Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie (Uncut, Uncensored, Unleashed)

Rating NR Formats DVD Genre anime Starring Kôjiro Shimizu, Kenji Haga, Miki Fujitani, Masane Tsukayama, Masakatsu Funaki Directed by Gisaburo Sugii Publisher Manga Video External Links Official Manga Entertainment Website

The Street Fighter franchise is one of the premiere Japanese products that has achieved an incredible success in its exploitation to multiple formats. Starting with the graphic novel series, video games, then to motion pictures, the creators' ingenious marketing plan (with good and simple storyline) has won the hearts of many fans and the franchise spawned dozens of titles in various mediums.

In this Street Fighter II DVD, the story focuses on a simple concept of Good versus Evil plot. The criminal mastermind, Bison runs the baddest terrorist empire, Shadowlaw and of course, he wants to conquer the world. So in order to help him do so, he decides to recruit the best minds and bodies of the world's top fighters, one of which is Ken Masters, an American top fighter. But what Bison doesn't realize is Ken has a best friend, Ryu who trained with Ken as youngsters in the same Dojo. So like all good criminals, Bison has a plan, a plan to kidnap Ken and he attempts to brainwash him, for him to fight against his friend Ryu. At the end though, Ken's memory slowly comes back and he realizes the evildoer's plan and joins his friend Ryu to destroy Bison.

For a traditional (2-D or hand-drawn) animation, the action sequences were superb and many fighters representing multiple ethnicities presented an interesting, competitive spirit. The director, Gisaburo Sugii captures several internationally significant cities and western culture using familiar architectures and rocking soundtrack. The cars like Porsche 911 Turbo, Mustang Boss Fastback and Mercedes Benz S-Class were interestingly designed with matching engine noises. Director was also not shy about selling sex through a character Chun Li, who, like many female anime characters, has a perfect body just oozing with sexuality. Also, you can't help but notice the bad guy, Bison's quasi-military uniform, which closely resembles Nazi officer's getup.

In the preview section, other Street Fighter title Street Fighter Generations has a different look in terms of its line artwork. It has the cleaner and thinner black lines that define the outlines of the art. The trailer (UK version) uses an American voice, which I thought was bit odd. This DVD also includes a mini graphic novel, line art by Omar Dogan and story by Ken Siu-Chong, produced by Udon Comics.

Overall, with the simple good versus evil concept and with many colorful characters who all fight in high-impact action sequences, Street Fighter franchise is the one of the most popular Japanese intellectual graphic novel properties that evolved and revolutionized today's crisscrossing of entertainment mediums.