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| Shin Ramberk
195th Post
 
Regular Customer
   
|  "Street Fighter Alpha - Generations Review" , posted Wed 26 Oct 08:25
Spoiler text is included at the end of the review. Now for my impression on the movie.
Well, was the three plus year wait for the next Street Fighter movie worth it? As a stand alone movie, outside of the Street Fighter mythology, its an okay/above-average movie. As a movie about Ryu and Gouki, it's a pretty good movie.
The gist of the plot revolves around Ryu, Gouki, Gouken and the Dark Hadou. The movie does a competent job of fleshing out Gouki and Gouken's characters. We get scenes from their youth. We get scenes of Gouki's descent into the dark side. In reality, I didn't sympathize all that much with Gouki and Gouken. But, Gouki wasn't completely painted as a 2-dimensional villain. He simply was an ass. And Gouken was simply the 'good student'. Regardless, they were written as regular guys-- not as anime characters or video game characters, just regular guys and that was damn good. I could relate to them on a small level. Its interesting to see them portrayed in such a way because we have all seen a million martial art films/animes with spastic/weak characters.
The star of the movie is Ryu and he was fun to watch. Yes, Ryu was fun to watch. He was written as a regular guy too. His whole mythology was left in tact-- he still wants to be the best martial artist and he wants to fight Gouki but he has genuine doubts about himself. He questions himself all the time and he is not superman. That is, he gets surprised and he's not serious all the time. He's just a regular guy (yes, I've repeated that). Its fun watching him. He's kinda lovable in one of those, 'awww, he's growing up and becoming a man' type of ways. He's fun to watch.
Now, onto the conflict. The Dark Hadou. It's there. That's the center piece. That's were the climax happens. And its... a decent climax but the ending was a bit of a minor cop out IMO. I won't ruin it here. The character building in the first half of the movie was fun but there was barely any build up to the final battle so the final battle didn't really have that much tension. I wasn't worried about Ryu in the final battle. I cared for him but I wasn't worried.
Other characters. Ken makes an appearance, barely gets any screen time though. Sakura serves as a minor character and by far, might be my favorite character in the whole movie. She barely edges Ryu out on the 'fun' factor. Just because she's a really motivated fighter, but she doesn't spaz out. I repeat, she is NOT a spaz. She's fun. Just 'cute' enough to not get annoying but enough to be cute. Yay for Sakura!
As for voice acting and animation quality. I thought the US VAs were decent enough. Gouki's VA sounded silly at times. I had a stupid reverb audio function turn on when I watched it the first time so I can't judge the quality of the VAs too well. But the audio was great after I turned off the stupid function. The animation is great. Some folks hate the character models they but I thought they were great most of the time though Gouki's face got squished a ton of times cause of his angry faces.
Overall, I'm happy with the movie. It was short and I wish other characters got more screen time and characterization but I genuinely like how Ryu, Sakura, Gouki and Gouken were portrayed. The build up to the climax really wasn't there though. And the climactic final battle was all right but it will not leave you in shock or breathless. Overall, I strongly recommend the film-- just enjoy it as a minor character piece on the Street Fighter mythology.
No onto my questions about the movie, hence the spoiler text.
Spoiler (Highlight to view) -
Okay, let me just spill out the spoilers. Who was Grandpa? Fuuka is the child of Gouken? Did Gouki have a child or an affair with Sayaka? Is Ryu the child of Gouki or Gouken? How is Grandpa related to the whole Dark Hadou and different teachers and students? I guess all of those were my questions. Any answers are appreciated.
End of Spoiler
http://ramberk.blogspot.com
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| Sano 1995th Post
Gold Carpet V.I.P- Platinum Executive
   
    
    
    
| "Re(1):Street Fighter Alpha - Generations Revi" , posted Wed 26 Oct 11:29:
I didn't really care for it, pretty much for all of the same reasons posted on Shoryuken.com, Snk-capcom and the like. If your a hardcore SF fan like me you'll buy it regardless. If not, this is a rental at best IMHO. There are some interesting things in the story though, I'd give it a 6 out of 10 I guess. A bit more positive than negative on my side I suppose, IE the story makes up for A LOT of shortcomings.
As far as the spoilers go, heh, even the seiyuus were confused about the story. But I think -
Spoiler (Highlight to view) -
Gouki is Ryu's father birthed by Sayaka. Fuka is unrelated to both. Fuka has the same seiyuu as Sayaka but that's symbolic, like Gouki had Sayaka, Ryu had Fuka. When Ryu was born Sayaka died and Gouken took Ryu to the old man at a temple who I'm assuming was Goutetsu's master. Ryu got bored with the temple and left and found his way to Gouken anyway. Ryu and Gouki share the bloodline which is connected to visious killers that worked for those in power in the past, like the ghosts in front of Ken and the monk.
End of Spoiler
EDIT: After I watched it a second time, I changed my original spoiler info.
Ryu and Chun-Li forever!
[this message was edited by Sano on Wed 26 Oct 12:43] |
| Shin Ramberk
198th Post
Regular Customer
| "Re(5):Street Fighter Alpha - Generations Revi" , posted Thu 27 Oct 00:36:
quote:
About Sano´s spoiler... WTF? Is that Ryu´s lineage crap considered canon or anything? Man, plotwriters are short of ideas nowadays...
No, there's a bunch of things wrong with it for it to be canon.
In regards to this movie being "canonical" or not all I can say is one thing...
Unless Capcom refers to the events in the movie in a future SF game, then the "canonicity" of the game will always be in question.
Fat chance of us ever getting another SF game. So...
I say, you can either accept or reject the movie as canon. This is an official Capcom product (produced and licensed through Manga Entertainment). At the start of the movie and at the end of the movie, in clear lettering it indicates that the original story and ideas are from Capcom.
As far as contradicting previous facts about the SF storyline thus proving the movie is not 'canonical'. Well, Capcom has a habit of rewriting the SF storyline whenever it suits them. So, it doesn't bother me one bit that this movie does not exactly match older SF historical facts.
Regardless, I enjoyed the movie and the movie didn't deviate that much from essence of SF so its cool with me anyway.
But here is one last thing to mess with all of your minds. In the very original Street Fighter, Ryu had red hair...
http://ramberk.blogspot.com
[this message was edited by Shin Ramberk on Thu 27 Oct 00:37] |
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the gods themselves are put to flight and the Buddhas vanish"
