Street Fighter Alpha: Generations

To be up front this movie isn't anything really special. What it is, is a good watch in my opinion.

If you know some about street fighter and have seen other movies or series I feel you will like this movie. If you have never seen either of them but like a good action movie, I still feel like you may like this movie.

Pretty much its all about the main character battling the choice of the light side, or the dark side. That is it in a nut shell.

The main character comes back to his Doujou after many years to fight the man that killed his ... master. His master and the evil dark man used to be members of the same doujou but one chose the light way and one chose the dark way.

The main character cant help feeling the strong intense power coming from the dark side, and knows how powerful it made the dark evil guy that beat his master.

The movie introduces characters you will recognize from other Street Fighter works, and they are there to help or at least influence the main characters choice to go light or dark, and the whole movie is leading up to the battle of revenge.

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Street Fighter Zero aired in 1999. So all fans had to wait six years. For what? For a f**king piece of crap. Really, this movie is the worst in the whole Street Fighter merchandise.
Story:
Well, story is not bad, but if it's your first time with Street Fighter you'll have no idea who is who. So that makes this movie only for fans.
Art:
Bleh. Characters looks really poor and so is the animation. It's under average.
Sound:
What sound? In at least half of the movie there's no background music. Well, there're few tracks but they're really average.
Character:
The characters that we know from the game. But why did they ... made them so ugly?
Enjoyment:
I was f**king bored through the whole movie and even the final fight wasn't interesting (it could be if they made better animation and better background music)

So, this movie is really weak. Better stay away from it. Instead, I recommend you watching:
- Any other Street Fighter movie or TV series
- Any DBZ movie is better than this...
- Virtua Fighter

When this movie first came out a some years ago. I remember setting my expectations very low. The reasons happen to be: 1) It's a video game to anime. Therefore, the red flag should automatically go up. 2) The first movie was a bomb. And 3) Outside of series with an already established storyline. I haven't seen too many anime movies with such a short length turn into anything special. Battle Angel, Neo Tokyo, and Voices of a Distant Star are the only real exceptions I can think of.

Strangely enough, Street Fighter Alpha: Generations still managed to surprise me. Fortunately, the movie has gotten ... slightly better over time but it's still not a good one, no matter how you slice it up. This movie has been universally panned by almost ALL fans of the franchise. Albeit, some of their reasons are kind of ridiculous in some ways. Still, their anger and disappointment is understandable for the most part.

Street Fighter Alpha: Generations is billed as the prequel to Street Fighter Alpha, and is based on the video game of the same name. I can't exactly put my finger on it just yet, but I just have a hard time buying this as a prequel. Anyway, the film already has enough issues so there's no real sense in searching deeper for more.

One of the issues fans have with the movie is the different look. The characters really aren't faithful to their video game counterparts. The production team clearly went for an original design here. Personally, the new look has grown on me, and I really don't think it's all that bad. The characters have a more traditional anime look to them, and the character designs seem a bit more detailed. The backgrounds are also pretty nice with dark silhouettes blanketed by the rainfall. The soundtrack also fits very well giving most of the scenes a nice feel.

Unfortunately, the problems are poured on as thick as tar here. The run time really does the movie in. The entire movie has a rushed feel. I mean everything is crammed in, and at least one character makes a completely unnecessary appearance. I have absolutely no problem with centering the story only on Ryu and Akuma. Since their rivalry is pretty much the most interesting one in the game, and you get a good amount of background on Akuma, but Ken is reduced to a side character in the worst way, and his cameo appearance was better off left on the cutting room floor. He was of no use here at all.

The action scenes have some good animation and choreography at times, yet it was never taken to its full potential due to the time restraint. The final act was badly damaged. The writers decided to mesh the final battle with the back story narrative. This caused the two different segments to bounce back and forth, which resulted in an unfulfilling climax. The confrontation between Ryu and Akuma should be epic. However, this could easily rank as one of the worst encounters in Street Fighter. In addition, the constant use of the Dragonball Z-ish high energy attacks felt too non Street Fighter.

I can't stress enough how much of a letdown Street Fighter Alpha: Generations turned out to be. I still can't wrap around my head how something so simple, could be so easily messed up. I do not for any reason recommend this to the casual anime fan. As for Street Fighter fans, step into this arena at your own risk.

Highs: Artwork, animation, and soundtrack

Lows: Not enough action and just way too short