Terrible Films I Love, Volume III : Street Fighter

I've fallen WAY behind in my terrible film reviewing recently, but not long ago I saw two more from the list.

Before I continue however, here's a bit of a recap for those joining late or with fading memories (like me):

Introduction and definition of 'Terrible Films I Love'

Volume I: The Room

Volume II: Dungeons & Dragons

& Before the film review, what was Street Fighter anyway?

Street Fighter II : The Game

When I was growing up Street Fighter 2 was my favourite computer game, more so than Mario Brothers, Sonic, Zelda, Doom, or any other iconic 90s computer game franchise that I played.

Before I was gifted a SNES for my birthday from my loving parents, the sole reason for getting one was so that I could play Street Fighter 2, I'd travel to the arcades at least once a week to play. Now this anecdote might lend the false belief that I was an accomplished gameplayer, or perhaps even a grand master undefeated in over 1000 games, but actually due to the fact that I'd have to try an hold a 50p all week and that 50p only got you three games. I wasn't really that expert, but that's not the point. The point is, I was pretty obsessed about the game and by the time I got the SNES I was quite willing to devote far more hours than was healthy to playing the game. Anyway, enough of the misspent youth story...

The game is fairly simple with no real storyline and the basic premise is so (ironically) two-dimensional that you'd have thought it impossible to turn into a film with a coherent story (you'd be right) but then that was all before it made in $1.5 billion revenue in arcade cabinet sales worldwide (indeed, only Pacman and Space Invaders have made more money). Now, that's good enough reason to make a film!

The initial player select screen from Street Fighter 2

The gameplay is: you pick one of eight characters and fight eleven other street fighters (the seven other pickable characters and four computer controlled 'bosses')  in a 'best of three rounds' fighting competition to determine who is the 'World Warrior'. Each character has their own fighting style and special moves (except Ken and Ryu who are basically the same), which further individualises them, well, that and the sometimes outrageous cultural stereotyping. The format of special moves via certain controller movements and button presses was, as a computer game, revolutionary and set the stall for dozens of similar games (the most well-known of which is probably Mortal Kombat). The only changes really came about with improving technology, better 3D graphics, otherwise it was just more complex maneuvers and more characters.

Any personal storyline is only made clear once you've beaten the final boss and are rewarded with a short animated sequence. Some of which were hilarious, f.e. Zangief's involved Gorbachev being flown in via helicopter to congratulate him and then joining in with some Cossack dancing. Again, very basic stuff and although later games spun-out the storylines, there wasn't really anything very deep about any of the characters, but they were loved by players of the game. And most importantly it made a shed-load of money!

Street Fighter : The Movie

First point: I broke my own rule. No one should watch alone. This was a mistake.

I hadn't seen the film for quite a while and I'd thought I'd refresh my memory before writing this. Also, as it was short notice, no one was about and I wasn't in the mood to wait.

Watching the film I wondered had the writer (who is also the director, always a good sign for a terrible film) Steven E. de Souza even seen the game? However, that couldn't be the case as they include some fairly niche character points. So, why include some and blatantly ignore or rewrite other characters? It is because you know best, eh Steve? Well, quite frankly, you don't.

Rather than detail ALL the character problems and differences/outrageous changes from the game-world (always a difficulty itself with Terrible Films) I'll list a few of the major ones that change the entire basis of the game to film dynamic, such that one hardly resembles the other at all.

1. Main Character(s)
In the Street Fighter series the main character is always Ryu (and Ken). Now, this makes sense for a number of reasons the most obvious of which is that it's a Japanese game, he's Japanese, and fulfills the standard Japanese silent hero role. Also he has Ken as his friend/double/comic relief, the main reason for Ken was that there would now be two basic characters, as in the game's early development the same character couldn't be selected in a versus battle. As the game has gone through further sequels Ken as become totally different in style to Ryu. Anyway, they have always been a double-act, both disciples of Shotokan Karate, and it seems odd that they should have the most significant character re-write for the film.

The movie has Ryu and Ken as bumbling well-intentioned smugglers and Guile as the lead. This makes sense too, because I assume the thinking was; American movie = American Hero and it can't be Ken because he's always been lesser to Ryu. Well, it's a shame they picked Guile (although he was my favourite character to play) because now we get a military based story rather than a martial arts one. Also his back story is really crap, some pseudo-Vietnam vet story that somehow ties up with M.Bison (the game's Big Bad End Boss). So, who to cast as you archetypal American soldier-hero? Why it's Belgium's very own "Muscles from Brussels" JCVD of course! Curiously, this basis is kept for the children's cartoon of the series that was produced a year or two after the film. So, maybe de Souza was onto something...

No.

2. It's only a game
If you're going to make a move adaptation, be it of a novel or a video game, the first question is always going to be, "how faithful will we remain to the original?" Now, obviously, lots of adaptations have been less than faithful to their originals but have gone on to be so much better ('The Shining' is an immediate and unfair example). However, faithfulness to the original aside there is most often (in good films) a level of respect to the source material that even if they are unfaithful there are still some things that will not be changed. Street Fighter: The Movie has no such respect or faithfulness to its source, the general opinion of which seems to be "f*** it, it's only a computer game, who cares what the geeks think!"

This attitude seems particular of the 1980s and outdated even in 1994, nowadays such an attitude would be box-office suicide especially with several films being made recently to appeal to the 'geek fanboy' market, 'The Avengers' and 'Pacific Rim' being two of the biggest box offices successes especially tailored for fan appeal.

Of course, this attitude probably wasn't helped by the release of the spectacularly bad 'Super Mario Bros.' film the previous year, which is probably over-the-line of good-bad and straight into agonising fail. Although the comments the cast later made about the film are hilarious in and of themself. (see here)

3. Missing the obvious
A martial arts fighting game that translates to... a military action film. Why? Isn't Jean-Claude most famous for martial arts type movies? I suppose, see above, for the answers to that stupid decision.

Also, a coherent plot would have been nice, if this were a good movie, or even an attempt at one if it were a good-bad movie, but then what is this?

So, by this point of watching on my own I'd got thoroughly bored. I quit.

Time passes...

& I find myself watching Street Fighter: The Movie with a group of friends in high spirits, watching the film via Netflix.

4. Any more fun with a group of friends?
Well, yes, but then only just. It helps that a number of us are old-skool-gaming-geeks whose rage at the liberties de Souza takes with (the very limited) characters, plot, dialogue, action & effects made for an amusing game of "call out the bullsh*t".




5. Saved by acting
What finally makes this a terrible film I love and not just schlock nonsense is some of the performances in this film. Jean-Claude gives a memorably awful motivation speech and is generally ham-fisted hammy ham ham (you get the idea). Kylie Minogue is just dreadful as Cammy. Poor old Raul Julia gets one final paycheck and overacts to near Irons level. Indeed, as terrible as everyone is in this film (only Raul Julia escapes this because he's obviously just really going for one last laugh, one great scene with Ming-Na as Chun-Li proves this) they are eclipsed by an actor so painfully terrible that even his wordless presence seems to destroy the film around him like a sort of industrial movie acid. I speak thereof Kenya Sawada. The story behind his involvement is quite special.

He really hasn't

Sawada plays a character called Captain Sawada, one can assume this is due to the actor's lack of English and any discernible acting talent. Indeed, his few lines are apparently dubbed, but if this is the case they only succeeded in making them appear even worse. The story I've read is that Capcom (the original game designers) themselves forced the inclusion of the character and actor, telling the studio and director that he was "the new face of Capcom." Is Kenya Sawada related to the owners of Capcom? I honestly can't think of another reason why he'd be in this film, albeit so very briefly, which as it turns out is a damn shame. His artless line delivery (not even his own), his gormless appearance (perhaps he was nervous?) and his wooden stilted actions make every moment solid gold s***. 
Such beautiful terribleness.

6. Final Reckoning

This film is possibly more painful to watch than Dungeons & Dragons (another piece of my childhood destroyed) and can only be recommended to hardcore good-bad film enthusiasts. That said, even myself needed a human shield of laughter to make my way through the film in it's entirety.

Requirements: Hardcore addiction to awfully funny good-bad movies, love of camp acting, desire to see how bad a thing can be, ability to endure mind-numbingly stupid plot holes and dialogue, a soft spot for the delightful Raul Julia, the largest group of friends possible.

Captain Sawada, second from the left. Why?

Words on Wednesday: Mahmoud Darwish

1. Biographical Summary

Mahmoud Darwish (محمود درويش) was born in what was then Mandatory Palestine on March 13th, 1941. During his life he published over thirty volumes of poetry and eight books of prose, he was an editor of several literary periodicals. He was considered to be Palestine's national poet and a key figure in the "poetry of resistance." Darwish was arrested several times for his activism and was a long-time member of the PLO. He died after heart surgery in Houston, Texas, on August 9th, 2008. 

2. Disclaimer

I am not a supporter of either the Israeli state or the Palestinian cause, but instead I read Darwish as a poet who discusses concepts of freedom, exile, and loss. I find it interesting as an outsider to read his works in a universal sense, rather than in direct terms of their political focus, although it would be foolish to ignore this in his work. Thus, although I have some understanding of it, I make no claim to fully appreciate the depth and possible controversial nature (to some) of his work.


3. Some Poetical Works

I BELONG THERE (1986)

I belong there. I have many memories. I was born as everyone is born. 
I have a mother, a house with many windows, brothers, friends, 
and a prison cell with a chilly window! 
I have a wave snatched by seagulls, a panorama of my own. 
I have a saturated meadow. In the deep horizon of my word, I have a moon, 
a bird's sustenance, and an immortal olive tree. 
I have lived on the land long before swords turned man into prey. 
I belong there. When heaven mourns for her mother, I return heaven to her mother. 
And I cry so that a returning cloud might carry my tears. 
To break the rules, I have learned all the words needed for a trial by blood. 
I have learned and dismantled all the words in order to draw from them a single word: Home.


POETIC REGULATIONS (1995)

The stars had one only task: they taught me how to read.
They taught me I had a language in heaven
and another language on earth.
Who am I? Who am I?
I don't want to answer yet.
May a star fall into itself,
and may a forest of chestnut trees rise in the night
toward the Milky Way with me, and may it say:
Remain Here!

The poem is "above" and can teach me whatever it wishes.
It can teach me to open a window
and to manage my household in between legends.
It can wed me to itself for a while

My father is "below," carrying a thousand-year olive tree
that is neither from the East nor the West.
Let him rest from the conquerors for a while,
and be tender with me, and gather iris and lily for me.

The poem leaves me and heads to a port where the sailors love wine
and never return twice to the same woman.
They have neither regrets nor longing for anything!

I haven't died of love yet, but a mother sees in her son's eyes
the fear carnations harbor for the vase.
She cries to ward off something before it happens.
She cries for me to return alive from destiny's road
and live here.

The poem is neither here nor there, and with a girl's breast
it can illuminate the nights.
With the glow of an apple it fills two bodies with light
and with a gardenia's breath it can revive a homeland!

The poem is in my hands, and can run stories through her hands.
But ever since I embraced the poem, I squandered my soul
and then asked: Who am I? Who am I?


LESSON FROM THE KAMA SUTRA (1999)

Wait for her with an azure cup.
Wait for her in the evening at the spring, among perfumed roses.
Wait for her with the patience of a horse trained for mountains.
Wait for her with the distinctive, aesthetic taste of a prince.
Wait for her with the seven pillows of cloud.
Wait for her with strands of womanly incense wafting.
Wait for her with the manly scent of sandalwood on horseback.
Wait for her and do not rush.
If she arrives late, wait for her.
If she arrives early, wait for her.
Do not frighten the birds in her braided hair.
Take her to the balcony to watch the moon drowning in milk.
Wait for her and offer her water before wine.
Do not glance at the twin partridges sleeping on her chest.
Wait and gently touch her hand as she sets a cup on marble.
As if you are carrying the dew for her, wait.
Speak to her as a flute would to a frightened violin string,
As if you knew what tomorrow would bring.
Wait, and polish the night for her ring by ring.
Wait for her until the night speaks to you thus:
There is no one alive but the two of you.
So take her gently to the death you so desire,
and wait.

On Making Worlds: Role-playing games and morality

[apologies for the WALL OF TEXT, but I just need to get this down...]

I greatly appreciate and admire the 'a basket of leaves' project that my very dear friend was working on. It inspired a great deal of imaginative thoughts about fantasy worlds, but conversations with him often did. Being an all-round fantasy geek I had thoughts about transposing the world that he was building to a role-playing game setting (henceforth RPG). Indeed, this was one of the last things we discussed before his death.

However, his world is not one that would easily fit into an already existing game system. This is because, to take an example, the Dungeons &Dragons world is one of Tolkienesque 'high fantasy' with all its appropriate moral black and whites and easy cultural stereotypes. As I read more about his world, it became clear that the simplicity of a D&D-type world would never work with so rich a creation as he was designing. Sadly, it is not a finished world and there are countless questions about the various places and cultures that I can never now ask. Although I could (indeed, anyone could) take up the mantle and attempt to answer these questions myself and that the unfinished quality of his work therefore gives me space to insert more common RPG tropes; magic, monstrous races, good/evil dichotomy, etc. However, this alteration would unsettle too much about his world, such as has already been described. So, if I were to 'complete' his world then I should play on his terms.

This means that an appropriate game system does not exist, which is appropriate to the world-view being presented in 'a basket of leaves'. Indeed, although it would be ripe to be described in the terms of a novel or other such creation, the act of turning it into an interactive game requires changing how we think, as gamers, about RPGs. Too long have we allowed ourselves to be led by simple moral distinctions and outdated anthropologies (ones that are too Euro-centric and colonial, f.e.). The world being described in 'a basket of leaves' is one guided by its creator's love of; Ursula LeGuin, Jean Auel, Thor Heyerdahl (plus many others that I can't recall off the top of my head), and more importantly, his compassionate understanding of different peoples and of man's relation to nature.

To be concise, it is a world that mirrors his fondest hopes as well as his concerns for our willingness towards environmental and self-destruction (represented by the industrial dwarves and domineering human kingdoms). So, were I to translate his creation into an RPG it would require an entirely new game system. Indeed, due to copyright one would have to either use a game that was released with the Open Game License (OGL) or create an new system of game mechanics also. Surely the idea of an Ursula Le Guin type approach to an RPG would be one that could work, there have been several popular/successful (are these the same? How does one measure this?) RPGs that operated without an alignment structure at the game's core (such as White Wolf - World of Darkness games) or else with a more “muddied” system of alignment and of cultural stereotypes (such as Eberron, a D&D setting, that encourages more movement in the definition of characters while still retaining the meaning of good and evil).

Still, the basis of all of these games is in violent conflict, with the combat system guiding most of the player's actions. True, it is possibly to play some games more diplomatically than others (Vampire the Masquerade for example, thrived on the political dealings between the various vampire clans and the conspiracies each engaged in) but these are rarities. What about a game that deals with the description of craft and culture, with it's game system based in exploration and discovery, that is primarily about a sort of respectful interaction? Well, I suppose then you've got an RPG based on the principles of archaeology, anthropology, and philosophy and you're probably dealing with a pretty niche market, i.e. me and my friend. However, I believe, it's still a project worth doing, but perhaps not doing right now. Certainly it's not worth doing if the thought is to make any money (god forbid!).

It seems to me that RPGs are quite specifically North American (do I mean to include Canada here too? Not sure), the best known games all originate from there and I can't help wondering if we aren't seeing something of the cultural personality reflected in the Euro-centric good versus evil morality that plays itself out in game after game. Now, don't for a minute suspect that I'm stating this as fact or that ALL American gamers have inclinations in this direction (after all White Wolf is an American company too and classics like Traveller from GDW, but then neither of these are fantasy game systems). I'm just pointing out what might be complete coincidence based on other, totally arbitrary, factors. Although I cannot speak for the rest of Europe, tabletop war gaming has long been the preferred 'fantasy hobby' of the UK (until computer games become as prevalent as they now are). Games Workshop is probably the largest British producer of fantasy and sci-fi themed games and they mostly produce miniatures for their own games (as well as being the clear division from hobbyists to the business market).

Anyway this is only a sidetrack thought and probably one that will get me into trouble, because apart from the throw-away observation, there's not much else that can be elaborated upon. Still, I find it interesting to compare the (what strikes me as decidedly odd) American attitude to European medieval history (the rose-tinted romanticising of) and its potential cultural influence on the morality of gamers (and game designers).

This game morality has always been more problematic is fantasy-themed games mainly due to the historical factor. What causes the biggest problem is the romanticising of the pseudo-medieval setting, thus making it seemingly impossible to complain about the inherent racism and sexism. With “It's only a game!” being the ultimate get-out in this situation for the ardent supporter of good ole times feudalism. What makes fantasy and sci-fi great is not just the imagination but the relation to our present condition. The best stories are thought experiments in the most expansive of descriptions, dealing with universal what if scenarios and playing out current problems and cultural biases to their 'logical' conclusions. I realise that perhaps sci-fi has better claim to this territory, but I see fantasy fiction as able recreate ancient cultures with magic as the short-cut that technology often represents (especially “space opera” that isn't too fussed about scientific accuracy).

For all that, I'm still left with a passed-on D&D “Cyclopedia” and a desire to run an old skool game. So, what to do? I make a setting after these things that I wish for in an RPG and thank my friend for his inspiration.

& that's what I'll now do. Starting on another blog-space (as this project seems to outstrip the conditions of ARTiculation here) I'll work on detailing the world of my own creation, that is, a new D&D setting with some less standard fantasy cultures and a less 'heroic' theme. It will serve partly as a resource for any of the future players of the game and perhaps as an inspiration for other role-playing gamers out there, much like the 'a basket of leaves' project did for me. Eventually, I'd like to introduce my own game mechanics and remove some of the standard D&D elements I find objectionable, but at this early stage (and still wanting to play the old basic D&D system once more) it makes sense to hybridise the older game into my new setting.

What I want to create is a world that is a cross between Le Guin and Lovecraft (perhaps it is just the 'Gothic' I want to take from Lovecraft, the huge maddening monstrous unknowable), and that has some cultural complexity; believable cultures trying to develop themselves amidst the chaos of a 'darker' themed fantasy world (i.e. no races that are 'just evil' like orcs and so forth – the standard monster fodder). With the Elder Gods of Lovecraft being the basis for the power and corruption that seeps across all aspects of the world's inhabitants, f.e. Magick is an addictive-destructive-substance that can be abused (I suppose power=corruption is pretty straightforward here). A game were the characters begin with little world knowledge and have to explore and discover the world about them as their game/quest grows. One that still has the elements of standard D&D adventure but that has been infused with a more complex understanding of how different peoples might interact, but is still an adventure and deals with the fantastic. Ultimately, a fantasy game and world that mirrors my own world-view and desire for a more 'alien' non-European basis for a game. I want something that 'feels real to me,' which after all is the aesthetic criterion most of us operate under when deciding about fictional creations.

Words on Wednesday: Erich Fried, another library discovery, and thoughts on the nature of poetry

Whilst bumbling about the library earlier this June (some might call it work) I happened upon 'On Pain of Seeing' a translated (from German) collection of poetry by the Austrian-British writer Erich Fried who, up until that moment, had been completely unknown to me.

Erich Fried (1921-1988)

I was interested in what he had to say about the nature of poetry, reproduced here in full from the book's preface:

   Poems are reflections of structures in our minds which are composed of thoughts and emotions. We often become fully aware of these structures only through such reflections and through our attempts to fix them in words.
   These structures and their reflections are never completely original (which anyway would make them incomprehensible) for even where allusion and association are not consciously employed, thought and verbalization are based on countless conventions. This does not prevent a poem from throwing a critical light on some of these conventions.
It is part of the nature of the reflections we call a poem that it takes shape by means of sounds, mainly words, and that it acquires from he structures it reflects not only contents, but also formal and rhythmic elements.
   As these structures are never wholly conscious and are unstable, the poet cannot reproduce their reflection at will. In trying to 'fix' a reflection - that is to say by writing a poem - sometimes a more complex structure forms in the writer's mind, thus enabling him to reflect more and 'give more of himself'.
   My poems for me are chiefly ways of understanding myself and means for coping with tensions engendered by impressions and insights. These might stem from the world around or within me as long as I neither shut myself off (consciously or unconsciously) from my experiences nor allow myself to become obtuse or cynical.
   Confronting one's own poems in turn has further effects on one's life and writings. This way of confronting my experiences by means of writing can possibly be of interest to others simply because being a poet does not make me basically different from others inhabiting the same world and exposed to similar experiences. Thus, trying to communicate my attempts of coping with the wold can make its infinitesimal contribution to changing this world.
   With Ernesto Che Guevera ('Socialism and Man in Cuba'), I believe that the main task for art is the fight against alienation. Poems are traces of this fight which one wages with oneself. These traces need not appear at first sight as committed poems. They can, for instance at first simply appear as a new way of exploding familiar forms or of using them in a new way. But even committed poetry in the narrower sense is in my view always justified when it really fights alienation, which must of necessity include avoiding alienation in one's own language and imagery unless as a deliberate means: quotation, parody, allusion, 'montage'.
   I have been wring poems for thirty years; beginning with love and political ones. Then I became immersed in experiments with sound and association, anticipating some of the techniques of recent German 'konkrete' poetry. Poems operating with word associations (an longish poetry cycles which interest me particularly as a means of conveying more complex structures) are virtually untranslateable and therefore largely excluded from the present selection.
   The order of the poems is of my choice.

London, 1969.

& here is a poem from said collection:

DEFINITION

A dog
that dies
and that knows
that it dies
like a dog

and that can say
that it knows
that it dies
like a dog
is a man

Library Tales: Dedications IV

Back again...
Only a few this time as I've been stuck working with some quite dull books (or quite dull authors who don't write interesting dedications). So, these are mostly quite old ones from earlier this summer.

Dedicated to the memory of Obie, our wonderful dog, who

passed away as this edition was completed. She affected

many of our most important decisions.

To 
Gloria and Danny
who know a lot about values without thinking about them at all

To an obstacle that became
an opportunity
S N O W
[???]

To
The noble quest for those elusive goals -
Knowledge, Peace and Justice

For Sarah
who has accomplished much more than she is
willing to admit

To Neil, who became
a scuba diver, juggler, and logician
all while I was working
on this one book

To the three ladies of my life
and the laughing gull

To my old pals,
"Bill," "Bert," and "Alf."
Who have sat in the mud with me

Love is life's wonder!
I dedicate this book to Jean
[In a book about electromagnetics]

For Reggie
who is almost always right