Hadouken! Street Fighter Assassin's Fist Review

Live action adaptations of video games are notorious for being generally poor affairs made to cash in on the popularity of the game it based upon. Refreshingly Street Fighter Assassin's Fist is one of those rare exceptions that comes along once in a while.

Street Fighter Assassin’s Fist started life as a YouTube concept video way back in 2010 which led to CAPCOM, as licence holders, giving the green light for a full series to be made. After securing funding it was initially released as a web series earlier this year and has now been edited into a full length feature film for this DVD & Blu-ray release.

Rather than spread the net too thinly over the Street Fighter universe co-writers Joey Ansah and Christian Howard chose to focus on the origin story of popular Street Fighter characters Ken Masters and Ryu. The boys come together through a series of circumstances to train in the art of Ansatsuken under their master Gouken.

As they continue to struggle with the hard work required to reach the higher levels of their art another route presents itself. Ken discovers notes on Satsui no Hadaou, the darker side of the art that produces results but has an all consuming property that will essentially destroy your soul. Think Star Wars but in a more traditional Japanese setting.

These notes it seems were written many years ago by Gouken’s brother Goki. Through a series of flashbacks we are shown that the two brothers faced the same struggle that Ken and Ryu face in the present. While their master Goutetsu tries to warn them off Goki is corrupted by the power of Satsui no Hadaou eventually becoming the evil Akuma and killing their master.

Christian Howard as Ken and Mike Moh as Ryu both put in good performances in particular when it comes to the fight scenes as does Akira Koieyama playing the part of Gouken. British director, actor, fight choreographer and martial artist Joey Ansah is in the director’s chair but also puts his acting skills to use as Akuma. The fight scenes are all one-on-one affairs as you might expect from a film based on Street Fighter with all the actors showing off their impressive martial arts skills. CGI has been added for the Hadouken and other special moves but this is neither over the top nor intrusive.

An interesting choice is to have the film mix both English and Japanese dialogue with all the cast able to speak both. At times this felt a little disjointed rather than serving any particular purpose.

Despite being produced on a modest budget in a relatively short timescale Street Fighter Assassin’s Fist is an impressive piece of cinematography that will appeal both fans and non-fans of Street Fighter alike. The DVD and Blu-ray is out now and includes some extra footage not seen in the web series.