Street Fighter movie trailer highlights the problem with being too authentic

Video game movies are certainly more authentic nowadays, but are films like the new Street Fighter too obsessed with looking like their source material?

After debuting at last year’s The Game Awards with a teaser trailer, the upcoming Street Fighter movie has just received a full trailer, ahead of its October 16 release.

It offers a little more insight into the actual plot, with the focus being on series mascots Ryu and Ken (both looking a lot worse for wear than usual) as they’re recruited by Chun-Li to partake in a fighting tournament.

The movie looks to be the most faithful and authentic adaptation of the Street Fighter games so far, but we’re still left unsure about its quality as an actual movie.

For what it’s worth, this new Street Fighter movie can’t be any worse than past attempts. The original 1994 film was a mess that only half-resembled the source material, but it’s fondly remembered for its campy charm, unlike the 2009 The Legend Of Chun-Li, which was a boring slog with even less ties to the games.

This new effort, directed by Eric André collaborator Kitao Sakurai, is explicitly billed as an action comedy and isn’t afraid of leaning into the more fantastical elements of Street Fighter, with the trailer proudly showing off Ryu throwing a fireball, even if it does joke about how ridiculous it is.

Early glimpses of the action also look very impressive, and the movie clearly isn’t too concerned with keeping things realistic. Fireballs aside, you have yoga master Dhalsim stretching his limbs à la Mr Fantastic and Zangief defying physics to suplex Ken.

What’s more, not only is the film focusing on the street fighting part of Street Fighter, Ryu and Ken, who’ve been the main faces of the games since the beginning, finally get to be the stars.

Combined with the costume design – with every character from the games being instantly recognisable – there’s no denying that the new movie looks very authentic, which has increasingly been the case with video game movies of the last few years.

However, we’re getting the sense that this desire for authenticity has become too much of a priority; that video game movies are trying too hard to please diehard gamers, that they forget to be actual movies.

This was an issue we brought up with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, and Street Fighter, at this early stage, looks to be making similar mistakes. The trailer doesn’t offer that much insight into the general plot, focusing on highlighting key set pieces and how many fan favourite characters are appearing.

You’ve also got the car destruction mini-game, a gag line about Chun-Li’s thighs, the use of sound bites from the old games; it’s a lot of style over substance made for fans to point at in recognition, as opposed to telling a cohesive story. Especially with the stacked cast threatening to make things feel overcrowded.

It almost seems like it’s overcompensating for the early days of video game movies, which were embarrassed of their source material and typically earned fan ire for deviating so much. We’re glad to be long past those days, but perhaps we’ve swung too far the other way, with newer movies unwilling to take any real risks to avoid upsetting fans.

None of this may matter, though, as authenticity appears to be the winning formula. The Super Mario and Minecraft movies were slated by critics but are the highest grossing video game movies ever made, because they so closely resemble their source material; they feel like the games brought to life on the big screen.

As such, this new Street Fighter movie stands to go the same way. The trailer has had a mostly positive reception among fans, with 63,000 likes on YouTube at time of writing.

Even fans who don’t expect the movie to be any good are looking forward to it, if some of these Reddit comments are anything to go by.

‘This looks both amazing and awful. I’m in,’ says MurDoct.

‘It has a ‘so bad it’s good’ kinda vibe,’ says Rakyand.

‘This looks like the dumbest most mindless nonsense I have ever seen in a while. I will be sat for opening night,’ says UrienOptics.

Don’t miss Gaming news! Add us as a Preferred Source

As a loyal GameCentral reader, we want to make sure you never miss our articles when searching for gaming stories. We have all the latest video games news, reviews, previews, and interviews, with a vibrant community of highly engaged readers.

Click the button below and tick Metro.co.uk to ensure you see stories from us first in Google Search.

Add us as a Preferred Source

Advertisement

Perhaps the bigger question is whether the Street Fighter community alone will be enough to ensure the movie turns a profit or if this adherence to authenticity will move general audiences. Street Fighter’s one of Capcom’s biggest franchises but it lacks the same widespread appeal of something like Super Mario.

This isn’t even the only Capcom related movie out this year, as there are plans for yet another live action Resident Evil in September. Simply titled Resident Evil, it’s directed by Zach Cregger of Weapons fame, although it aims to tell an original story.

A new trailer was shown recently behind closed doors and though it sounds like it’ll lack any familiar characters from the games, descriptions of the trailer say it’s suitably gory and full of zombies. So, it’s not going to divert too much from the source material.

Cregger is hot stuff in Hollywood at the moment, which may have earned him more leeway to make his film however he wants, but with less famous directors it seems the instruction now is authenticity at all costs.

Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.

To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.

MORE: Live service games are in decline as gamers crave more traditional gaming

MORE: Star Fox voice actor dies at age 76 as fans pay tribute

MORE: New PS5 controller patent lets you pinch and poke your favourite game characters