Street Fighter

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Just when we thought we had covered the most dumbass video game movies with Mortal Kombat and  Super Mario Bros., Jake had to go ahead and find one that is, if not worse, most certainly equally stupid in the form of Street Fighter, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, Raul Julia (in his final role, which makes it even sadder), Ming-Na Wen, Kylie Minogue, and a whole bunch of people nobody would recognize if they passed them on the street.

Go ahead...Identify anyone else in this picture. It can't be done!

So it turns out that things aren't all wine and roses in the made-up country of Shadaloo. This is largely because deranged drug lord M. Bison (Raul Julia, who will always be remembered by the Here Be Spoilers crew for his immortal line reading of "Ma...My nuts?") has captured some A.N. (like the U.N., but not at all) workers, and is demanding $20 billion in order to free them and not feed them to his new secret weapon, a green dude named Charlie (Robert Mammone) who also happens to be the best friend of A.N. General William Guile (Van Damme).

Who, rumor has it, was baked out of his mind the whole shoot.

Guile wants to get in there, rescue everybody, save Charlie, and possibly kick Bison in the face, because that's kind of his thing. His assistant, Sgt. Cammy (Minogue), sort of tracks down Bison's location, and they prepare to send troops to the scene, with Guile taking the lead.

For the record: Guile's best friend in the whole world.

Meanwhile, a couple of scammers from the not-made-up country of America (really, it exists!), Ken (Damian Chapa) and Ryu (Byron Mann), are in Shadaloo to rip-off Bison's arms dealer named Sagat (Wes Studi) by giving him crates of what are essentially Nerf guns. Unfortunately, Sagat discovers that the guns are fake, and he takes Ken and Ryu prisoner, forcing Ryu to fight Sagat's cage champion, Vega (Jay Tavare). The fight, however, is interrupted by Guile driving a missile-equipped tank through the building and arresting everybody. Like, everybody...Hundreds of people.

When Guile discovers that Ken and Ryu aren't part of Sagat's people, he offers them a deal to infiltrate Bison's crew, and they accept. They stage a prison escape to gain favor with Sagat in order to get access to Bison. But they are being watched by a reporter named Chun-Li (Wen) and her crew, former sumo wrestler E. Honda (Peter Tuiasosopo) and former boxer Balrog (Grand L. Bush), whose careers Sagat had ruined before the movie started.

Shown: NOT Ming-Na Wen as Chun-Li.

Chun-Li throws a tracking device on the truck the prison escapees steal so she, too, can find Bison's fortress, and she and her guys go looking for it. They track the stolen truck to a party where Sagat and Bison meet up, and their plan is to kill the two of them, despite Guile thinking this is not the best idea. Ken and Ryu stop the assassination attempt in order to get on Bison's good side, which works. Bison takes Chun-Li, Honda, and Balrog prisoner. Honda and Balrog are sent to be tortured, but Bison wants Chun-Li sent to his quarters for a different kind of torture. (As best as we could tell, he plans on overacting at her to death.)

Ryu and Ken break Honda and Balrog out of some sort of weird, Pulp Fiction-y, "Zed's dead" sort of captivity, and the four of them go to find Chun-Li and rescue her from having to hear Bison recite Shakespeare at her or some damn thing. But when they get to Bison's room, he is in the process of getting his ass handed to him by Chun-Li. He uses the distraction of the four of them interrupting to go hide in his panic room and he gasses them.

In his excitement, Bison sort of got some in him eye.

Guile, in the meantime, is searching for the now green-skinned Charlie. But before he can rescue his pal, he must kick the ever-loving shit out of Bison, which leads him to the main room where Bison awaits, ready to murder all the A.N. workers and fly away on his flying desk. (Yes, that is a thing. It is run by arcade cabinet controls. Seriously.) But will Guile defeat Bison? or will Bison's clothes save him? How many times? Will somebody just die already? You'll have to listen to find out!

Derek thought that he would never see a dumber martial arts-based video game movie after Mortal Kombat. He was wrong. And he is seriously saddened by the knowledge that this was Raul Julia's final film. Nobody should have to go to their grave with Street Fighter as the last item in their resumé.

Larry liked it a little better than Derek, but only a little. He is also saddened by the Raul Julia thing, as well as how little Charlie was used in the movie, being as the character is so kick-ass in the original Street Fighter video game. (Not to be confused with the Street Fighter: The Movie video game, a video game based on a movie based on a video game.)

So put on your ridiculous costume, strike a stupid pose, and tune in to this week's episode!