All of my memories of playing Street Fighter involve kids from the neighborhood huddled around a box TV set, mashing buttons and cheering or jeering as battles took place.
When I heard we were getting another Street Fighter movie, my hope was that the story would capture some semblance of that pure, unadulterated fun. But as with any game adaptation, I was worried they'd make it so self-serious we'd lose out on the feeling you had as a kid when you beat your sibling or neighbor in combat.
That's why this new Street Fighter trailer has me so pumped.
Check it out below.
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Frame the Conflict Around A Rivalry
We have this sense at the beginning that this is a story of brotherhood, and I don't know about you, but my brother and I liked to beat shit out of each other both in real life and in video games, where we could literally kill one another.
Ryu and Ken function as the brothers at the center of this narrative, and though the whole thing seems to be about the buried angst and pacifism, none of it is taken so seriously that you're not having fun watching it.
To me, this channeled those games back in the day where you spent so much time fighting one another, but then could do a team-up mode and finally fight together.
Storytelling-wise, framing Ken as being in danger and directly positioning Ken's ambition against Ryu’s forced pacifism gives us a lot of emotional depth to play off and backstory to unpack as we get into the movie.
Match Tone with Visual Style
The other big takeaway I had from watching this was that the visuals matched the tone I described. It was all bright colors, funny jokes, and the occasional delving into the emotionality of the story.
Director Kitao Sakurai's voice brings a chaotic energy to the story’s pacing, and I have to admit, the battles hit the right part of nostalgia and fun for me.
The dialogue directly calls out the absurdity of the universe, which also helped me understand that while this seemed like an action movie, it was okay to have fun as well.
Lastly, we've now had two trailers that use classic West Coast hip-hop (2Pac's "Ambitionz Az a Ridah") to establish a rhythm in which combat beats land like musical cues. It felt like I was playing a game with an epic soundtrack while watching.
'Street Fighter'Credit: Paramount
Summing It All Up
When you look at all this together, you get that sense of wonder and animosity you felt playing someone in Street Fighter. To me, that's a reason to give this movie a chance and to be excited about opening weekend. I want to feel like a kid kicking ass again.
Let me know what you think in the comments.
