Rated R for animated nudity
If you have never watched the Street Fighter II Animated Movie, do yourself a favor and buy it or rent it now, even if you have to get it from an eBay auction. This is how you make a Street Fighter movie. Forget about that cheesy Van-Damme movie that's only worth watching to see how bad it is. Also, don't confuse this with that awful American
Street Fighter cartoon that was based on the Van-Damme movie. The Japanese SF2 movie is simply the best animated movie based on a video game ever.
What makes it so special? Well, what sets it apart for me was how it respected all the characters. They portrayed their personalities and the histories CORRECTLY. You've got Ryu on his quest for perfecting the martial arts; Ken's friendship and rivalry with Ryu; Chun-Li attempting to avenge her father's murder; Guile's gung-ho cockiness. Most of the other interpretations of the Street Fighter series played fast and loose with the characters, even the anime series Street Fighter II V. See, even if the movie is well made, if there are any discrepancies with what's onscreen and what we know about the series from playing the videogames, it brings us out of that fantasy world and makes us wonder why those changes were made. This is especially true of comic book movies.
The second best feature of the SF2 Movie has to be its fight choreography. After playing a countless number of games on the arcade, if the fights on the screen did not outdo what you were playing, you might as well skip the movie and pop in another quarter into the machine. Well, I guarantee you that outside of the sometimes overly staged CG martial arts fighting you see in "modern" computer animated movies, the SF2 Movie has the greatest one-on-one (and one two-on-one) animated battles you'll ever see. The highlight has to be the battle between Chun-Li and Vega (known as Balrog in Japan):
I never get tired of watching this scene. It's even better than the climactic Bison-Ryu/Ken fight at the end! What's cool about it is that it doesn't rely on some of the flashier special movies like fireballs. They made Vega so arrogant in this scene that you really want to see him get beat. That's why it's so satisfying to see Chun-Li stomp on his face and give him the lightning kick out the building.
I've posted the Japanese version of the movie here mainly because it has better music than the English dubbed version which had a punk rock/heavy metal soundtrack. I did watch the Japanese version of the movie first, so I may be biased, but the original soundtrack was tailored to suit the movie (and it actually turned me on to J-Pop). This scene in particular shows that... Chun-Li and Vega are aerial fighters known for their gracefulness and the music here matches that gracefulness. Also, the Japanese version shows the fan-service goodness that is Chun-Li's shower scene. ;)
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