammy's backstory was tied into that, and there's even a long standing theory that Bison's original body was female). Which kinda goes to show how making a character's motives/backstory less "pulpy" can also make it ironically more stupid. See also: Thanos being a malthusian rather than being a "Nice Guy" trying to get out of the "friendzone" with the personification of death.

You should've released this on a Tuesday.

21:34 God, that is still such an immortal line that's kinda too good for that fucking movie.

Almost anyone who goes to Street Fighter tournaments could tell a more compelling story about their journey to master and compete in the video game than anything this film could achieve.

I feel like Castlevania on Netflix is one of the few game adaptations where the creative team gets it. Not only is it in a series format, giving it more time to breathe, but those old NES games strike the balance of having a solid foundation to start with, while also leaving enough to the imagination to force the writers to dig deep and be creative when fleshing out the world and story.

Why do so many terrible plots involve real estate?

You could make a video describing paint drying and it would still be the most interesting thing in the world

That's not a felony murder. That's a 2nd degree murder. A felony murder is when you are committing a felony and someone dies as a result (You drive 180 on the road and run over a pedestrian). The felony murder rule basically eliminates the intent prong of a murder charge so long as you can prove the intent prong of the felony that lead to the death.

New Folding Ideas (gets popcorn)

I really liked your phrasing about disingaging extremity at ~19:50. I recently watched a six episode Scottish crime drama with my parents, where my dad expressed a similar experience when they dropped the corpse of a missing teen out of the back of the truck he'd been abandoned in, in front of his parents, and all the attendees of a town meeting. It immediately and irreparably severed my father's emotional connection to the plot, and started some verbal fist-shaking at the writers, saying how it made it about them. I didn't get it in that circumstance, quite willing to take it in stride with the rest of the overinflated events and reactions in the show, and not really getting how it had anything to do with anything other than upping the tension and horror™ for a less critical audience. I think you captured pretty well what I think Dad's experience had been

I think they could have presented Bison and Chun Li as opposites and the seeds where already here. Their journeys are almost parallel. Bison was dealt a bad hand since birth and had to live the rough life Chun Li opted into when she got to Thailand. If, IF Bison had been shown to be sacrificing his goodness to out OUT of extreme poverty, that might be something. And then, maybe in the end maybe you have Chun Li decide wether she's gonna sacrifice her good side, give in and murder Bison, thus becoming like him. Instead we don't get a sense that Bison killed someone he loved for something, in exchange for something. He can't even teleport and fly. Did that make him a rich businessman? Or did he fish-steal his way into wealth? I hate to use this as an example, but...Mortal Kombat Annihilation took Shao Khan, who was a pretty one note "tough" villain who said one liners, and said "yeah, he's all that, but he's actually pretty much trying to impress his father." This one took a one note villain and made him a one note villain with a confusing backstory.

How not to present a spinning kick... Jackie Chan did it best as a gag in an unrelated film...

Me, 6 mins in: I've seen something like this before.

Wait... Have you spent YEARS teaching us about things like GAZE and the Kulishov Effect, just so you could take a second, deeper shot at 'Street Fighter: The Legend of Chung-Li'? You play the long game, bro!

10:40 I think at least a little condemnation is in order for the way the film presents lesbian attraction to women with the assumption that it follows in much the same way as no doubt the heterosexual man operating the camera would suggest.

Looks like a bunch of the problems are due to the need to include fanservice/callbacks to game lore: -"white rose" and the whole thing with the baby= reference to the character "Rose" in the video game who was a little girl whose mother Bison killed before infusing her with all his goodness,leaving him pure evil, in order to gain magic powers - bizarre parallel subplot = a character called "Charlie Nash" who is motivation for a popular street fighter character (van damme's Guile) due to being killed by Bison. His only purpose is to tease people who have this knowledge with the prospect of him getting killed so we "witness Guile's backstory". - Anachronisms with Gen: due to the fact that Gen in the games is supposedly thousands of years old; so the script presumably isn't aware of the fact that a young actor has been selected to play him. -weird shift in tone for the nightclub battle= fanservice and contrivance to get Chun li into her videogame outfit and show off her helicopter kick -real estate nonsense: presumably to allow him to bring in his "shipment" which is Rose. As Chun Li's father has been kept alive all this time, and has been presumably preparing something for Bison (captive scientists working under duress are a trope in Bison's backstories) it is probably assumed we would deduce that Bison is securing a location for the "psycho drive" which is located in Thailand in the videogame, and is where Bison performs genetic experiments that grant him immortality. -concert pianist: have no bloody idea. In all SF lore she becomes an interpol agent in order to take down Bison and clearly was one in an early draft of this script for reasons given in the video (handwaves aside a lot of silliness). I can only assume someone decided Nash should be the agent instead (he is US military in the game) and as a result Chun Li couldn't be one without knowing him. Seems the thing that kills videogame movies is all the "hidden story": stuff floating around outside the margins that originates from the game itself.

Honestly, until you showed Bison from Street Fighter: The Movie, I completely forgot this Bison was even supposed to be based on a video game character and not just another generic action villain

"I stood when standing was not easy". An actual line from the movie.

I really have no idea why I strongly felt that this was a 1999 movie, not a 2009 movie

It's always neat to see content creators recreate some old content. This isn't the first video I would have picked out to remake, but it still looks neat.

"The day this video graced your website was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Friday."

Super Folding Ideas II Turbo Championship Edition

I really liked your original breakdown of this, and seeing it again but in your modern, crisp style is a real treat!

Throwing my hat into the ring to say that Takashi Miike's Ace Attorney was the greatest video game movie ever made.

I watched the Legend of Chun-Li in theaters with my then-girlfriend. I was so excited for it, and it was such a let down, that honestly I think it's a big part of why we ended up splitting up. Like, she lost respect for me that day because my taste in art was so bad. But yah, my biggest gripe was that in this DarkKnight-esque gritty, realistic, everything-magical-has-an-explanation world, Surf Ninjas guy can just summon a fucking fireball.

something interesting i've read is that, most of the time, women don't show physical attraction about the way that men do. That's why songs about men made by women always seem different that songs made by men about women. Women will talk about a specific guy, while men will speak in general. "hoot girls with bewbs" vs "That guy specifically is hot." while i can't 100% say so, i'd say the cantana scene doesn't work because of that principle, cantana, as a lesbian, has a low likelihood of objectifying women in the way that the camera implies she does.

as a longtime fan of Street Fighter whose favorite character is Chun-Li, I well remember the day I walked around a corner in my local theater and saw a large standup display advertising the soon to be released Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. With almost no information, having not even seen a teaser trailer yet, I appraised the advertisement and immediately proclaimed: "That shit looks fucking terrible." I've been correct on a snap judgment call before but I'm not sure if it's ever been to such an incredible extent.

I literally just rewatched the original episode the other day lol

I'm going to ignore all the interesting stuff you said for 25 minutes and 13 seconds and say that video game movies actually peaked with Mortal Kombat in 1995.

Your videos stimulate me in a profound and playful Bill Wurtzian kind of way and are without a doubt some of the best content on KZfaq. I know I'm comparing apples and oranges- one being scripted with intent and critical analysis and the other being in the "...huh" category- but I mean to say your work always evokes a smile and a little quiet time to comprehend before moving on with my day. It changes the way I view other media, for the better. Keep it up Dan! Thank you!

What's just as fascinating as this film was its writer, Justin Marks. For a time, he was supposed to be the next big writer for numerous geek properties including Voltron, Robotech, He-Man and even Shadow of the Colossus, but after this film bombed critically and commercially, he was basically sent to screenwriter jail where none of his scripts could be turned into films and TV shows. He even wrote an op-ed about that painful experience around 2013. And then he suddenly got a massive big break when he finally got a screenplay turned into a film: the live-action Jungle Book remake released in 2016 which was the polar opposite of his last film he wrote, both critically and commercially. Suddenly he was back at the top, maybe a little too quickly though. He got a TV series made called Counterpart which lasted for 2 seasons but never found an audience despite favorable critical reception, and he was one of the original writers for Top Gun Maverick during its long development period (he is only credited for story in the final product alongside The Batman co-writer Peter Craig). Now he's expected to be the showrunner for an upcoming adaptation of Shogun for FX with his wife Rachel Kondo. Quite an unusual trajectory for the writer of a Street Fighter film. Edit: Now that Shogun has come out to overwhelming critical acclaim and strong viewership, it seems that Marks has finally found the recognition that he's been looking for for so long.

I feel like it should be noted that extensive dubbing (aka adr) is actually not that uncommon in film, but the big problem is if it's not directed, mixed, or recorded in a way to mask that it was dubbed

Was her father’s name Vincent Adultman?

I just love how he says: "The script SUUUUCKS" at 5:52

Always pour one out for the warcraft movie. In the end, it was an "ok" movie that could have been great, given a little less corporate oversight and a little more storytelling freedom.

The most tragic part of this film was that they could have adapted the Daigo parry and the entire film would have been worth it to see.

"I guess my memory of what the PS3 looks like is a little rusty." I think mine is too, if it looked like _that..._ (/s)

Don't mind me, I'm just waiting for the real M.C.U. ; the Mario Cinematic Universe.

It would be incredibly hard for me to overstate how much I value and respect the content you create.

HOW TO MAKE A GOOD STREET FIGHTER MOVIE 1. MAKE BLOODSPORT 2. PUT STREET FIGHTER PEOPLE IN IT

It's fascinating going back and watching your old Chun-Li video and then this one back to back.

The only problem with this channel is that I've already watched every video

I've never seen 95% of the films you talk about but still love this channel

19:10 "The only thing that changes is the number of living parents and felony murders." I giggled

I saw this in theaters as a 13 year old kid who was obsessed with Street Fighter. I really wanted a “real” Street Fighter movie and was really excited. I was somehow able to very easily see how terrible the movie was immediately. I like to think it’s the first time I really thought about media critique lol

I watched this movie once when I was like 12 years old but imma still watch this entire vlog hella enthusiastically

crouching pianist & hidden street fighter.....LMFAO. still laughing

Okay dude, I'm going to need you to NOT look like the newspaper editor from DareDevil. I mean, it fits because this is very informative and insightful, but I keep worrying that Bullseye will try to kill you before you finish.

Quick thing about Dictator/Vega/M.Bison, he was always a pretty lame villan, more a really cool and menacing character design than a character, its only really after the push for narative in games and the US Arcades being taken out to pasture, that Capcom fighting games went for stories that are more than "beat up guy for revenge" or "Beat up guy to be the strongest in the world". The whole Infuse Child with Virtue thing calls back to Cammy White, a clone/vessel made for Bison so he can live forever(presumably), if Bison isnt trying to take over the world or... rob banks... he's busy making vessels/apprentices(the Dolls, Seth, Ed and that chick with the stick) to carry on Psycho Power for eternity... except for Athena from King of Fighters.

The art of (Blank) and the Atlas Shrugged Trilogy.

Great seeing a newer (and much improved) version of an old classic! I love that you left the old one up so we could contrast and compare!!

The thing with Bison giving Rose his goodness was that the good part of the soul controls and limits the power of the bad part of the soul which is why he did that; to gain great power. In the games anyway. He did it in the movies because he did it in the games. But he’s not filled to bursting with his psycho energy ki so what’s the point.

roll back a decade, 2009 please no stop. I'm not old, you're old. Oh God

so I watched the original video of yours, and I have a hard time deciding what's the better one. This here goes into more detail and covers some more elements, but the original felt a bit tighter in the pacing, what I personally prefer. On the other hand, the focus on the bad script is more clearly relayed in this one. Luckily I don't have to chose, because both exist. I think they are complementary to a degree.

Why are so many scripts so bad? Or why do people go ahead with bad scripts? I am assuming that there is a pretty good supply of writers out there, similar to the way in which there seems to be an endless stream of good actors. Maybe I am wrong on that though? Is there something in the process of feel making that prevents them from being able to identify good writing or is there something which changes the writing?

I've been watching a lot of your essays and I just realized something amazing about your beard: it grows in the same places as John Wick's beard. Should you be so inclined, you could probably become John Wick's less shooty and more talky cousin Jim Wick.

I've been binge watching your old stuff and your original Chun Li was actually the last thing I saw before going to bed. When I saw this I thought that KZfaq messed up the thumbnails

I have never even heard of this movie. I now feel dumber for knowing of its existence.

I was a little kid when this movie came out and i remember just being absolutely lost and confused by the cave scene with bison. absolutely wack

I feel like the most egregious part of this is how they go through all the effort of excising Chun Li's background as an Interpol agent and then they turn around and make a side character who is an Interpol agent with the exact same goal and character motivation.

That you found even the intent in that movie is impressive, I have no clue what they wanted to do except have a movie in their IMDB

Reads title... *this is going to be fun*

It's missing a puppet.

I am sooooo happy you're doing this movie again!!!!! Watching right now.

Loved the video! It's really cool seeing you revisit your past work and re-evaluate your previous assertions. It's just really neat intellectual honesty.

I think this movie had all the elements of a good story without changing much: she wants to be a pianist, bison threatens her father cause of a debt. Her first time as a pianist, her family gets killed by bison goons, she's distressed when told, ruins the concert, runs home, gets attacked by goons, barely escapes. Regular life is ruined. Her uncle Gen from Thailand calls her, gives her a place to hide. He's part of a secret organization that fights bison. Trains her so she can defend herself. Timeskip a few years of living in the slums. Now Bison is in Thailand, wants to buy up their place. She has an opportunity to fight back, interpool is also tracking Bison down, they work together, her uncle gets killed, Bison escapes, she joins the cops as a special agent because she knows bison well after years of going after him and can fight. You have an arc, a setup for future movies, parallels, easy peasy.

Okay, now do Dragon Ball Evolution. :)

Every time I see you got a new video out my day just gets better. Thank you!

I always like it when you come back and revisit topics with your more honed analytical edge.

I felt, weirdly, like Warcraft was the best video game movie I've seen to date. I thought it succeeded on many fronts. First, it didn't confuse me, aside from a single frame where I thought the focus lingered on a blade for too long, but I haven't noticed in subsequent watches, so who knows. Maybe I just made that up. Second, I really enjoyed it! Obviously, orcs fighting humans is not a hard sell, but the take on that conflict was new and used the common language of Tolkein in a really effective way for me. I may have cried a bit. Third, and probably most important for the companies making these movies: it made me want to play the game. I'd had no interest in WoW before watching the movie, but the movie got me convinced.

Love love love. I realized that one of my struggles while watching is that for clarity I would love a sort of juxtaposed example of when a similar story is written/acted/edited/shot well. You do that a bit with the “dubbed” portion and the Raul Julia moment and I would so love to see you comment on where filmmakers do it well - particularly in relation to your critique. That said, I love your work and I thank you for what you add to the world.

I love how you stick to the text without diving into the background/production of the film. You look at it as it is presented. Thank you!

your videos are absolutely amazing to watch and i love how you break down movies. thank you!

But yeah I want to see a version of this movie where Chun Li is INTERPOL and it's basically just a mystery kung-fu thriller, starring our chief investigator Chun Li; revenge vs justice, INTERPOL loyalty vs guerilla fighting with The Web

The Vega assassins plot was also done in the animated movie. While the gazing aspect was more out there with Chun Lee coming from the shower and fighting in a towel, I couldn't help but notice the insert where she steps on his face in The Legend of Chun Lee. In the animated movie she deliberately does this to hurt his face, as Vega in the video game is vain and complains about you ruining his face uf you win in the original Street Fighter 2. The animated fight scene was, if i remember correctly, awesome. Did the new one take any inspirations from it at all, or was this a happy accident?

Wow I actually think I saw this movie when I was younger and this video essay has unlocked those repressed memories lmao

I got about 2 minutes into the video before I realised I had that exact same t-shirt like 15 years ago.