Street Fighter II V: The Collection
I'm sure everyone's familiar with the Street Fighter II series. A popular arcade turned to console game featuring fictional fighters from around the world, turned into TV shows, movies, and various merchandise that idiots would spend their hard earned dollars (or loonies) on. I did a very small review of the first few episodes a long time ago, but I'll ignore an episode by episode run down this time, since it's basically one really really really really really really long movie. Like all (or most?) Japanese anime, the series goes on a continuous/to be continued... form, until the story is blown off after about 40 episodes, or the show comes to an end period.
Since I mentioned it's Japanese anime, I must say the animation is nothing short of spectacular. Everything is superbly detailed and the flow of every character is realistic, from the actual Street Fighter characters to random people the characters pass by on the streets. The only problem I have, and this is extremely minor, is the recycled animation. However, for anyone who's ever seen anime before, you'll know that with the great detailed animation, comes a considerable amount of time mising from each episode, so some sequences, like Ryu's "hadou" training are used over and over again. Also, late in the series, they recycle footage a lot from the Ken/Ryu fight, which is the only notable moment that kinda annoyed me.
The dubbing of the DVD comes with both the original Japanese and the later English version. After hearing this in Japanese (while reading the english subtitles, of course), I came to the conclussion that the english is SO FUCKING BAD it made me swear off that version forever. It's really fucking bad, to the point you'll want to listen to Pamela Anderson star in a one-woman Shakespeare play, minus the nudity. With the Japanese dubbing comes another problem... the sound (5.1 stereo?) is a bit lower than on the English version, so some people might find that annoying, but since you probably don't know a word of Japanese, it shouldn't be too bad. Also slight differences in the audio: In Japanese, the characters we know as Bison, Vega and Balrog have their names rearranged. Bison is now named Vega, Vega is named Balrog, and Balrog is Bison. However, Bison (known as Vega in Japanese) is still the leader, Vega (now Balrog) is the Bullfighter, and Balrog is himself. Also, the Japanese dubbing has music tracks taken out from the english during montages of Ryu training and some flashbacks.
Quickly, the Bonus Features: Not much. Basically a commercial for Street Fighter, a couple of commercials for other Japanese anime releases, and a lot more of nothing. Pretty useless to waste my times mentioning that, but it was only about 25-30 seconds, so no big deal. I'll just try and whack it faster next time to make up for the time I lost.
Technical Thoughts: Everything is fine and dandy like cotton candy or whatever the phrase is, unless you wanted more than English and Japanese audio selections. You wussy bastards! STOP LISTENING TO THOSE FRENCH FUCKS! AH! AH! AHHHHHHHHHH!
Now onto the meat and potatoes of the DVD... the actual show! 29 episodes are spread across the 4-disc set, with 7 episodes on Discs 1, 2, and 3 and 8 episodes on the 4th.
DISC 1 Episodes:
1. The Beginning of a Journey
2. The King of the Air Force
3. Landing in Hong Kong
4. Darkness at Kowloon Palace
5. Hot Blooded Fei Long
6. Appearence of the Secret Technique
7. The Revenge of Ashura
The story revolves mainly around Ken Masters and Ryu, two best friends who trained together back in the day. Ken is an american snob rich-boy who needs a good ass kicking, and Ryu is usually the no nonsense do what I have to do guy, who is currently living in his home country of Japan. Ken invites Ryu to come to the United States for a visit. I won't bother saying if Ryu accepted or not, otherwise this would be the Ken Adventures, wouldn't it? They do stuff, then go out to a bar where they run into some military punks, who they make short work of... until Guile makes his first appearence, and wipes the floor with Ryu. Several times. Ken tries his luck the next day after he realizes who Guile is (some "Street Fighter" champion), and gets more of the same.
For some reason, this ass kicking makes Ken want to visit the world to "learn other techniques and to fight different people." The first stop of their World Tour is Hong Kong, where they met the other somewhat important character, Chun-Li, who will be their tour guide while they're in Hong Kong. Instead of enjoying the sites of HK, Ken and Ryu would rather enter some crime-zone, where fights are the center of gambling in the Kowloon Palace. Ryu takes up the challenge ofn their champion, and breaks his nose 2 seconds into the fight. The owner of Kowloon Palace isn't too happy about this, and wants revenge done on Ryu for his actions, so he sends fighter after fighter after Ryu until he's defeated all comers. Enraged, the owner puts a bounty on Ryu's head, so all hell breaks loose, and Ryu and Ken must fight for their lives trying to escape. It's here we meet Chun-Li's father, Dorai, who comes to the rescue at the last moment. We are informed that Dorai is the head investagator in a case against a mysterious crime syndicate called "Ashura", who've been attempting to smuggle drugs into the country for quite some time.
The next stop in Hong King for our heroes is the filming of a new movie, starring Fei Long, one of the best martial arts fighters in the World. Once Fei Long destroys all of the stuntman, Ken offers his services to the fight. A filming take ends up turning into a battle of sportsmanship, as the two go at it all over the settle, destroying priceless statues in the process. However, the fight ends abruptly once Ken gives Fei Long a slight blemish on his cheek. We leave Fei Long upset over the decision, but he offers another fight to Ken whenever he wants. Ryu just stands around cheering him on the whole time, being yelled at to keep quiet during the filming. The next 20 minutes or so focuses on Ken and Chun-Li having a good time shopping, but the other plot focuses on Ryu (finally). Ryu, bored with the shopping, stumbles across an old man who appears to have trouble breathing. After helping the guy outside for privacy, the old man performs a mysterious technique that heals what's wrong with him. Amazed with what he saw, Ryu asks the man to show him how to do that. After a detailed explanation on the "Kiko" that controls your body and "Hadou." Ryu is first taught the technique to perform the Hadou, but his efforts are a failure. Ryu later finds out the mysterious old man is a legendary fighter trained to protect special agents during a civil war years back, known as Tea Shop Yo (yeah, funny name I think, too).
Our heroes fun is over for now, as Ashura plots to take a hit on Dorai for busting their latest smuggling attempts. With the help of some Muay Thai kickboxers and other hitmen, the plan to abduct Chun-Li into getting Dorai where they need him is set in effect. However, when Chun-Li and the rescue attempts of Ken and Ryu screw plans up, the hit crew simply head to Dorai instead. While Fei Long and several other students attempt to fight off the Muay Thai fighters, a group of men fo for Dorai. Fei Long soon is the only man standing, as the other fighters have been seriously injured in the battle. Another timely save from Ken and Ryu turns the tide, as they use strategy and throws to counter-attack the knee and elbow strikes of the "bad guys." Chun-Li in the mean time comes to her fathers rescue, and soon the Ashura gang are locked up, except for one masked man who runs away like a little girl. The experience of fighting the Muay Thai fighters tempts Ken and Ryu to travel to Thailand, so we say farewell to Chun-Li and Dorai... for now.
DISC 2 Episodes:
8. Trap, Prison, and the Scream of Truth
9. The Superstar of Muay Thai
10. Dark Omen
11. Visitation of the Beasts
12. The Deadly Phantom Faceoff
13. The Legend of Hadou Ken
14. The Bloodthirsty Prince
We pick up the story on Disc 2, as Ken and Ryu are entering Thailand. However, a mysterious figure (the same guy from earlier who ran away like a girl) bumps into Ryu, and casually plants a package into his back-pack. When airport security search through his belongings, they come across a package of Opium, which is naturally illegal in Thailand, and Ryu is placed under arrest, and thrown in jail. This leads to Ken scrambling around Thailand, trying to find the man who did this to Ryu. Now that Ken is out of the way, we'll just focus on Ryu. Upon arrival to jail, we meet a wicket (and grueosome looking) warden, who makes things rough on the prisoners. He then proceeds to whip Ryu like a dog, screaming at him to cry out in pain, but Ryu refuses, and at the end is left a mess with lashes and blood dripping down his chest and back. The other inmates also make times hard on Ryu, until Ryu beats the crap out of several of them, leading to a confrontation with the king inmate... Sagat, former Muay Thai Kickboxing Champion. Ryu does his best with the little experience he has with the fighting technique, but decides enough is enough and goes after Sagat with his own fighting style. Sagat and Ryu find mutual respect in each other, and we are given a backstory on Sagat: As mentioned, he was a former Muay-Thai Kickboxing Champion, but his refual to fix fights leads to him beating an Ashura agent to a pulp. Not much longer after, the police search Sagat's mansion and find Opium on him, and throw him in jail. The warden, pissed off at them for stopping their fight, pulls out a gun to use on them, but a swift double team ass-kicking puts him in his place, and now Ryu and Sagat are buddies.
In the meantime, Ken's father has convinced the Thailand "Government" to release Ryu on bail, and he is scheduled to be deported soon after. Ken manages to find the person responsible for Ryu's jailing, but along with another mysterious leader of the Ashura escapes. However, a failed sniping attack leads to Ryu and Ken tracking down their enemies on the top of a truck. Once captured, the dude threatens harm to the two if they don't give the information he wants. Once that fails, Ryu is strapped into a chair, and we find out the man not only is missing his left hand, but has a collection of arms in his possession! Before Ryu loses a limb or two, the police, headed by Dorai (he's back!) invade the mansion while Ken fights off the strange man and frees Ryu of his straps. The good guys win again, as all the criminals are busted... or are they? With the busting of the Ashura, Sagat is released from jail thanks to new-found evidence of his wrongful jailing. After final words with Ryu, Sagat stumbles upon the parchment of a legendary man who invented martial arts. This leads to the discussion of Ryu learning about Ki and Hadou, and Sagat points them in the firection of a Monk named Dhalsim, living in India.
After a brief side-tracking with a woman running a hospital for the poor people of India, Ken and Ryu go on their mission to find the mysterious Dhalsim. However, Dhalsim is not pleased with the "beasts" looking to gain information from him, as he believes they'll only use it to cause problems instead of learning out of interest and devotion. While Ken and Ryu try to prove Dhalsim wrong, he leaves them by themselves to try and convince him otherwise. For a while, Ken and Ryu befriend the villagers, hoping to impress Dhalsim of their kindness. Dhalsim casually takes them aside to tell them about a cave hiding a treasure, being guarded by a monster, and that they should never enter the cave. Late that night, a group of robbers decide to try and get the treasure in question, but the monster causes both men to kill each other. This leads to the remaining criminals to hold the village hostage until someone brings them the treasure inside... the chosen ones? Ken and Ryu, of course. Dhalsim warns them of shadow images inside the cave, but they are too stubborn, and soon, are engulfed in a war against a mysterious statue thing. Until both men are knocked silly (Ryu blinded in one eye, Ken having several broken ribs), both men come to realize that they've been fighting mirror images of each other. Finally solving the riddle of the Monk, they take possesion of the statue and bring it out with them. The criminals go against their words and attempt to kill Ken and Ryu, but Dhalsim quickly causes a paralyzing effect to both men, and casually has a young girl bring the statue back inside, because the innocence of the children won't cause harm. Reluctantly, Dhalsim finally givs in to show them the Hadou technique, but the version he mastered is of a healing nature. With more guidance of his technique, Ryu musters up the Hadou, which explodes in his hands and knocks him back. Dhalsim warns Ryu to focus on his feelings, otherwise next time the blast of the Hadou will be much stronger, and likely to kill him. Ryu decides the only way to do this is to go back into the cave, where he comes across an image of Guile. After some deep though, Ryu learns he ust focus his attention of various people into one, and executes the Hadou for the first successful time. With notihng more to learn, Ryu and Ken bid fairwell to Dhalsim and the villagers off of the Ganges River, and head to a new destination...
Barcelona, Spain. Ken and Ryu meet up with Chun-Li, who along with her father, are in town for an acceptance of an award on behalf of the cature of the Ashura. After the award ceremony, the threesome decide to take in some Bull Fighting, the most popular sport in Spain. The main event of the day features Spain's most popular bull fighter, Vega Fabio La Cerda. Vega for short (Yes, I'm going by the english dub names to make sure there's no confusion). Vega quickly falls for Chun-Li, and late that night, sneaks into her hotel room to steal a kiss. Vega makes a quick escape when Ken and Ryu wake up to check on what's going on, but come to the conclussion no one could've been there, since they were several floors up from the ground. The next day brings more trouble, though. Some serious trouble...
DISC 3 Episodes:
15. Clash of the Titans
16. The Unveiled Ruler
17. The Despot's Commander
18. The Beautiful Assassin
19. Special Orders to the Iron Men
20. Unknown Explosive Force
21. Compulsion Towards Vengeance
We continue where we left off, with Ryu, Ken, and Chun-Li in Barcelona, and Vega's unwanted advances towards Chun-Li in the middle of the night. The following day, the threesome recieve an invitation to a party. Instead of being suspicious, Ken and Chun-Li decide to go, while Ryu stays behind to practice his Hadou away from everything. It's now we are finally introduced to the main villain, Bison, however, we don't know his name yet, as he is passing Ryu by in his limosuine. At the party, Chun-Li falls under a mysterious spell, and it's then that Ken finds out why he's there... he's been challenged to a fight to the death by Vega. Probably the best fight of the series, running several episodes and minimal recycled material. In the meantime, Ryu has once again passed out from performing Hadou. It's now that Shadowlaw makes it's move, having teir hired gun Zangief take Ryu back with him to their head quarters. Back to Ken... after a grueling, bloody fight, Ken comes out victorious after knocking Vega into the lights with the shoryuken uppercut, but passes out himself, and taken away on a stretcher. It's now Bison makes his own move, as he pretty much kidnaps an unconcious Ken, and after a feeble fight from Chun-Li, chokes her out using his Psycho Power.
More branching storylines, the meeting of the Interpol agents introduces us to another character... Balrog. Yes, I know the backstory of him is he was a prized Boxer before being canned from the sport for being "too violent", but thems the breaks. We find out he really is in Bison's command, and is scheduling an assassination attempt on Dorai. So now we are meeting yet another character, Cammy White. Balrog gives a BS story about how Dorai is really the snitch of Interpol, since Cammy hasn't any idea what's going on, and is just there to do a job. After a bait-and-switch fantasy assassination attempt, we get the real thing, as Cammy chokes Dorai with a wire attached to a cross, and hangs him out the window, and causing him to crash into a pile of junk on the back of a pick-up truck. Early reports say Dorai died from being intoxicated and hanging himself... but did he die? FIND OUT LATER!
And now we go back to Ken, who has been chained down while Bison holds him for ransom from his father, and a hefty sum of a billion dollars. No one ever bothered explaining how rich Ken's father is, but I'll assume he's Donald Trump and Bill Gates combined, minus the awful hair and wardrobe. Ken's father shows some signs of intelligence though, as he has the CIA hire two special agent soldiers to infiltrate the Shadowlaw head quarters to save Ken and Ryu. One of the two soldiers in question is our old pal, Guile, and his long-time partner Kevin Nash... Okay, it's not Kevin, but I forgot his name. Anyway, Guile finds it ammusing that they'll probably cross paths in such a twist of fate, and they have 48 hours to get the job done or Mr. Masters loses a Billion dollars.
Bison continues to get air-time, as Ryu and himself have a confrontation regarding Ryu's future. Ryu refuses becoming a member of Shadow-Law, and is challenged to use his best attacks on Bison. After building up his Hadou, Ryu unleashes it for the first time on someone else, and it's quickly no-sold by Bison, who laughs it off. Bison used his Psycho Power to deflect the blow, which caused an explosion to knockout Ryu once again. With Ryu unconcious, Bison uses this time to implant a Cyber-Chip on him in order to control him and create Shadow-Law's strongest soldier. In the meantime again, Fei Long discovers the events surrounding Dorai's alleged death, and quickly rushes to his aid at the hospital to find out the truth. If you noticed, the storylines for this part of the show are spread out more, but everything is pretty simple, and isn't dragged out with lots of minimal stuff as earlier on.
DISC 4 Episodes:
22. Rising Dragon, Into the Sky
23. The Icy Light of Their Eyes
24. Nightmare Reunion
25. Fight to the Finish (Round 1)
26. Fight to the Finish (Round 2)
27. Fight to the Finish (Round 3)
28. Fight to the Finish (Round 4)
29. Fight to the Finish (Final Round)
Time for the home stretch... Ken, who had been knocked out for most of the last couple of episodes has regained conciousness and sees images flashing in his mind of what happend to Chun-Li at the hands of Bison. Ken then starts feeling the spirits of Ki flowing through his body like it did with Ryu, and after a long musical montage, Ken manages to escape the chains holding him down, and roams around the temple/fortress of Shadow-Law. Ken later stumbles upon both Ryu and Chun-Li, who have come under the control of Bison's cyber-chip implants. Ken later confronts Ryu, but he's not the same guy he used to be. He seems to be more dangerous and cold hearted...
Back to the hospital, Fei Long is informed that Dorai had survived the assassination, but barely, and Interpol is prepared for any further attempts of his life. Since only two people are in on this, Balrog eats the bait and goes to check and see how Dorai is doing. Balrog made sure beforehand to call up Cammy to schedule a second attempt "just in case", and she gradually eneters the hospital after gassing the attendant at the front desk. However, before she can carry out her mission, she is stopped by Fei Long, who has been hiding in Dorai's emergency station...
Back in the Shadow-Law headquarters, Guile and Nash have been planting explosives en route to the top level, where Bison is stationed to make sure everyone is kept under his controls. Guile eventually has a run with Zangief on his way there, but a brief battle altercation leaves Zangief unconcious and Guile the victor. However, Nash isn't so lucky, as he runs into Bison, and is quickly disposed of at the hands of the Pyscho Power. We find out here that Bison's extraordinary powers are coming from a special relic/statue, which causes him to go into a Dr. Jeckyl/Mr. Hyde type of personality splitting. Guile eventually makes his way up to the control center himself, but this isn't the Street Fighter movie with Jean-Claude Van-Damme, and isn't the main character. Instead, Bison brushes him off and unleashes his newly turned evil Chun-Li on Guile...
FIGHT TIME! The majority of the last few episodes is obviously nothing buy physical altercations. Ken is stuck fighting with a computer-controled Ryu, who throws Ken through walls and generally kicks his ass. Also we get lots of recycled animation from the same fight over the course of several episodes. Fei Long goes at it with Cammy, trying to protect Dorai from any more harm, and Guile has the task of fighting Chun-Li, who is much quicker and stronger than before when we last saw her fighting Bison.
While all of this goes on, Bison watches Ryu fighting a reluctant Ken, wanting to know how long Ken will go until Ken fights back. Once Bison summons Ryu to perform the Hadouken, Ken has no choice but to counter-attack with the Shoryuken, which causes another explosion, kicking back Ryu, where the impact causes the cyber-chip in his forhead to become dislodged, and free of Bison's control.
Cammy and Fei Long put their fight on hold once Fei Long is able to convince Cammy that Dorai is the good-guy in Interpol, and that the man that hired her for the assassination is really the person that has been leaking information to Shadow-Law. When Balrog returns to question Cammy on her duties, she takes him out by choking him with the wire cable and apparently snaps his neck when she leaps out the window down to the level ground outside. Maybe Balrog died, maybe he didn't, since this is the last we saw of him.
Guile and Chun-Li continue to battle after Bison sucks Ken and Ryu into some strange alternate dimension. Bison explains the place they are in now is the realm of their powers. He then explains that his Shadow-law group are out to destroy everyone on earth... oh great, way to ruin a pretty cool show with such a lame blowoff. However, President Bison sounds pretty cool. We finally get the big Showdown: Ken & Ryu vs. Bison. Bison manages to manhandle both opponents and suffers zero effect from their solo attacks. Without their Hadou attacks, neither are a match, and Ryu is quickly knocked unconcious. Bison charges up his Psycho Power for the final blow... and we cut back to Guile trying to fight off Chun-Li again, in hopes of coming to Ken and Ryu's rescue. We return to the handicap match with Ryu blocking Bison's Psycho Power. The two work together to whoop some ass, but Bison is just pissed off now. Bison goes into a whirlwind to deliver the Psycho Crusher, sending both Ken and Ryu flying across the room. Bison once again seperates the two to dish out more pain. Ryu manages to handle himself more than Bison, but the powerful blows and lightning quick speed of Bison are too much. Ryu somehow manages to muster up the strength of the Hadou in his strikes, causing Bison to go into the Psycho Crusher again. Ryu uses his Hadou to heal the unconcious Ken just as Bison takes Ryu out. Bison prepares himself for a third one, with Ryu down and out. Ken is back up for one final attack, and with the usage of Hadou-Shou-Ryu, counters the Psycho Crusher, and injuring himself as well. With Bison's powers all but gone, Ryu is able to cause harm to Bison with minor attacks, and busts out the Tasumaki Senpu Kyaku for Chun-Li (Whirlwind Hurricane Kick, for us americans and other english speaking type persons). Oh, and then he performs a Shoryuken for Ken. Ryu summons up the Hadouken about 500 times faster than ever before, and destroys Bison and the mysterious eagle statue that gives Shadowlaw its power.
With Bison defeated and the Shadowlaw sent packing, Ryu and Ken emerge from the rubble that was once their temple, alive, but barely. Also with the defeat of Bison came the free'ing of Chun-Li from his powers. After all the excitement, Ryu packs his bags and plans to go back home to his girlfriend, while Ken just sits around looking like a bitch. Ryu credits Dhalsim with their victory over Bison. Both men say their goodbyes, and so comes the end of Street Fighter II V (Victory).
Final Thoughts: Obviously, this series had a pretty stretched out storyline. We don't even know of Bison until half-way through, and his intentions are only made clear during the last ten minutes of the last episode. I much prefered how the characters were introduced in this series rather in the animated movie, as the characters here seemed to have an actual backstory, while the movie was focused more on them fighting. However, the fighting scenes in general could've been better, since the movie upstages them a bit. Call it balanced, I guess. For those with a long attention-span, or just have a couple of days of nothing to do, I'd recommend this series, unless you're one of those aging hippie liberal douches that hates violence. There's plenty of action to go with the dialogue, but there are a few worthless episodes. Episode #23 I believe is 80% a recap of the last 8 episodes, probably because everyone lost track of what happend. I'd also recommend watching this with the Japanese Audio Track, since it sounds about 67 times better than the English. Coming from a bitter, stubborn American, that's saying something!