This is a really good watch for everybody who played the famous Street Fighter video game when they were younger. But it also worth a watch for everybody who didn't. We follow the two young men I mentioned in the title of this review on their road to becoming supreme martial artists. Ken is the more extroverted of the two, Caucasian and truly talented, who really looks more like a surfer than like as fighter. However, he is also probably sometimes too boastful for his own good. Ryu is the calmer one, Asian, with an advantage in mental strength and he does not fear any challenge no matter how hard it is to achieve or how long it will take him. The two are like brothers.
This mini-series is written and directed by Joey Ansah, who also plays a character in here as he is a trained martial artist himself. I read that he next plans a similar miniseries starring Guile and Chun Li and I'd certainly love to watch that. Now about this one here, it runs for 13 episodes (including a very short prologue) and has a total runtime of roughly 2.5 hours, so you can really watch it in one go. Each episode runs for 10-13 minutes. The actor who plays Ken here helped Ansah with the script. Ansah made a short film back in 2010 together with him already, but still with a different actor for Ryu. I have to say this mini-series here is maybe at its weakest when it only focuses on Ryu and that happens a couple times as he is probably even more lead character than Ken. Still the two do belong together and also get a great ending where they go off into the world with their trainer staying behind. And as Ken says at that point, the adventure had only just begun. Occasionally, I felt in the second half that they may not have enough quality material to make this worth watching for 150 minutes, but every time I began thinking like that, the level rose once again quickly after, for example in entertaining moments when Ken cuts of his ponytail or when the two protagonists play video games themselves. Pretty hilarious moment. If they had actually picked a fighter game, this would have been a truly odd situation. But in a positive way of course.
The whole thing came out exactly a year ago today and that is why I decided giving it a look, but also because I really loved the video game as a kid. Recommended and I would love to see a real Street Fighter movie soon including more than only two crucial characters.
This mini-series is written and directed by Joey Ansah, who also plays a character in here as he is a trained martial artist himself. I read that he next plans a similar miniseries starring Guile and Chun Li and I'd certainly love to watch that. Now about this one here, it runs for 13 episodes (including a very short prologue) and has a total runtime of roughly 2.5 hours, so you can really watch it in one go. Each episode runs for 10-13 minutes. The actor who plays Ken here helped Ansah with the script. Ansah made a short film back in 2010 together with him already, but still with a different actor for Ryu. I have to say this mini-series here is maybe at its weakest when it only focuses on Ryu and that happens a couple times as he is probably even more lead character than Ken. Still the two do belong together and also get a great ending where they go off into the world with their trainer staying behind. And as Ken says at that point, the adventure had only just begun. Occasionally, I felt in the second half that they may not have enough quality material to make this worth watching for 150 minutes, but every time I began thinking like that, the level rose once again quickly after, for example in entertaining moments when Ken cuts of his ponytail or when the two protagonists play video games themselves. Pretty hilarious moment. If they had actually picked a fighter game, this would have been a truly odd situation. But in a positive way of course.
The whole thing came out exactly a year ago today and that is why I decided giving it a look, but also because I really loved the video game as a kid. Recommended and I would love to see a real Street Fighter movie soon including more than only two crucial characters.