 | ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids. |
 | OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age. |
 | NOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age. |
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li
- Review Date: February 25, 2009
- PG-13
- Genre: Action/Adventure
- 2009
Common Sense Media says
Video game adaptation is violent, jarringly inept.
Parents say
Kids say
QUALITY
What parents need to know
Parents need to know that this is a review of the theatrical release and not the "unleashed and unrated" version available on DVD that may include more questionable content. This film is wholly and entirely based on the popular Street Fighter video game series -- a new edition of which just hit stores. Parents also need to know that despite the PG-13 rating, there's a great amount of gun play and lethal violence in the film; while (mostly) bloodless, the film's plot still involves a body count in the dozens. Parents also need to know that this film is a love letter to vengeance and wrath, as a young woman fights her way across Asia to find and punish the man who imprisoned her father.
What's the story?
Chun-Li (Kristin Kreuk) was a beloved little girl, whose father wanted her to be a concert pianist and loved teaching her the ways of the martial arts; when her father was taken from her in her youth by the crime lord Bison (Neal McDonough), she was heartbroken. Years later, after her mother's death, Chun-Li leaves her piano behind after a mysterious scroll tells her she must leave for Bangkok to find a mystic mentor in the martial arts, uncover the truth of what happened to her father, and face Bison.
Is it any good?
Director Andrzej Bartkowiak has made previous, disposable mainstream martial-arts action films like Romeo Must Die and Cradle 2 the Grave -- which were hardly good, but weren't as painfully bad as STREET FIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI. Saddled with cheap-looking cinematography, talky voice-over, and some hilariously bad performances (including Chris Klein in ludicrously overdone stubble-and-grimace mode as a driven Interpol cop), Street Fighter feels almost like a parody of itself.
The plot is a mishmash of a thousand other action films -- Chun-Li finds a mystic teacher, trains to access her talents at a new level and forsake anger so she might stop the man who took her father, even as the cops (Klein and Moon Bloodgod) are closing in on Bison as well; meanwhile, Bison (who for some reason has an Irish accent that's taken from the old Lucky Charms commercials) is enacting a plan to drive the poor from Bangkok's slums to buy the land and profit from it. But everything in Street Fighter is obvious -- from the unsurprising big twist to the clumsy set-up for a sequel -- and the actors are as wooden as the script is poorly-crafted. The marital arts cinema can offer vibrant action and thrilling technique, but here the look, feel, and excitement of a whole genre is just exploited ineptly for a 97-minute long commercial.
What families can talk about
Families can talk about the curious phenomenon of the video game-to-film adaptation, a recent trend that's given us films as infamously bad as Super Mario Brothers and Resident Evil; are these interesting riffs on beloved characters and settings, or are they mercenary exercises in money-making and greed?
Families can also talk about the portrait of a female actress as the
lead in this film -- is this a bold blow for equality through showing a
female lead kick, punch, and kill, or a step back from it?Finally,
families can talk about the MPAA rating system and the thought process
that underlies it: How is it a film with dozens of deaths, some in
hand-to-hand combat and some in pitched gun battles, can have a PG-13
rating?
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AGE
When it comes to movies based on video games, the quality ranges from pleasantly mediocre to unbearably awful. This film places in between that.
For a video game series that's never been known for a great story, they actually managed to make the story there is worse than it was in the video games!
The acting quality in this film also ranges from ok to awful (Chris Klein is the main offender here.)
The action scenes are well made, I guess, but that's pretty much the only saving grace of this film.
The content is also probably more suitable for older teens than 13 year olds, but even then I can't willingly recommend this.
Need a better and less edgy martial arts film?
Try Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon instead.
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AGE
littel bad but o.k
this movie was o.k .little bit of kissing but o.k violence was tence but if your son is cool about it its fine .language is average. at the end head gets turned around and guy dies
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AGE
This was a really good movie. There was great action sequences but some of them were too short. But some parts were violent and there was one part with strippers. 10+
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Kid, 12 years old
December 2, 2010
AGE
tooo much blood and language
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Kid, 12 years old
August 29, 2010
AGE
amazin' but violent
i love taboo in this movie but alot of violence and blood
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AGE
great fighting 12 0ver
great movie lots of fighting 12 and over because of the violence worth watching
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| Studio: | Twentieth Century Fox |
| Director: | Andrzej Bartkowiak |
| Cast: | Chris Klein, Kristin Kreuk, Michael Clarke Duncan |
| Genre: | Action/Adventure |
| Run time: | 97 minutes |
| Theatrical release date: | February 27, 2009 |
| DVD release date: | June 30, 2009 |
| MPAA rating: | PG-13 |
| MPAA explanation: | sequences of violence and martial arts action, and some sensuality. |
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