Welcome to episode 41. Today, we discuss the 90′s video game adaptation, “Street Fighter”.
Not familiar with the movie? Take a look at IMDB for more information.
Join Scott, Randy, Brian and Ibbott as we play a game of Bisonopolis Minesweeper with a joystick and 6 buttons.
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Special thanks to Audible.com this week for sponsoring the show. As usual, a HUGE thanks to Scott Fletcher, the official announcer of Film Sack Central.
Hey! Why not leave us a nice review on iTunes if you like the show?
Up next week’s episode? The 90′s action adventure skydiving pic, Drop Zone.
Juliá died due to complications from a brain hemorrhage.
I vote for “Sacking” “Flash Gordon.”
Easy there Scott. I would associate with Hercule Poirot, the most awesome fictional Belgian ever.
Keeping up the tradition of the bad film, you all wandered off into other films.
hello.
I’m not usually sensitive to jokes and stereotypes, especially when there is no malice intended, but I do find your Asian accents/mock voices, a bit offensive. (I’m an American Born Chinese) This is the 4th time or so I’ve heard it…. I don’t think it’s appropriate for your show, others have been called out for similar things.
I’ve listened to every episode, and will continue to. I really enjoy the podcast, but i just wanted to voice my unhappiness about this.
Best pic of Van Damme for this post. Win.
I don’t recall Scott doing Ding Pong in this episode! Wait – was it Ibbott? Much more likely that it was Scott. But it’s harmless.
Wait again… are we being reprimanded for comparing Ming Na Wen’s character to Family Guy’s Tricia Takanawa? Because if so, I’d do it again!
I like how the one guy decides to say Ming Na in a totally offensive accent at 24:23 and then tries to make it ok by pointing out how offensive he was.
I think you guys should “sack” John Carpenter’s They Live. Quite possibly the perfect filmsack movie
No, not the Ming Na/ Takanawa part. Anyway, I wouldn’t say I’m “reprimanding” anybody, just voicing my opinion. Thought from a listener would make a difference, guess not.
No worries, Wendy. Please, always feel free to express yourself in the comments…that is what they are there for. Just know that none of us mean any malice towards anyone, and if you listen closely, you’ll find I make more fun of me than I do anyone else. That pretty much goes for all my shows. If anyone should be offended by me, it’s me.
Let’s play “caption the pic”. Here’s mine: *pppfffftttt* “FATALITY!” (NB: Anyone pointing out that I have referenced the wrong movie will be cyber-bitchslapped! IT’S CALLED IRONY, PPL!)
Thank you Wendy for saying something. It’s great to get constructive feedback on our shows. I apologize if you took offense. I can easily see why.
Here is the back story. It goes way back for me, Scott, Randy and Brian.
We are media junkies and have consumed so much TV/Cinema over the years that we like to make fun of American Culture. Part of American Culture in the tv/cinema was having these outrageous Asian stereotypes that were funny not because they were true but because our view of the world was so skewed about foreign cultures at that time (and still today in some cases.)
It’s kind of like when I do my southern accent. I am from the southern part of the United States and the media portrays us as talking in this ignorant slow talking way and I find it amusing to reflect that back.
Me saying Ming-Na in an offensive accent and insisting that other follow suit was what I felt to be saying that “I am an ignorant American unaware of the poor stereotypes I am being fed by American TV/Cinema.”
So the joke should be on us. I guess me and the guys are so comfortable with that idea and our past listeners that we forget that we have new listeners who may not be in on the joke and think we are just being what we are making fun of. Cultural ignorance.
That’s a knowing answer to a difficult qusetion
Wendy, I feel the same way about the stereotypical ‘Mexican’ and ‘Irish’ accents as you do about ‘Asian.’ Almost all other accents make me giggle, though; French, British, German, Australian, Canadian, Hindi, and… Asian. I love hearing complex thoughts translated through a terribly-faulty language translator. I laugh at the perception and interpretation of a foreign language and the over-use of idioms so long as the performer does not portray the foreign people as ‘stupid.’
There. I feel better now that I’ve convinced MYSELF that I’m not an insensitive jerk for laughing at stereotypical accents. Thanks for raising the issue!
Street Fighter the Movie: screenplay adapted from an Alternate Universe story on Fanfiction.net
That’s my explanation for this movie. I’ve read a few Alternate Universe stories before and they can range from really good story (but why are you using these characters?) to laughably bad. I rate this one as terible use of characters, but really funny. There were good jokes, but they had to make the characters so different why didn’t they just do an original story?
I loved Raul Julia’s performance in this thing. I could tell he was having a good time hamming it up. I was genually surprised when he gave his reply to Chun Li. The whole “but for me it was Tuesday” speech. He wasn’t gloating; he was genually sorry that he didn’t remember killing her father! Face it, Raul Julia makes this movie awesome.
(Wow. Notice how guilty we look by trying to jusitify our position? She might be on to something.)
Scott Fletcher offends me by his mere presence on this planet.
Scott Fletcher could offend from space. That’s how good he is.
I didn’t mean that, Scott….please don’t be offended!
1. Pretty well known, but M. Bison and Balrog’s names were switched for markets outside of Japan. M. Bison was supposed to be an obvious play on the name of Mike Tyson. So every time I dropped a 100 yen coin in a SF game while I lived in Japan in the 90′s, “Balrog” was the leader of Shadowloo, not…”Mike Bison”. So all of the “Bison” naming in the movie grates on me.
2. “Rayuu” is a type of hot oil extract you put on your dumplings. Ryu (sounds like Ree-yu with a rolled “R”) is not a hot oil. And man is he scrawny compared to the video game version in this movie!
3. The Asian American actors pool is relatively shallow compared to, say…Japan, and I’m not sure anyone in the US at the time could have pulled off the pale skin and thunder-thighs of Chun Li effectively (though Tia Carrere would have been a good compromise if not so Chinese-looking). Well, not like Angelina Jolie’s spot-on Lara Croft. Also E. Honda and Ryu have the square jaws, prominent noses and thick eyebrows of leading-type (or Kabuki) Japanese samurai cinema actors like Ken Matsudaira — not some random Asian American actor.
4. Yes, Dhalsim is the worst. I can’t believe they spent 30+ million on this movie and we didn’t get any stretchy “YOGA!” arm/leg action.
5. Tomb Raider is the second best video game movie adaptation. Because when it comes to video game movies, why else make one than to cater to the fan base? Mortal Kombat is the best, just as cheesy as the game, and looked authentic. Street Fighter ranks way, way down there. Near Mario Bros and other poo-poo.
Screw you, Gretchen. I AM that good.
That little arm thing Van Damme did to the camera for Bison is symbolism for “shove it”. Or maybe he just wanted to show off his gleaning muscles.
I can’t remember who made the comment about the voice over (you know, “Hostage door is opening, Danger!). I think it was Dunaway. I loved that voice too. My favorite line went something like “Remember, maintaining your health care benefits is up to you”, and it was announced right when the allied army was storming the base. It’s nice to know that Bison provided benefits to his army.
Only people who grew up in Utah played Street Fighter. Everyone else played Mortal Kombat. We know your secret now, Scott…
The “In a Minute…” reference that Brian Ibott made was to short clips that were on the USA Network. They were highlights about various community service things kids did in their towns.
Unfortunately it’s not something we can make fun of for being from the south as we had them in the great white north of Minnesota as well.
If I see another explanation or comment about the hilarious Ming Na voice I’m going to scream! Wendy, relax, sheesh–after the awesomeness of the street fighter sack that’s your comment? That was a great show and I didn’t think it was offensive in the least.
Now: I wanted to give a shout out to the boys for having another great show. I’ve listened from the beginning of film sack and this episode was a top fiver. The dialogue clips were absolutely the best; they were said so poorly and slowly you’d think that was junky auditions by bad actors in their first year of drama! Keep up the great work guys and don change a thing. Especially for the “sensitive” types out there. Some people need thicker skin!
Robinson,
not to nitpick (though I’m going to do it now anyway): the names were switched around a little bit more. You’re completely right that M.Bison was too close to Mr. Tyson, but Dictator was actually called Vega in Japan. I guess the guys doing the localized version thought “Vega” not menacing enough and rather a more spanish sounding name. So from Japan to USA, the names went: M.Bison (Boxer)-> Balrog, Balrog (Claw)-> Vega, Vega (Dictator)-> M.Bison.
Oh, and of course a big Cheers to the filmsack crew, please please keep it up!
I would say that I am a big big fan of the show. I’ve been listening to your podcasts loyally since winter. Your banter get me re-watching movies which I haven’t seen since I was a kid. The Breakfast Club was one I haven’t seen since high school. That was because the movie draws up frightening memories of my grade 12 theatre class where we had to turn the beloved John Hughes classic into a dinner theatre musical. My performance as Bender didn’t do any justice. No swagger, wasn’t remembering lines well, couldn’t sing wortha crap, etc etc…I thought I’d share that with you guys.
Street Fighter, oh baby…I haven’t seen that movie since it’s video release. I was about 8 or 9 back then, so I totally bought into the cartoony performances. It was just so damn cool to see these characters in human form. I thought it was amazing to see that all these fighters had (what I once thought to be) deep background stories. And what was cooler was that Van Damme was also in it too. In my wee kiddy mind back in the day, I thought it couldn’t be more divine than to have my then-favourite actor in my then-favourite video game. It was a big event to me! Seriously, dude!
So after seeing it again, it is sucha turd of a film. But I enjoyed the hell out of it too. As a matter of fact, I got my girlfriend to sit down to watch it with me. That was her first and what will definitely be her last time seeing Street Fighter. Van Damme and video games films don’t float her boat, except Silent Hill (she didn’t know that it was based on a video game til I told her.). Her and I had a good laugh while we pointed out the Sacky parts of the movie. *(I’m gonna use the word Sacky to describe the parts of the movie that lack any realism, any fine artistic merit, any seriousness that gets me chuckling, or anything falls under your beloved checklist, cool?)*
One Sacky part comes right off the bat when JCVD does his arm taunt on M. Bison. Me and the ladyfriend pissed ourselves laughing. I continued to mimic that move well after the movie whenever my gf and I got into any funny banter. It easily went tiresome on her, but I got a childish joy out of it. Doin the taunt with a Belgian accent elevates it to high tedium.
My FAVOURITE FAVOURITE part of the movie is when Guile does his Pattonesque speech in front of his troops and the bad guy from Ace Ventura 2. His speech really put the movie up to another level when he said he was goin to “kick that son-of-a-bitch Bison’s ass so hard that the next M. Bison wannabe is gonna feel it. So wants to go home and who wants to go with me?!” Mr. Scott Johnson, I was so hoping that you’d put that into your soundbite on the show. Or even have the talent Mr. Fletcher say that line. It would be so super fantastic! That guy needs to exercise his vocal cords…the guy can make anything sound like Shakespeare! I wonder how he’d sound like if he quotes Kindgarten Cop’s “This is not a tumour” line.
Anywho, better not bore ya with my contriving comment. I love the show very very much, keep up the great work!
Got a great recommendation for a future Film Sack………………………………………………………….COOL WORLD! Starring Brad Pitt & Kim Basinger, Directed by Ralph Bakshi. This picture is begging to be dissected. Please check it out guys! Ciao!
Since no one has covered this in comments but it was asked in the show, only about half the names from the movie were actually the real names from the games.
Chun-Li has never really had her last name revealed and she had a different last name in the new movie.
Ryu never had a last name that they told us in games, and it’s definitely not Hoshi.
Ken Masters is real.
William F. Guile is real (though they don’t touch on the fact Guile and Ken are related).
Cammy White is real.
Edmond Honda is real, but he’s definitely not Hawaiian.
Victor Sagat is definitely fake. Just Sagat.
Blanka is the worse offender. On top of the fact, it’s definitely not Carlos “Charlie” Blanka, they tried to change it that Charlie is Blanka, which is still debatable and Capcom still continues to tease and mock us about the answer in various other Street Fighter games and Vs. Games (which are non-canon). Incidentally, Charlie is definitely not Carlos. Not unless sharp blond hair and blue eyes equal Latino.
Pingback: Film Sack roasts Street Fighter.
!!! please sack Batman: the Movie w/ Adam West !!! Kulap!
Wow this one was painful.
For some proper Street Fighter stuff, watch Jackie Chan’s impressions @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Psls1ngwM
Roy Robinson wrote: “”So who wants to go home and who wants to go with me?!” Mr. Scott Johnson, I was so hoping that you’d put that into your soundbite on the show. Or even have the talent Mr. Fletcher say that line. It would be so super fantastic!”
I came here to post this specific comment. Thank you for taking the words right out of my mouth!!
After my cousin and I saw this in the theatres we asked each other this question for DAYS afterwards!!
I love the show guys, this has to be one of my fav FS episodes!!
Thanks.
-C!
best street fighter movie from Hong Kong: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VmGL7vpfFo
There are four of you, right? IMDB is your friend.
Seriously, a lot of information and certainly a LOT of context could be added to your (always hilarious) analysis of these films, if you looked at IMDB for half a second to get some background on your movie.
For instance, “Street Fighter” was written and directed by Steven E. de Souza … who ALSO wrote “Die Hard” “48 Hrs” “Commando” “Die Hard 2″ “Another 48 Hrs” (etc, etc). This guy had a LOT of clout coming into this film (although he had a bunch of clunkers as well – “Hudson Hawk” I’m looking at you).
So knowing that this piece of crap movie was written and directed by the writer of “Die Hard” and “48 Hrs” would have added a lot to your discussion and explanation as to why Raul and Jean-Claude found themselves in this travesty.
Anyways… just thought I would throw that out there as you guys usually have a lot of insight (and comedy), but missed a good detail on this one.
Keep up the good work!
My favorite line goes something like: When M. Bison destroyed yoru village it was the mostimportant day of yoru life. For me, it was Tuesday. Somethign funny. In eh Role PLaying game (pen and paper, yeah I know crazy right) , they listed M. Bison’s first name as Melvin for the AMerican version. This has the meteor origin of his powers. Capcom did the artwork, btu I don’t know who published the RPG source book. The game used D10 to play (10 sided dice).
I was more of a Street Fighter fan than Mortal Kombat which was a problem with my friends (they were the latter). As movies… well, as movies they both sucked but I have to give the edge to MK. I liked how they tried to give the story context but it failed, which I blame for trying to characterize so many people. Really, it was doomed from the start. A few points…
I always thought Ken was a grifter type. Ryu was poorly misrepresented.
Loved Bison’s suit.
Raul Julia did a movie about rain forests (cannot remember name) and got deathly ill while filming. Personally, I don’t think he ever recovered from that which led to his death. Just my opinion (though the conspiracy theorist in me believe this movie did, in fact, take his life).
E. Honda, in the game, was a Japanese Sumo. His change to Hawaiian worked for me. I liked the buddiness between him and Balrog.
Scott said Vega-actor was the only Native American on the set (grumbling over T. Hawk). Wes Studi is Cherokee and, by Scott’s own volition, has played many native characters in the past. I thought it would be wrong not to point out his heritage. Amazing actor.
You guys were too kind to this movie. That didn’t make it any less enjoyable. Thank you!
In a Minute samples from YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHlQym1gTDk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5SQZNMjAmk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAuwg7ycsH8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDBQqclwFes&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N_1nPpVcFc&feature=related
Raul Julia did a made-for-TV movie after Street Fighter in a supporting role. So, it’s his last theatrical film, but not his last movie or project.
Take this with a grain of salt if you must but some say:
“Raul Julia, knowing that it was going to be his last movie, let his grandchildren pick which movie he would star in from a group of scripts he had been sent. Being fans of the Street Fighter games, they picked that one. So part of his hammy performance was also him trying to play up his presence for his grandchildren. He succeeded in completely stealing the show from Jean Claude Van Damme and both naming and codifying an utterly awesome trope. ”
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HamAndCheese
OF COURSE!
Just catching up on old episodes…those cookie wafer things are Nutty Bars, and they are awesome. Also, Reptile was in MK1-you could fight him but not choose him. Love, love, love the show.
Was going to comment about Reptile being in MK1, but it always done. Making my way through these episodes its way to funny.