Street Fighter Alpha Generations

Street Fighter was a massive gaming franchise in the early to mid 1990s, almost every arcade loving kid should have some recollection of Chung Li’s “Spinning Bird Kick” or Guile’s “Sonic Boom”, these characters and their special moves were burnt into my memory at the cost of far less useful things like you know, maths!

Despite having never experienced the iron-fisted delights of “Street Fighter Alpha”, I knew enough from playing “Street Fighter II” to understand several of these characters and enjoy their fan-favourite special moves. Honestly, I think many will be surprised by just how great Street Fighter Alpha Generations looks; I have to admit, I didn’t hold high expectations for this short OVA- I was expecting something like a brainless mess of cliché action and blocky melodrama, but what I eventually saw was surprisingly confident effort! The animation (and fight choreography especially) is fluid and visually exciting and the story, while it may leave Street Fighter virgins somewhat confused, is compact and well executed. The running time will be major problem for many curious anime aficionados, but I imagine that fans of this monolithic gaming franchise will be well chuffed with this short movie; 50 minutes of beautiful action and restrained, unpretentious storytelling.

Legendary street fighting champion Ryu returns to his deceased master’s grave to pay his respects when he bumps into a rowdy old man with precocious fighting talent. Naturally they fight and somewhat surprisingly, the old man defeats our hero without lifting so much as a finger! Reluctantly, Ryu soon agrees to become his apprentice but there is more to his new master than first meets the eye; for a start, the old man knows a lot about Ryu’s sworn enemy- the blood thirsty man mountain Gouki; the despised murderer of Ryu’s old master. Everything is coming full circle for Ryu as he prepares for the fight of his life.

The first thing that will strike you about this 50 minute OAV is the animation quality; I certainly wasn’t expecting Generations to look this stylish and fluid and so immediately, that is half the battle won. It was vital that the action in Generations worked and it does; the many fireballs and dragon punches are exciting to watch and various fights make great use of Street Fighter’s repertoire of special moves, infusing the smouldering story with a heart thumping kinetic energy.

Being a short OVA, the story development was always going to be a potentially big problem for the creative staff involved but the likes of debut director Ikuo Kuwana (a man with a high pedigree in the anime industry, having previously contributed to such efforts as Princess Mononoke and RahXephon) have obviously sat down and carefully planned out the narrative pace. This is hardly a compelling piece of work, but the Generations story never looses focus or changes direction- many Street Fighter fans should be satisfied that Generations has been given proper respect; the end result of which is a surprisingly mature and exciting piece of visual story telling that takes some unpredictable twists but never forgets that ultimately, we are here for the action.

In Summary

While those not familiar with Street Fighter may struggle to get to grips with this short movie, I don’t think anyone will be less than impressed with the visual punch packed by Generations. Martial arts fans should love this; there are at least three wonderful set pieces where Ryu and friends lock horns in spectacular fashion- that said, the well directed story compliments the explosive action well, giving our favourite characters human motivation in the face of supernatural adversity.