Street Fighter is a really well-beloved fighting game series developed by Capcom. There have been a few movies made to represent the characters and plot on film, just like with the Mortal Kombat films of yesteryear, but they haven’t really received critical acclaim or even approval of the fans.

This list aims to take a look at some of the things that the original film did in 1994 and see if we can find some things it actually did right, in addition to looking at the 2009 reboot Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun-Li to see which of them is the superior version of the games on film.

Street Fighter: Jean-Claude Van Damme

If there’s one thing that makes a cheesy over-the-top fighting game movie complete, that’s Jean-Claude Van Damme. Van Damme was always envisioned to be cast as Guile by Capcom before production, but honestly seeing it in the film is nearly perfect. Jean-Claude’s hyper-macho demeanor and ridiculous performance make the Guile that appears onscreen everything he needs to be.

Unfortunately, Jean-Claude Van Damme had to turn down the role of Johnny Cage in the Mortal Kombat movie to make sure he had no schedule conflicts with the Street Fighter film, but that absolutely would have been a fight to behold.

Legend Of Chun-Li: The Fight Scenes

Since the director had already worked with the likes of Jet Li in the film Romeo Must Die, it seems only fated that if there’s nothing else to look forward to in Legend Of Chun-Li, you still have pretty well-choreographed fight scenes to keep you entertained.

While almost every other aspect of the film was panned by critics and fans of the series alike, any of the reviews that had something positive to say in the first place generally agreed that the fight scenes were the only good part of the film.

Street Fighter: Campiness

One of the most important parts of making sure that Street Fighter feels like Street Fighter is maintaining a certain campiness in the production. Not only does the film deliver on this, but it also isn’t necessarily the most faithful adaptation of a Street Fighter film, which doesn’t work to its detriment.

The film is filled with some of the cheesiest one-liners ever to grace action films from the 80s or 90s, and the special effects that don’t hold up are everywhere, making the film a truly sloppy mess that has survived in a time capsule from a time where it’s okay to have Kylie Minogue in a film.

Legend Of Chun-Li: 5% On Rotten Tomatoes

While some others might say that a 5% on Rotten Tomatoes means that a film is unwatchable, we disagree on that one fundamental film fact. Any film with a score as low as 5% is as much of a rarity as any film rated above 95% and therefore should be treated as such.

It’s an absolutely monumental achievement to make a film that’s rated that low and anyone who disagrees is patently incorrect. The movie misses pretty much whenever it takes a swing, but that’s really part of the fun, isn’t it?

Street Fighter: Raul Julia As M. Bison

Raul Julia is a wonderful actor, as evidenced by his appearance in tons of different Shakespearian plays and musicals, and our fond memories of him portraying the whimsical and dangerous Gomez Addams in The Addams Family and Adams Family Values. The reason he’s so fun in this film is that it’s pretty obvious that despite the kind of film he’s in, he’s still willing to give everything he’s doing 110%, which ends up having an effect that’s actually pretty comical.

No disrespect to the man himself since the film is dedicated to him and he really does do his best, it’s just the juxtaposition against the actors he’s surrounded by.

Legend Of Chun-Li: Taboo As Vega

Taboo as Vega? What does that mean? Which one is the character and which one is the actor? We’re so glad you asked. For some reason, Taboo refers to a member of The Black Eyed Peas that no one really remembers since it isn’t Will.I.Am or Fergie, but here Taboo is anyway, despite the fact that his only acting experience is 2 films that he was in most likely as a favor from friends.

Sadly, the release of Legend Of Chun-Li didn’t quite kickstart his career, since the only film he’s appeared in since then wasn’t a film at all, but a spot as a celebrity guest judge on a TV show.

Street Fighter: The Box Office Returns

While Street Fighter was panned by fans and critics alike, it definitely didn’t do badly in the box office. This essentially means though, that fans who actually did see it had a right to talk about how awful they thought it was.

This was early in the days of video game movies, so the idea of the video game curse on films hadn’t really taken effect in the public consciousness just yet. Most likely thanks to how popular Street Fighter was back then, and the success of the also popular Mortal Kombat, the film brought in almost 1,000,000,000 USD, nearly tripling its budget.

Legend of Chun-Li: Focusing On A Particular Character

One of the issues that fighting game movies, video game movies, and the 1994 Street Fighter movie have in common is that all too often they don’t really have any regard for the characters in a movie. It’s almost like they just play the game for a minute, think it’ll be easy to direct since the story is going to be one as old as time about a tournament to prove who the best fighter is, and then they go from there, picking their favorite character or talking to the fanbase online to see what they want.

Legend Of Chun-Li doesn’t do that. It looks into the origin of one character, realizes that there’s enough material there, and then does its best.

Street Fighter: The Bad Acting

Weirdly enough one of the stars of Street Fighter isn’t even a conventionally trained actress. It’s Kylie Minogue, otherwise known as that pop singer from the late 90s and early 2000s with the one Vine song. Apparently what happened to get her cast as Cammy in the film is that the director of the film saw her on the cover of a magazine, as one of the world’s 30 most beautiful people.

The site of Kylie Minogue in the film pretending to be threatening is actually just a little bit funnier than it should be since she appears to be perhaps one of the least threatening people you can imagine.

Legend Of Chun-Li: Andrzej Bartkowiak

Ah yes. Andrzej Bartkowiak. With him helming the film, there’s really nothing that could go wrong here. Here we have one of the greatest film directors in the history of cinema.

He’s responsible for tons of stuff that’s really, really bad, in fact being some of the stuff that influenced the legend of the whole video game curse thing to begin with, such as 2005’s Doom, starring Dwayne Johnson who is also somehow getting work after that one.