“Hadouken!” “Shoryuken!” Perhaps the two most iconic special moves from the classic video game Street Fighter II. Will you see or hear either of these moves in Street Fighter, the film adaptation of that game? No! Were 90s kids disappointed by this movie? Very!

Apparently the makers of Street Fighter decided the basic structure of the video game - a fun, colorful martial arts tournament - would NEVER WORK as a movie. Instead, they plugged the game’s characters into a storyline about M. Bison - played by Raul Julia in his final role - trying to take over the world as a military dictator. Who needs karate-fireballs and exciting monsters when you could watch General Bison lay out his plan for a new currency, right kids?

Opposing Bison is Guile, played by JCVD himself, Jean-Claude Van Damme. Guile is the leader of some sort of Allied Nations military group because sure, why not. Joining him is Chun Li, except now she’s a TV news reporter, and E. Honda, who is now a Hawaiian sumo wrestler and part-time news cameraman. Also Ryu and Ken are there, as gun smugglers dispensing lame quips instead of the aforementioned Hadoukens and Shoryukens.

See the movie that had kids everywhere saying “Mommy, is that sickly looking guy really supposed to be Blanka? Can I go sit in the lobby and cry?” Smash a car with a lead pipe in the bonus stage and join Mike, Kevin and Bill for Street Fighter!

Written by:
Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, Conor Lastowka, Sean Thomason

Contributing Writers:
Jason Miller, Zachary Shatzer