Put on your red headband, it’s time to face the wind and look moody...
Packaging
Check disc, but the cover design won’t be too hard to spot as it has a fist punching out of it.
The Uncut, Uncensored, Unleashed tagline at the top is a bit of a fib as this is the same as the first DVD release.
Menus
A flashy menu of composite images, with the trademark Heavy Metal playing in the background. This really gets you fired up to watch this. Menu navigation is pretty simple.
Soundtrack
Disc One – English 5.1, English 2.0
The voice acting is done well and my favourite has to be M Bison who was played by Phil Matthews, he gave his character a sense of evil genius. Mercifully this dub isn’t too swear-laden and the characters all say their moves when performing them, just like in the game. Also another plus is the soundtrack which was probably thanks to Sony’s input to the movie, lot’s of decent heavy-metal (Alice in Chains, Korn, Silverchair and KMFDM to name a few) mixed with some chilled out electronic beats for the slower parts.
Disc Two – Japanese 5.1, Japanese 2.0
It’s probably more to do with my taste in music but the original Japanese soundtrack seems to be too J-Pop-ish for my liking, the energy is just not there, especially the music in the final battle, it’s practically a love song!
At the end of the day, it’s your own taste that matters and thankfully you have the choice.
Video
No problems, it’s presented in 4:3 letterbox wide screen, meaning those of you like me who own a normal TV will be able to watch it in wide screen with no need to adjust equipment.
If you own a wide screen TV, you might want to use that shape/zoom button to get rid of the black bars and the squishing effect.
Extras
Disc Two features Player Cards, which is basically a small profile of the fighter. As well as this there are trailers for Tetsujin 28 LIve action, Ghost in the shell, X, perfect Blue, Ninja Scroll and Street Fighter 2’s prequels; Alpha and Alpha Generations, both of which don’t even come close in terms of excellence!
Episode Contents (This part may contain
Spoliers)
We are treated to a pre-titles fight between Ryu and Sagat in the middle of a dark thunderstorm; this really sets the tone of the film well and shows that the budget must have been quite big especially as night shots even in anime are supposed to be a pain due to the fact that they have to use more colours (flesh tone in day, flesh tone in night etc).
The bulk of the film centres around an Interpol operation to bring down an international crime syndicate known as Shadolaw, to make matters worse they’ve started to recruit the worlds greatest fighters to assassinate politicians who have openly opposed them. Some fighters have joined by choice... Some not. Chun-Li is assigned to work with Captain Guile both of whom are out to get revenge on Shadowlaws Leader; Bison. As well as this, the story also focuses on Ken and Ryu who, although they trained together, are living very different lives. Ken’s is a one of success, love and fortune as a champion martial arts fighter in the US. Ryu on the other hand has chosen a life of exile and solitude wandering the world, honing his skills and righting wrongs he encounters along the way. One such occasion being when he bumps into a little girl, living in the slums of Calcutta. She of course spills the milk she was carrying to her ailing mother. Good old Ryu picks her up and gives her a wad of money to get some more (Aww!) There’s plenty of fighting and apart from the final showdown, some of the other notable fights are Zangiev and Blanca’s gladiatorial style fight in a las Vegas casino and Chun-Li’s confrontation with the insane ‘n’ vain Vega which had some rather decent music from KMFDM. It should be also noted that Chun-Li fans are going to be very happy with this film. And that’s all I’m saying on the matter!
Overall, this film was very entertaining, each character has their own unique style of fighting and the animation maintains a fluid pace with sweeping camera angles during the punch-ups. There is also a great attention to detail in the films locations, notably in the parts set in the US, India and Thailand. This was no doubt due to the original games worldwide success and international collection of characters, whose designs remain very faithful to the original game.
Signed
Ian
Ai Says
"
Street Fighter II is a well thought out tale and is complimented by an excellent soundtrack. It’s a great film that lets you sit back and enjoy the ride. "
