The wait is officially over and Machinima proudly presents the first of its four-part miniseries, Street Fighter: Resurrection. Director Joey Ansah is back at the helm and spearheading the cinematic vision for the story and action sequences all around along with actors Christian Howard and Mike Moh making their return as Ken and Ryu, both who have come a long way since the events in Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist.
SYNOPSIS:
In Resurrection, heroes Ken and Ryu are reunited to face an ominous new threat. Charlie Nash is back, and targeting legendary Street Fighter champions in a mysterious mission. After a violent confrontation with Nash, Ryu and Ken must uncover his lethal plan and find out if he is friend or foe. As events speed toward a showdown in London with the resurgent Shadaloo cartel, covert forces battle for global supremacy with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.
The first episode of Street Fighter: Resurrection delves right into Ryu’s story before seuging quickly to Ken’s. The episode primary focuses on Ken’s establishment at the Master’s Academy and we open up to a fast and electrifying fight scene between actress Amy Johnston and actor Sia Alipour who play Ken’s students.
From there we meet actress Natascha Hopkins in the role of Laura Matsuda whose family name carries a legend in and of itself. She challenges Ken to a duel to test her skills against the best of the best with both putting on a sheer fighting display in Ken’s ring before Ryu shows up with an important message following his latest journey in solitude with the Dark Hadou. Upon Ken receiving a mysterious phone call, the episode finishes with the emergence of actor Alain Moussi in the role of Nash as he sets his sights on Ryu, Ken and Laura in an explosive full on sonic boom assault.
Machinima’s rollout appears to be on a weekly basis with only eight minutes for this first episode and it does an ample job of setting up the story. Certain things about it feel a little rushed, and the acting does leave a bit to be desired. That said, there are great parts to the first episode including the return of our SFAF familiars in addition to seeing Hopkins debut as Laura in costume while we don’t yet see the full scale of her abilities, and I suspect that time will eventually come.
Really, my biggest gripe here is Machinima’s scheduling in establishing the series on Go90 as it is not available everywhere in the world. Moreover, with a vision like that of Ansah’s, this incarnation of Street Fighter is still a world-building process in a way, and perhaps a project like this was better off left with the deserved attention from Machinima possibly as a fully-fledged epic in the way it was executed with Assassin’s Fist.
I suppose we’ll find out soon enough since that attention is being diverted to the process of casting and developing Street Fighter: World Warrior, but all in all, I wasn’t disuaded by the first episode. It’s a process that takes time and I’m certain it will prove highly rewarding over the next several weeks. Patience is a necessity, though, and as for the show’s visibility elsewhere, details from the decision makers at Machinima remain pending.
