Capcom USA has announced that it’s going to be developing a new Street Fighter live action series that will originate from a fan film which became a YouTube sensation amongst fans of the fight franchise.
Street Fighter: Legacy was written, co-directed and choreographed by game fanatic Joey Ansah as “a labour of love” and his three minute short video has received 3,793,918 views, as well as knockout reviews from critics since its debut in May 2010. The mini-movie features the reunion of Japanese world warrior Ryu and his American sparring partner Ken and is of incredibly high quality and impressively shot for a fan production featuring realistic martial arts action which looks as though it’s been taken straight from one of the titles in Street Fighter’s 25 year lineage.
Legacy is complimented by tense slow motion sequences and superb attention to detail including recreation of those some of those special moves with some pretty cool visual FX. It’s certainly made an impression on games developer and publisher Capcom which officially endorsed the fan film and has now recruited Joey Ansah as the creative writer for the new series it’s working on called Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist. The filmmaker is confident saying “Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist will be what fans have been waiting for. Legacy was a taster, a glimpse of what a live-action Street Fighter should be.” – You can check out the fan film that started it all on the Street Fighter Legacy YouTube Channel.
The Capcom series go live in 2013 and will be rooted in the formative years of the leading combatants Ryu and Ken who trained together in their early days as fighters. Following their traditional warrior’s life, the young karate kids will learn the art of Ansatsuken – the Assassin’s Fist – and other characters we will encounter include the boys’ sensei Master Gouken as well as dark warrior Akuma.
Street Fighter has appeared in live action features before and fans probably try best to forget the Jean Claude Van Damme and Kylie Minogue effort of the mid-90s and you probably didn’t even know about Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li that went straight to DVD over here in the U.K and starred Smallville’s Kristen Kreuk and American Pie’s Chris Kline – which says pretty much all you need to know about that one!
With a true Street Fighter fan and talented budding filmmaker on board we’re looking forward but think the greatness of the 1994 Street Fighter: Animated Movie won’t easily be topped – unless of course you get Jackie Chan to reprise his City Hunter role as Chun Li..
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