Street Fighter Alpha Generations

Street Fighter might forever go down in video game history as one of
the best fighters, certainly the most unique and succesful for its
time. Several animated movies and shows were born of it and one REALLY
bad movie with Jean Claude Van Damme. The most recent of these being a
Manga DVD: Street Fighter Alpha Generations.

Generations features 2 of the most familiar characters of the series,
Ryu and Ken. Gamers might also recognize Akuma, a kind of Ryu on crack,
though in this story, Akuma is the man who killed Ryu and Ken’s old
master. The story begins as two fighters from the past square off, each
trying to avoid using a technique known as the Dark Hadou. Think of it
as the dark side of the force. In fact, the base story has quite a few
similarities to Star Wars, except that the big evil at the end isn’t
Ryu’s father. Most people familiar with the characters and the series
won’t take too much mind to the story anyway. It’s all about the
fights…or it should be. I was pretty disappointed. I’ve seen longer,
more intense fighting in 20 minutes of DragonBall Z. I will say that
the animation during the 3 fight sequences were incredibly well
choreographed and animated, but they were simple too few and far
between in a 45 minute show to be entertaining.

The movie was directed by Ikuo Kuwana, an experienced and talented
animator coming off of several blockbuster manga movies: Steam Boy,
Neon Genesis Evangelion and Blood: The Last Vampire. I can give the guy
credit for trying, but he’s simply not cut out for directing. Scenes
filling time between the scant fight sequences look more like
slideshows than animated film.

Bonus features include a 10 minute behind the scenes interview with the
Japanese voice cast, previews of additional manga movies and web links.
Pretty light on bonuses.

If you’re a major anime fan and need a quick fight fix you might find
this a value from the bargain bin, but if you’re looking for a more
epic animated movie, check out Ghost in the Shell or Ninja Scroll.