With Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting getting ready to makes its move to Xbox Live via the 360 Marketplace there is a lot of buzz surrounding Capcom's beloved fighting franchise. Since the original Street Fighter II came out fifteen years ago nearly countless remixes of the game have been released. Ironically it wasn't until another six years later that the third Street Fighter game actually came out. With a series as beloved at Street Fighter it should be no surprise that it has leaked into other material over the years.

An anime series, American cartoon, live-action film, a manga, and a Japanese animated movie have all seen the light of day since the franchise began. While the live-action picture left a lot to be desired, Manga's re-release of the anime film shows why it was superior in every way. It probably has more to do with the way in which the material is presented because after all when you're depicting karate fighters who use energy bolts, hairy green monsters that produce electricity, and Bruce Lee clones you're better off telling it in an animated form. Well, that and this film is the only way you're ever going to see Chun-Li naked in an official Capcom project.

The movie begins with Ryu and Sagat duking it out in a field somewhere in the middle of a lightning storm. To two trade blows while someone is obviously watching the battle and analyzing their fighting data. Things come to a close shortly after Ryu plants a big scar on Sagat's chest and launches a Haddoken at this prey. Years after that event Ryu is wandering Asia searching for battles and ways to help people out. It's kind of like a Caine from Kung Fu type of thing only without all of the Shaolin philosophy.

An organization known as Shadowloo has surfaced and is actively searching for Ryu in an effort to harness his immense power in battle. In the meantime though Shadowloo, which is run by Vega (M. Bison to American gamers), is looking around the world for other fighters with great potential. Android like creations spy on various battles and gather information on people like E. Honday, Dhalsim, Ken, and T. Hawk. Because of the recent stirrings of activity by the syndicate government agents have been pulled in to investigate.

Guile is the American soldier that is forced to team up with Chun-Li from Chinese Interpol to find out what's going on with Vega. Each has their different reasons for wanting to see the destruction of Shadowloo, but needless to say their goal is a common one. The two get dragged even deeper into the plot when it is discovered that they are meddling with Vega's plans. Once that happens Balrog shows up to fight Chun-Li after her shower in one of the best (and most dramatic) battles in the film. The action is over-the-top and brutal to the point that true Street Fighter aficionados will be salivating by the end.

As the story moves forward and drags more characters from the game into it the fact that this is a show themed off of a videogame becomes more apparent. Personalities pop in and out just for the sake of showing up to appease their fans and to be frank it happens with an element of cheapness. The movie does do well by focusing mostly on Ryu, Ken, Guile, and Chun-Li, but the fact remains that the plot never goes in depth or breaks any new ground. Disappointingly it boils down to "Here's a bad guy doing something bad. Now let's send in the heroes to stop him!"

Graded as an anime motion picture Street Fighter II is by no means to be ranked on the echelon of Miyazaki's masterpieces. It's a straight forward action affair with a couple of characters worth getting familiar with and a story that is as simple as one, two, three. For fans of the game franchise though, this is a release not to be missed and you'll easily get the most out of it.

It's kind of strange. Even though there are two versions of the film on this DVD (English on side A. Japanese on side B) I still figured that they would have been cut from the same cloth, as it were. Both feature a widescreen transfer but the English adaptation is easily the worst for wear. The image is riddled with dirt, compression artifacts, and an overall faded appearance. The uncut Japanese version, however, is significantly better looking in just about every regard. There is much less speckle in the image, far less compression and the colors appear to be very natural.

It's pretty easy to figure out that the English version of the movie offers English and the Japanese offers Japanese. Both feature 2.0 and 5.1 selections for the audio though I have to throw my hat in with the Japanese track as being the best. No matter how big of a Street Fighter fan I have been throughout the years, the English dubbing always got on my nerves. It was just over-the-top and nowhere near as natural as it should have been. Hearing the Japanese version changes the entire experience for the better, so if you had a sour taste in your mouth from the old version you should definitely look forward to hearing the uncut edition.

On the Japanese side of the disc there are some character profiles and some accompanying animation. On the English side there are a couple of trailers to look at. Those are some measly offerings and the only other thing to look forward to is a mini comic book depicting some off screen events from the film.

As you would assume Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie is strictly for fans of Capcom's game franchise. The uninitiated will no really appreciate what's going on here, even though it isn't anything that cerebral. Come for the action, stay for the series, but don't get too upset when you realize that the plot isn't that involved. Having the uncut Japanese version is a nice thing to get our hands on, but since the disc is so barebones there's almost no point to it. I enjoyed the film for what it was but was disappointed with the quality of the DVD.

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