Linbeymusol Wonderful character development!

IslandGuru Who payed the critics

FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Roy Hart If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

John Doe I rented this awesome anime film based on the popular Capcom video game series many years ago on VHS at a video store, and I really loved it. The story is very well done, it is about Ken getting captured by Bison and made into one of his Shadaloo demons and everyone must save him.The animation is top notch for a 1994 film but the real winner here is the awesome American soundtrack featuring heavy hits from bands such as Alice in Chains, Korn, Silverchair, Smokin' Suckaz Wit Logic and KMFDM.Now, anyone that is a fan of this movie would know that there are three versions: The original PG-13 edit, the Unrated version (which really is not really THAT much unrated), and the Fully uncut version which was previously only available in Australia but Discotek Media has licensed it and will be putting it out on Blu-ray with both the fully uncut version and the PG-13 version as a special feature (it doesn't have the Unrated version footage (it has the audio only but you can get the Unrated version on DVD for less then 5 dollars), This is a awesome movie that every SFII fan should see! I give Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie a 7/10

disdressed12 i really enjoyed this animated movie based on the video game of the same name.i thought the animation was good,and i liked the story.there's also a great back story that's really useful to the viewer up to speed,if that aren't already familiar with the history of the characters.the characters(especially the main ones) were interesting and had some depth and development.the action scenes were great.the voice acting was good all around.this is definitely not for young kids.there is some nudity and a bit of language,and it is violent,thought i have seen much worse.for me,StreetFighter II:The Animated movie is an 8/10

xamtaro Many fans will argue that THIS is THE Street Fighter movie. The prefect adaptation of a popular fighting game franchise.Is it good? yes. Perfect? Hardly.Lets start with the Good stuff. 1)The animation. This anime, along with a number of anime movies in the late 80s to 90s break free from the stereotype of anime utilizing more animation short cuts and lower frame rate than western animation. The frame rate here is exceedingly smooth, it almost looks rotoscoped. Characters aren't stiff and are always in motion with expression in the faces and body posture portrayed very nicely in the art.2)The art. One would think that with a higher frame rate and smooth animation, the detail of the art would suffer. This is not the case here. The artwork is beautiful and finely detailled. Shadows and blacks are heavy lending to very nice gritty look and feel for the show. And the painted backgrounds are works of art on their own. The character designs are true to the game and pleasing to the eye, though some like Guile and Balrog tend to border on unrealistic.3)The fights. Beautifully choreographed and realistically played out, the fights are the main attraction here. Every punch from wind up to the hit to the follow through is thoroughly animated. Close ups and long shots are used appropriately to give a very dynamic viewing experience. Characters act and react to their opponents like how real fighters would and unlike other fighting anime like Dragonball, special powers are not thrown around. In fact, special powers are very rarely used in this movie and only as a last resort. Most of the time, we have 1 on 1 duels that look better than some big budget kung fu movies.The Bad 1)The story Weak and clichéd, the story in this movie teeters between juvenile and logic failing. A power hungry dictator capturing the world's greatest fighters to turn them into his own army, seeks out one particular fighter just cos his "power level" is higher than the others. This just reeks of typical shonen anime like Dragonball or Naruto. The story plays out very straight forward with no hint of intrigue or build up, and hearkens back to the cheesy spy movies of the 60s with evil crime empires and giant sky ships.2)The characters Aside from Ryu, most of the characters are 1 dimensional stereotypes of different cultures or races. Perhaps that comes from trying to cram in too many characters into one movie, something many game adaptations suffer from. The motives of the other characters are never explained or only briefly touched on and they are never developed as the movie progresses. Even Ryu gets little development. The there are appearances by Zangeif, Blanka, Sagat etc who seem to be just there to make the game fans happy. They lend nothing too important to the plot, especially Zangeif and Blanka whose appearance is totally non-essential to the story and could have been cut out, that time and money used to actually further the plot. 3)The scripting and dialogue Cheesy lines and over the top speeches abound in this movie. Thankfully, unlike other anime, characters don't talk to each other and spew lengthy monologues in the middle of fights. Honestly, i preferred the English version to the Japanese version. The Japanese version is a lot more over the top wheras the English version has more realistic, subdued acting and some lines are changed to make them less cheesy. Plus it is more believable to have the majority of the characters which are non-Japanese, speak English. Not to mention that the animators never bothered to properly sync the lip movement to the Japanese dialogue in the first place.Overall 7/10 A greatly enjoyable movie that captures the spirit of the games and likely to please fan and newcomer alike. Aside from the simplistic story and cookie cutter characters, the animation and fight choreography definitely sets the bench mark for fighting genre anime.

Comiccritic83 9/20/2005WARNING! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS! IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THIS FILM, THEN PLEASE DO NOT READ THE FOLLOWING REVIEW!Still with me? Good.Let me just say "Street Fighter 2" has always been one of the greatest video games I have ever played. Ever. To me, it is even better than the Mortal Kombat franchise. But whenever the Street Fighters get TV shows or films, there always has to be something wrong with it."Street Fighter 2: The Animated Movie" has a pretty good story idea going for it and good action. Lots of it. I mean, the film even opens with a fight between Ryu and Sagat! It's quite nice, too, with shots of a crack of lightning in the night sky and the wind blowing on the grassy ground in between footage of kicks and punches between the fighters. Ryu soon gets the upper hand, literally, by doing the famous "Dragon Punch" that knocks Sagat down. Sagat gets mad. Blue electricity comes out of nowhere and to Ryu's hands. Sagat charges at Ryu, roaring in anger. Ryu makes a "Hadouken" fireball with the electricity and tosses it at Sagat. Needless to say, the fight's over.Later, after an assassination with a brainwashed Cammy (who, while she is a very cool character, has a brief cameo), Chun Li of Interpol reveals the evil Shadowlaw organization is brainwashing fighters into doing their bidding. Chun Li works with Guile of the U.S. Special Forces on finding Bison, though he's not too happy with it at first. The head of Shadowlaw, M. Bison, wants to find Ryu because of his impressive fighting level (over 3,000!) and because he beat his main henchman, Sagat. The problem: Ryu travels all over the place to test his skills and can't be found.Bison isn't happy with Guile and Chun Li messing with his plans, so he later sends one of his other henchmen, Vega, to kill her at her home. Chun Li wins, but is badly hurt from the fight. Meanwhile, Ryu's old friend and former fellow student, Ken Masters, is waiting for his rematch with Ryu to test his skills. Ken is wealthy, has a lovely fiancée - and becomes Bison's target to replace Ryu. Elsewhere, after witnessing a fight with Dhalsim, Ryu befriends sumo Edmond Honda and stays with him for a while. Guile eventually finds Ryu and tells him of Ken's abduction. Bison arrives with his other henchman, Balrog (don't worry, he's the last one), and a brainwashed Ken. Balrog fights Honda and Balrog loses. Guile takes on Bison, but loses. Ryu fights his brainwashed friend, snaps him out of Bison's control and, after Ryu takes on Bison alone at first, a wounded Ken returns to help Ryu in the last fight.However, despite cool fights and a wonderful, often beautiful musical score, the movie has a lot of weak points. The non-stop action is fun, but since the PG-13 version clocks in at 94 minutes, it's a short movie, which means short fights. Lots of them. And also lots of cameos of the characters from the game. But we don't even find out how they learned their fantastic fighting moves and powers! And most characters get little back story, if any.For example, Sagat is a cool, tough evil fighter, but he gets one lousy fight. There are cameos from some of the coolest characters in the game, but they get brief fights and no explanation of how they learned their powers or where they come from. And while the brief fights can be cool, but most are just annoying, like the Zangief and Blanka fight. The characters are mentioned by name and share a brief fight, which ends when Blanka electrocutes Zangief in an unintentionally comical manner, but that's all we see of the characters and know of them. Other cool things that should have been further explored in the plot, though, are merely mentioned and briefly shown - such as the death of Chun Li's father from Bison's hand and Bison taunting Guile with how he killed his partner. But they don't get into the common hatred Guile and Chun Li have to Bison. Heck, Guile doesn't care much for Chun Li till she nearly dies fighting Vega.Speaking of deaths, we don't know if any characters die in the film! Vega seemingly dies after the fight with Chun Li. Bison sends Sagat to kill him, if he isn't dead already, and Cammy, who has been in custody with no memory after the assassination. Zangief could be killed after being shocked by Blanka. But since most characters get cameos and underdeveloped roles, we don't know what's going on here. And don't even get me started on the corny ending.This film is no Street Fighter 2. Heck, it's not even "Street Fighter". Some may have hated it, but I prefer the live action version over this film. Why? Because underdeveloped character development, brief lame fights and a weak story doesn't excuse the fact this is film, while good and entertaining, is certainly no Street Fighter 2.