Street Fighter II Unleashed, Uncensored and on DVD

By Nicholas Fricke . August 17, 2006 . 1:06pm

The Street Fighter series continues to be a strong force in video games and a money maker for Capcom, with the recent releases of Street Fighter Alpha Anthology, Street Fighter II’ Hyper Fighting on Xbox Live Arcade and the upcoming Sakura-focused comic book by Udon. All this, despite the fact that the last true sequel in the series was Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, released back in 1999. Now, another piece of Street Fighter-related media hits the market, and your bank account, with Manga Video’s release of Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. Except now, it’s “Uncut, Uncensored, Unleashed.”

For those who don’t know their hadouken from a shoryuken, here’s a refresher on the movie. Released back in 1994, around the same time that Super Street Fighter II Turbo was hitting the arcades, the film centers around M. Bison’s plan to find street fighters from around the world and to use his psycho power to turn them into Shadowlaw warriors. When Bison discovers Ryu’s extremely high fighting potential, he sends out monitor cyborgs to track him down. While Ryu is out wandering near the Himalayas, his old training partner Ken is out fighting tournaments and cruising around Seattle with his girlfriend Eliza, impatiently waiting for the chance to fight against his old friend again. Along the way, Interpol investigator Chun-li and U.S. Air Force Major Guile join the fight to stop Bison and his evil plan. With Bison unable to find Ryu, he then sets his sights on Ken, which leads to an exciting final showdown between the three fighters. And in-between these major plot points, many small cameos by other Street Fighter characters fill up screen time. The result is an entertaining martial arts adventure featuring your favorite Street Fighter characters, and not only is it one of the best Street Fighter-based animations ever produced, it’s also one of the better video game to anime conversions.

But there were some problems concerning it’s original Western release, which was then published by Sony’s home video division. The movie came in two versions, one rated PG-13 and another unrated. The PG-13 release was heavily censored, featuring the removal of many bloody frames of animation in the fight scenes between Ryu and Sagat, and Chun-li and Vega. Language was toned down to the point where the most extreme cursing to be heard in the film was “kick ass,” “crap” and “damn.” And the infamous Chun-li shower scene was altered to remove any nudity, focusing only on Chun-li washing her hair. Added to all this was a grunge, hip hop and rock soundtrack which upped the intensity of the fight scenes but also changed the mood of the film, and the lack of any Japanese language option meant that many anime and Street Fighter purists were not pleased with this release. This was the version that was included with the American release of the Street Fighter Anniversary Collection. The unrated version put back most of the censored content, but the nude Chun-li scene was still yet to be found, and there was still no option to listen to the original Japanese audio.

This is where Manga Video’s release aims to amend these issues. The film offers both the United Kingdom and original Japanese versions. The UK version features all the same voice actors, music and presentation changes as the American version, but includes more realistic swearing from the characters and also includes the nude Chun-li shower scene. Oddly enough, a camera pan over Chun-li’s posterior is edited from this version, but that is the only noticeable omission. The Japanese version is the real original, featuring no changes to the soundtrack or any censorship, and is presented only with the Japanese voice acting.

The DVD sounds like a pretty good deal at this point, but there is one major problem which plagues both versions of the film, and that is the poor picture quality. The Japanese version is based off the original video master, which is full of rainbow, ghost and halo effects and has tons of dot crawl and cross-colorization (consult a FAQ if these video terms sound foreign to you). The result is that it feels as though you are watching a VHS copy of the movie, albeit with the “clarity” of being on DVD. This problem was also present on the Japanese DVD release of the movie, meaning that no one has bothered to go back to the original print of the film and clean it up for a presentable DVD version. The UK version, while eliminating most of these video issues from the Japanese version, has a softer focus to the film, and it has a serious interlacing and frame stuttering issue. On a normal television it’s not as noticeable, but on an HDTV or computer monitor, the attempts by the hardware to de-interlace the video only enhances the flaws. On top of all this, the video is presented in a letterbox format for 4:3 screens, and not in true widescreen format.

Despite all this, Manga Video did put some effort into the packaging and presentation of the DVD. A hard paper slipcase featuring artwork of the Street Fighters and an embossed image of Ryu’s fist punching through the packaging makes the DVD stand out on the store shelves, and the inclusion of a mini-comic by Udon featuring Chun-li shows that they wanted to appeal to hardcore Street Fighter fans. The menus on the DVD even attempt to mimic the character selection screen of the games, using the classic sound effects and a flashing “INSERT COIN” message right before the main menu pops up. The only real negatives here are the lack of any outstanding video extras, save for the UK and Japanese trailers, and the fact that the DVD is dual-sided, which can be a pain for those who try to keep their discs pristine and free of fingerprints on the sides containing data.

Overall, this DVD is the most comprehensive version of the Street Fighter II animated movie ever released, and the fact that it took this many years to get the original Japanese version of the film released here in America is an injustice that should have been rectified several years ago. But now that it’s finally available, it still doesn’t feel fully complete. For a “classic” anime such as this, one would think that a new master of the film would be created, but perhaps that is too much for a movie that is essentially 100 minutes of fan service for Street Fighter enthusiasts. This release will satisfy those who waited 10 years to finally get a glimpse of Chun-li’s goods, but perhaps it’ll take another 10 years to see those goods on a crystal clear, high definition master.

And we’ll probably still be waiting for Street Fighter IV.

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