 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | MANGA ENTERTAINMENT | | | ▪ | ASPECT RATIO: | | 4:3 FULL SCREEN | | | ▪ | AUDIO: | | ENGLISH AND JAPANESE DD 2.0 | | | ▪ | RUNNING TIME: | | 165 MIN | | | ▪ | RATING: | | 14UP | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 12/04/2007 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 11/26/2007 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | DAVEY C. JONES |
At last, both Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie and Street Fighter Alpha: Generations in a 2 disc set!
Based on the Street Fighter Alpha game by Capcom, this movie is the commemorative effort that marked the 10th anniversary of Street Fighter II. Released as Street Fighter Zero in Japan in 1999, Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie sees Ryu after the battle with Sagat having to face an all new big bad – himself! That’s right, Ryu gets all evil when the power of the Dark Hadou starts to take him over. It all starts with a simple visit to pay respects to his dead master Gouken. At the grave he gets reunited with his sparring pal Ken. They meet a strange boy claiming to be Ryu’s little brother. Lil bro or lure for a trap? That doesn’t get answered for some time because first Ryu has to run into Chun-Li, an agent for Interpol, and a new Street Fighter Tournament is rung up. Everything would have been fine except the kid Shun and Ken go to the fights and Ryu ends up getting involved. It still could have been okay except the Dark Hadou takes over and Ryu ends up decimating the building while his little brother gets kidnapped by evil bad group Shadowlaw led by Dr. Sadler. Now the trio is off to rescue the little guy and end up with a bunch of other fighters in Sadler’s psycho arena. It’s a big battle royale with fists a flyin’! The trio of Chun-Li and Ken and Ryu have to battle it out and a new bigger and badder guy shows up every time they knock someone down. The biggest fight goes to the evil cyborg that carries a kid trapped inside him –creepy and freaky! That fight is brutal with spirit balls blowing off limbs and stuff. Kind of graphic even for Street Fighter fare. But this show is like martial arts meets Die Hard, Ryu keeps getting a lickin’ but he keeps on tickin’ against all odds to try to save the day. The final fight is between him and the all new pumped up body of Dr. Sadler. Ryu has to overcome the Dark Hadou and fight a monster that can replicate the move! It’s a huge fight Street Fighter style. The movie runs over 1 ½ hours and is action packed, plus it has some new characters like energetic gal Sakura who keeps popping up, Shun, and others. The character designs aren’t as pumped up and disproportioned compared to the Street Fighter II movie, but the action still has oomph to it and it’s fun to watch the characters whip around and duke it out the way only Street Fighter can. It’s an OVA, not a theatrical release, so don’t expect super-hyped up animation quality. It’s pretty smooth, occasionally some flashy strobe effects, but the animation is more comparable to TV standard than theatrical. The second OVA feature, Street Fight Alpha: Generations, was first released in 2005. It has updated animation. Cool detailed background and heavier CG mark it as different from the other film and actually in a lot of ways looks spiffier and better. It looks more theatrical quality actually. The character designs are the most different of any of the Street Fighter anime incarnations, but the characters are still recognizable and the upgraded animation is a treat. It has English 2.0, 5.1 and Japanese 2.0 and 5.1 Dolby Digital sound. The story focuses on Akuma. Seen in the film before but here he’s called Gouki. It’s before he gets all freaky looking. Think of it as a prequel to the film. Gouken, Ryu’s master, is still alive. At least in the prequel parts. It shows how Akuma first went down the bad road of the Dark Hadou. There’s also Ryu, Ken, and Sakura from the first film. There’s also all new kind girl Sayaka and quiet Fuka. The film runs just under an hour (about 45 minutes) but it’s got action and more importantly, it has story. It’s a little hard to follow at times. It seems to go back and forth between younger Gouki aka Akuma and the time before the movie, and then shifts to the time after the film, when Sakura finds Ryu and wants to train with him. But overall the story seems to be the reasons behind Akuma’s cold ways and the fight building between Akuma and Ryu. In the end we get the whole low down about the Dark Hadou. This Generations doesn’t have anywhere near the same amount of fighting as the other shows, or the same dramatic buildup to the rumble. But it does offer in its place a lot of information about Akuma/Gouki and the Dark Hadou that Ryu must constantly battle against within himself. EXTRAS:
This 2 disc edition comes with an embossed slipcase. Extra goodies on disc 1 include trailers of other Manga Entertainment titles, Japanese productions credits, Street Fighter Alpha the movie trailer, a ‘Making of Street Fighter Alpha’ montage with the Japanese production, and a horde of video interviews with the bulk of the main Japanese voice cast, the character designer and the director. The 2nd disc has manga trailers and a behind the scenes of the language process with the Japanese voice cast. IN SUMMARY:
Two very different films in one action packed 2-disc set! It’s martial arts meets Die Hard.
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