It’s been a while since I’ve seen an animation downgrade as drastic as the one that occurred between the Street Fighter II movie and this one. It’s like the series lost all of its aura. This film is worse by every metric across the board. It’s not a bad movie but it almost felt like the movie was actively trying to mess up as the fights keep getting interrupted or being extra short. Ryu’s character arc quickly gets repetitive which is impressive considering this is a single movie.

Ryu has continued to train hard in the ways of Street Fighting when a kid named Shun appears and claims to be Ryu’s brother. This is lightly possible as Ryu didn’t get a chance to really know his family but either way it doesn’t atter much to Ryu. He will get long with the kid and doesn’t mind being called brother. Unfortunately Shun appears to have similar issues mastering the Dark Hadou and is then kidnapped by a group of fighters working for the evil Shadaloo organization. Ryu will have to save him but can he do this while also fighting off his own dark impulses?

A hero fighting against his dark powers is certainly nothing new but this is one of the most annoying ways to handle the trope. Ryu falls to his knees yelling about the powers of darkness at least 5 times. He can never seem to control it for long and it is easy for the villains to bait him into using it. I’m not saying that he should have mastered it immediately but I would have liked to have seen some progress. Instead it feels like he just walks back and forth with it throughout the movie and never gets better. Only at the very end of the film does it feel like he made true progress.

It just took too long and he spends a lot of the film getting wrecked. At least he is allowed to get some wins though. If you’re a side character then prepare to get majorly disrespected. Ken looks really bad in this one and just racks up nonstop losses. He should at least be close to Ryu in skill but it sure doesn’t feel like that when he loses over and over again. Then you have Chun Li who also loses really badly in her fights. The film seems to just be using her as occasional fanservice here rather than as a serious fighter which is unfortunate.

It is partially in how they write the big villains though. The main villain is so overpowered that the other characters just don’t stand a chance. They are absolutely thrown around by Rosanov who may be strong but makes for a bit of a boring villain. Still, I like having a strong villain so this ends up more or less evening out. I think the biggest problem here is still the fact that the power discrepancy is so drastic.

It’s not even a fun fight because it’s just the villain basically tormenting everyone. Then Ryu comes in with his super blast. When you watch a film like Street Fighter you are hoping for a bunch of fast paced hand to hand fights. Not a quick beam blast after some hand to hand. In a way the Zangief fight is the closest thing to an old school battle and even then they had to make his opponent Shun so it’s not like this felt like a very serious battle.

As for the animation, part of the problem is a lack of big fight scenes. So perhaps it would have looked better if there was more action. The character designs are a big step down either way though and the colors are a lot more faded. Again, it’s not what you would have expected from a more modern adventure like this. Definitely not for one of the biggest fighting game series of all time. The soundtrack is also not particularly solid.

Okay so that’s a lot of negatives, what about the positives? Well, I do still like the Street Fighter brand so there is a certain amount of satisfaction in just seeing Ryu and the others mixing it up. The fights while short, are still around so I get my share of action as well. The film avoids making any big mistakes as well so this is more a case of missed opportunities than actually being a disaster.

They probably could have toned down the beatings a little bit and instead added more of a back and forth to the fights. Some characters like the fortune teller Rose should have had a bigger role rather than just showing up with veiled prophecies. Give the film more of a direct story as well with the tournament being on screen. Too much time is spent on Shun and the mystery of his origin.

For a film like this, you don’t really care about the OC character. You want to see the characters you grew up with, that’s always going to be far more entertaining. So cutting him out would be a good idea. Finally, you should also speed up the pacing because this one was absolutely glacial. It felt like nothing was happening for a good chunk of the film. Speeding that up would have had a positive effect across the board.

Overall, Street Fighter Alpha really did not make the most out of its opportunities. This should have been a really fun film but instead it doesn’t embrace the kind of fast paced energy we saw in Street Fighter II. It doesn’t have a ton of replay value but if you’re looking for an action film, I could still recommend it. For all its faults, I still did have a good time over here. You just have to keep in mind that it is nowhere near as intense as the Street Fighter II film. Ideally you should watch this one first so then you can end with the hype of the original.

Overall 6/10