Watch Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie For Free

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Street Fighter is a video game series that's very near and dear to my heart. It is a series that's not exactly known for its deep and profound story, but the characters are iconic, from Ryu's dusty old white martial arts uniform and red headband, Ken's bushy eyebrows, to Chun Li's buns and thunder thighs.Where this movie went very wrong, I think, was that they chose to create new characters rather than try to incorporate the rest of the Street Fighter cast in any meaningful fashion. I feel that this is a great disservice to the fan base. Even putting aside the lack of characters from the game (but where was Cammy?!), it was very hard (for me at least) to care about any of the new characters or the overall plot. And it didn't have to be that way. I don't think we have ever seen in the Street Fighter games or movies any hint as to Ryu's past: we take him for what he is now, a stoic world warrior whose greatest struggle is within. This could have been an interesting fresh look at this character, but in its execution it just fell flat.If you haven't already, I would strongly recommend Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (listed on IMDb as "Sutorîto Faitâ II gekijô-ban"), which does a much better job of putting together a coherent story and weaving in all of the characters.

When Manga Video first released this, I snapped it up right away. Looking back, I remember it being good, yet I only watched it a few times before it was left to gather dust on the shelf with the rest of my impulse anime buys (the kind they snag you into buying by packing the trailer with nearly all the fast moving eye-candy the feature has to offer.) I couldn't quite remember why, though... so I popped it in the ol' VCR again. The best thing about it (to me), and what I think is better than all of the Street Fighter branded animation before it, is the consistency and quality of the artwork - it thoroughly matches the games it is based on. All you have to do is to compare (nearly) any moment of the movie with a victory screen or portrait of the same character from Alpha 3 to see the care that was put into pulling this off. The animation is quite good too, although I think the style is adhered to the fault of creating some awkward positioning and there is definitely an excess of close-ups - to the point that you are more likely to see a zoomed-in image of someone's face (or crotch, in Chun-li's case) rather than anything else going on.You could talk about the problems with the story (not that many game-movie conversions ever do too well in that regard), many of the clichés are there and are pretty obvious, and much of it is far too over-dramatic for it's own good, but as it is with any good action flick, those aren't the main things I'm concerned about...My main problems are with the fights. Aside from a few quick, entertaining brawls that are merely teases (one of which plays while the credits are rolling, making you realize how good it all could've been ), they seem to take place one move at a time, and thus feel unusually slow, even by vintage SF2 standards. In nearly all of the 'important' fights, there is almost no continuous motion to the action. And to slow it down further, we also get some of the usual "is that the best you can do?" dialogue (the kind any DBZ viewer will be familiar with) between the short bursts of action. Ugh.It's kind of sad when a video game shows more fluidity than a movie does during a fight. :(Pros: Good animation. Nice consistency in artwork. Signature moves are well represented.Cons: (some spoilers)Fight scenes feel unnaturally slow. The majority of the game's fighters are limited to 'quickie' cameos (Birdie was done pretty well, though.) No climactic battle with Akuma. Missing characters: no Charlie, no Sagat, etc. A lame villain who has nothing to do with the game (I really hate that stupid grin he always has.) General stupidity: an annoying little brat holding his own against Zangief (PUH-LEASE!), Ryu dodging bullets, etc...Despite what flaws it has, it is still worth watching if you enjoy the unique look of the Alpha series, as it has been very carefully replicated here.

I have this on video (the english version) the voice acting is sound and the characters look detailed. However sometimes it goes a little too far.For example Professor Sadler isnt in any Street Fighter title so you can't really take to him as a villain. this film does show many of the SFzero fighters but they dont play big roles. the only ones who do are Ryu,Ken,& Chun-Li. Akuma has a tiny role and as I have never found a sequel to this it leaves SFzero film very unfufilling.7/10

Spoilers ahead. You've been warned.I was quite disappointed by this film, after enjoying the original animated feature so much.There's so much in the film that's unexplored. Akuma is the focus of much of the promo material and the blurb on the back of the video/DVD packaging... and yet his appearance in the film it little more than a sixty-second cameo. IS Shun Ryu's brother or not? It's apparently implied that he isn't by his dying words, but if he's not - what IS he? Maybe the Japanese language version had it better, but it's very confusing and scrambled. The inclusion of the character of Sakura is utterly needless and adds nothing to the flim - perhaps if she had just been in a short cameo like some of the other game characters, and you could just point at the screen and go "hey, there's Sakura," and that was all, it would work better, but as it stands, she serves no purpose being the film at all.My main problem with it is the general *pointlessness* of it all. By the end of the film, we're right back exactly where we started, and nothing's changed, except Ryu's a little better off.Deeply, DEEPLY annoying is the animation team's apparently fascination with Chun-Li's butt, crotch and chest. Almost every shot of her opens up on one of these body parts, and when the camera's on other characters, one of these three parts is always poking into the screen from the side. It's very irritating.I'm not even sure if this is supposed to be in the same continuity as the first SF movie, because there's a lot of things that don't match up, even if it's supposed to be acting as a prologue.Basically, this film is trying to be something it shouldn't. Street Fighter shouldn't be about a deep, meaningful storyline - it should be about people beating the snot out of each other, which is what the first film was, and it was all the better for it.