Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li | Action | rated PG-13 (V) | starring Kristin Kreuk, Neil McDonough, Chris Kline, Robin Shou, Moon Bloodgood | 1:36 mins
Chun-Li (Kristen Kreuk, Smallville)’s mission to find her kidnapped father leads her to Gen (Robin Shou), an underground martial arts expert who trains her to focus her anger on the skill of the fight. As she gets closer to the kidnapper, Bison (Neil McDonough, Boomtown), she becomes a wild card for two mis-matched interpol agents (Chris Kline, Moon Bloodgood) trying to bring him down legally.
What a ludicrously conceived and dully executed movie. Where to begin? The casting is backwards, the martial arts is basic and unexciting, the story is overly convoluted for a movie like this and the acting is atrocious. First we have Kristen Kreuk, widely disliked for her whiny stick-in-the-mud role on Smallville, cast as our tiny, mousy action hero lead in a role so unconvincing it’s laughable. Then we have Neil McDonough, a superior TV actor who has never found a decent role on film. McDonough plays the villain with an over-the-top cartoonish supervillainy. It’s a caricature usually reserved for political opposition. Also miscast is Chris Kline as the serious tough guy interpol agent. Naturally, he’s a hot head who doesn’t understand the culture the way his more seasoned and heady female partner does.
With Street Fighter being a game franchise that died on the runway almost 10 years ago, it’s perplexing as to why this movie was even made – other than as wildly misplaced vehicle for the wooden Kreuk. Even the use of the word “Legend” in the title is beguiling. Nothing in the movie is really so fantastic as to be retold by anyone. It’s a campy B-movie without being the tiniest bit self aware of it. Instead it is utterly humorless and deadly dull. Legend of Chun-Li is a solid turkey.