Balrog and Ken approach the center of the mat in front of a fiery crowd that has arrived for a simple, yet exhilarating, spectacle: a street fight.
Rapper and actor 50 Cent, playing Balrog, deliver shivering blows to Ken Masters, played by Noah Centineo. On one occasion, his knuckles crash into Centineo hard enough for blood and mucus to fly out. Masters bounces back, answering with his own moves to counter Balrog’s power.
The scene in the new “Street Fighter” film, released in theaters Friday, is what the Japanese video game company Capcom seemingly perfected in animated form with an arcade game in the late 1980s. Over 30 years later, it’s made its way from a screen no larger than 30 inches to the big screen.
The film enlists WWE stars Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns, along with UFC champion Alexander Volkanovski, to bring the game’s larger-than-life fights in live action. Honoring the franchise and its passionate fan base required “huge efforts” across the board, the filmmakers said.
For Capcom, this was years in the making.
“The whole crew. The choreography crew. They all played the game growing up,” comedian Andrew Schulz, who plays Dan Hibiki, told ESPN. “You’ve got to understand. If you’re into martial arts as a kid, you’re going to play the fighting video game. Everybody is obsessed with it on set. They’re going to make sure that we’re not going to go outside of the boundaries.”
Capcom stayed on set during the filming process, something WWE champion Rhodes — who plays Guile — called “extremely helpful.” If one of the actors had a question about their character’s background, the answer lived in the minds of Capcom’s representatives.
Schulz added that Capcom made sure that they honored the fighting. When it came to those scenes, Rhodes is far from one to carry ring rust. But, executing a Cross Rhodes is different from Guile’s trademark somersault kick.
As a result, Rhodes referenced the game for accurate movement.
“When I was in my trailer, you’d always want to look at exactly how the animation was in the game. Just so that if it was asked on set, if you’re doing this low sliding drop kick. How does that look? If you’re doing a barrel kick or a flash kick. What’s the upper body look like?” he told ESPN.
Bringing the moves in the game to life was by design.
Volkanovski, the current featherweight UFC champion, plays Joe, a role he told ESPN he based on his coach, Joe Lopez. Volkanovski “loved” that the crew wanted to portray scenes similar to the video game. It brought feelings of nostalgia seeing moves incorporated into the film. They went “above and beyond” to make it work.
“Every time I’d watch a few of the moves of just certain things, I’d be like, ‘yes,’ you know what I mean?” Volkanovski said. “Like it was getting me all giddy just because that takes me back. They’re sticking to the roots.”
Stunt coordinator Jon Valera was directly responsible for incorporating all of the legendary Street Fighter moves, such as the hadouken, hurricane kick and rising dragon uppercut. However, he acknowledged the difficulties of translating video game action into real life. The actors, many of whom aren’t professional fighters, prepared extensively to do exactly that.
Andrew Koji, who plays Ryu, emphasized that the actors wanted a genuine, authentic feel. Centineo said everyone’s dedication was “so next level.” He spent six weeks learning shotokan karate, how to sell punches and fall properly. Balrog’s power punches meant 50 Cent hitting the bag, quipping: “I left the boxing gym, s— was hurting.”
One of the iconic moves of Chun-Li, played by Callina Liang, is the spinning bird kick, where the character’s legs are spun around like a helicopter blade.
“I was drilling two hours of kicks, six days a week,” Liang said, joking: “Every day is leg day.”
Despite his experience as a mixed martial artist, Volkanovski said he didn’t have input on the film’s fight choreography. While the action needed to feel realistic, it also had to remain faithful to the video game’s signature fighting style.
“We can’t change too much,” he said.
A love for the game dominated the set, with actors having played it growing up. Schulz’s earliest memories with video games is Street Fighter, his favorite of all-time. It played a formative part of his childhood and those skills haven’t diminished: Rhodes revealed Schulz was undefeated on set.
Taking the role of Hibiki, Ken’s committed and active manager, meant revisiting the video game. Hibiki was introduced in Street Fighter Alpha, released in 1995. By that point, Schulz had stopped playing regularly. He went back and played as Hibiki to learn the character.
A big inspiration Schulz eyed to bring Hibiki to life? Steven Seagal, the popular 1980s actor who had an extensive mixed martial arts background. Seagal, similar to Hibiki, boasted dark hair and a ponytail — a look Schulz rocked in the film.
Rhodes, playing a former U.S. Air Force pilot in Guile, had a different inspiration.
“Honestly, you can never go wrong in my case, it never hurts to have a little YouTube going on in the background with Chuck Norris in it,” he said.
But bringing the characters to life required more than physical preparation. For Rhodes, his WWE experience also proved to be valuable when it came to delivering dialogue and playing off his fellow cast members.
“Going in there it’s great if we deliver the lines and we have a good time,” Rhodes said. “But if you’re going to play, it’s fun to have someone to play with and that’s where my experience doing live promos in front of an audience was helpful. You may not always have the big zinger, but you might have the set up.”
Schulz, who plays Centineo’s right-hand man, also brought some WWE experience to the film, — including a brawl alongside New York Giants running back Cam Tax House last year — though his appearances in the ring offered a different kind of preparation.
“I’ve only gotten my ass kicked in WWE. … So for me it was just I get my ass kicked in the movie a lot, so I guess I was prepared,” Schulz said.
Together, the cast and crew sought to re-create the energy of the original video game, translating its larger-than-life characters and signature combat into live action.
For longtime fans, the result is a familiar scene: two fighters facing off, ready for battle, as the arcade announcer’s iconic call rings out: “Round 1, FIGHT!”
Source: www.espn.com
