Anime based on popular fighting games have the problem of trying to string a series of fights into a coherent plot. Gisaburo Sugii, the director of gloriously beautiful, yet extremely slow-moving features like Night On The Galactic Railroad (1985), might not seem the obvious choice for the anime of CAPCOM's hit game, but his trademark has always been his ability to get inside his material and get the best out of it, whatever the genre. Setting up his scenario and characters without wasting a second, he plays to their strengths in a string of stunningly tense and atmospheric fights choreographed by live-action fight master Shinichi Shoji, exploiting to the full the fact that his actors would bruise and bleed only when necessary for the script. The fight between fan favourite Chun Li and dangerous pretty-boy Balrog is a masterpiece of high-tension editing worthy of Alfred Hitchcock, so well cut that only when it's over do you realize how little actual violence you saw. A TV series, live action film, and another video release followed, but none of them matched up to Sugii's object lesson in how to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

While I haven't exactly seen that many of them, I keep hearing over and over that anything based on a video game is bad. This was a wonderful exception and it is without a doubt one of the best things ever made based on a video game! It's just great to see all of these wonderful classic characters together and looking and acting just like they do in the games. I admit that I am not that big a fan of the "Street Fighter" series, but seeing as how it's been referenced so many times, it's very hard for me to not be familiar with it. My only complaint is that some of the appearances of the characters don't mean that much.

I have yet to see any other Street Fighter adaptations at all, which mostly can't be better than this. Chun-Li is probably the best here. She is indeed represented as a powerful woman. She's also smart, funny and just enjoyable to watch. While I don't like the idea of her being taken out of commission halfway through the movie, it doesn't matter that much. I appreciate how realistic this was represented. The animation is absolutely gorgeous in this and it perfectly represents the characters. M. Bison is possibly the best one, if only because he's presented just how a villain should be, strong, stern, and scary. This more or less featured him trying to take over the world ("Of course!"). A pity the bad live-action movie came later this year. It still doesn't tarnish a wonderfully colorful film. ***1/2