On review, I think you’re right that “character overload” really drove the thing into the ground. There were just too many people in it, such that no character development whatsoever was possible. And jeez, the silly blue wife beaters and berets…the costumes all looked like they came from the cheapest Halloween shop in town!

“Shadaloo City” was obviously supposed to be in Thailand, because they kept highlighting that country on the map, and because of all the pseudo-Thai roman characters on everything. I think that part was actually true to the game, because as I recall M. Bison and Sagat fought on Thai stages. Speaking of “game,” the part where Bison was trying to blow up Guile’s boat with a panel of arcade game buttons had me rolling.

My sister in law actually let me borrow her a DVD copy of D.O.A. for me to copy if I wanted to, but I ended up not copying it because the quality was really bad (somebody shot it with a camcorder in a room with bad acoustics). Otherwise I probably would have watched it, out of that same morbid curiosity. But yeah, I was pretty disappointed when I heard they cast Devon Aoki as Kasumi. Besides her annoying me for some reason, her acting credits don’t exactly inspire. (2 Fast 2 Furious…D.E.B.S.…yeeeeeah.)

And that’s really one of the problems with trying to make a video game movie — there are so many characters. If you don’t use all the characters, the game’s fanbase gets pissed off. But with so many characters, you’re left with a lot of dead weight. Street Fighter’s problems went far beyond that, but trying to cram all those characters in didn’t help (and the final shot — with all of the actors doing their characters’ victory poses — was especially cringe-inducing).

But yeah, Van Damme was so awful. Every scene, always hamming it up, portraying a stereotypical “I’m always right!” superhero. In other words, playing the same character as in every single one of his movies, except in this one he wears fatigues and a silly blue beret. Whee!

I’m morbidly curious to see the D.O.A. movie, because I’ve heard nothing but crap dumped on it. It’s funny about Devon Aoki, though — it seems that whenever a movie needs any sort of foreign female character, they get her, whether they need Asian, European, or what not. She’s like Interchangeable-Foreign-Girl or something.

I agree that she’d make a pretty hideous Chun-Li, though. Just like I’m pretty sure she made a pretty hideous Kasumi.

I agree that they completely miscast Ken. He was like Wash from Firefly, a goofy corporate-type dude who’d look more at home in E. Honda’s Hawaiian shirt than a Gi. Speaking of Honda, that guy was more Polynesian than anything — and completely rewritten as a character. It was so damn funny.

But yes, Van Damme’s thick accent made the whole “American hero” thing seem really out of place. And the fool had to be in every possible scene, even if he wasn’t doing anything. At the end I was thinking, “What? No Sonic Boom? Hosers!” They camped out on everything else, might as well have given Van Damme the ability to throw swirling energy bolts. They used Guile’s Flash Kick, I noticed, but without the Flash. Oh well.

I just wonder who they’d cast as Chun-Li in the next movie. Hollywood seems to be on a Devon Aoki kick lately which would just not be right. Speaking of which, I saw a bit of the D.O.A. movie (a poor-quality cam, actually) in Thailand and it was hideous — actually, it and Street Fighter would get along famously. Seriously, they looked like the same movie.

I agree that being turned on by car crashes is a bit weird, but if there’s anything that the INTARWEB has taught me, it’s that anything can be turned into a fetish. So I’m really not surprised.

Let me know what you think of Marebito, in any case. It’d be interesting to compare notes, as it were, on our thoughts. Though it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen it, I still recall most of the major plot points.

Yes, that Street Fighter movie is awful. I forced myself to watch the whole thing out of morbid curiosity — not only is Van Damme in it, but Kylie Minogue (!) as Cammy, and Gomez Addams/Mr. Overdrawn at the Memory Bank himself, Raul Julia (!!) as M. Bison (honestly, during the Bison/Guile fight scenes I kept rooting for Raul Julia). Not to mention the completely wrong (read: short, reddish-brown haired) actor they got to play Ken. I think, however, that if Van Damme wasn’t hogging up so much screen time it would have been better. Not good, mind you, but better. The whole plot was ludicrous, too, but that’s a given.

There’s so much else wrong with the film, though, not the least of which is the fact the movie keeps trying to pass Van Damme off as an American soldier, despite his thick accent that renders much of his speech incomprehensible. Honestly, if they’d focused more on Chun-Li (yes, I used to have a bit of a crush on Ming-Na too) it would have been at least tolerable.

As for the new Street Fighter film…meh. It’ll probably be better than Van Damme’s trainwreck, but that’s not a very difficult goal to achieve.

Yeah, Crash was way odd — mostly it had me going “WTF?” the whole time, and I have no great desire to see it again. The sexual angle was what weirded the whole thing out for me. I could see being obsessed with car accidents, but being turned on by them? I’ll pass.

I’ll still check out Marebito, although I typically don’t care much for movies that are deliberately and eternally depressing. Obviously though, I trust your judgment on this kind of stuff, but different tastes can always enter the picture. I see what you’re saying about the mini-reviews you’ll give Reaper prior to him buying a disc, though — at that price point, it’s helpful to have some input!

Yeah, I was laughing at that Clooney sound-alike in Thailand. The guy dubbing Anthony Edwards’ voice was completely wrong, though, so it was extra funny watching those two guys play off each other in one scene. It was like Clooney was reading his lines with a dialog stand-in during rehearsal.

So last night, as I was deleting it off the TiVo, I took a look at Street Fighter. God, how could that movie have been so frickin’ terrible? Oh, who am I kidding — Van Damme was in it. I had always assumed that film was a realistic, live-action reimagining that took itself too seriously, like so many other videogame movies. But I was surprised by just how deliberately campy it was. I mean, it was so damn silly, there’s no way these actors weren’t fully aware of the cheese it was steeped with. Is there?

In a goofy anectode, Ming-Na was the first celebrity I ever had a crush on (albeit a short-lived one), and it was precisely because of this film, which I never even saw. Just the TV ads alone — with her in that dime-store costume shop cheongsam — had my attention.

Ironically, I hear there’s a new Street Fighter film planned for release in 2008, to mark the game franchise’s 20th anniversary. Supposedly the new film will center around Chun-Li. (Where’s Jim-bo when you need him?)

Yeah, definitely watch Marebito and make your own judgment — you shouldn’t be turned off to a movie just because I didn’t like it (though I’ll often give Reaper brief reviews of stuff I’ve seen when he looks at them at Borders - that’s a bit different, though, because those things are $25-$30 apiece). To me, though, there’s nothing really appealing about the movie at all. I suppose that could be what the director wants, but if I’m going to be totally depressed by a movie, I’d like at least some entertainment out of it.

That Crash movie definitely sounds odd — probably not my cup of tea. I’ve seen plenty of disturbing stuff amongst all the Asian cinema I’ve seen over the past couple of years, though, so crazy/wacky/odd movies are universal.

For some reason, the image of a Thai dude who sounds exactly like Clooney makes me giggle.

I’ll have to see if I can dig out my copy of The Andromeda Strain - I cleared all my books off my bookshelf to make room for CDs and video games a few years ago, and I’m not sure where I put all my old books (mostly stuff from Troll Book Club in grade school - ah, memories!). But if I find it, I’ll give it a read (that is, if I indeed have it — I know I’ve got the novels of Congo and Jurassic Park, but I’m not 100% sure about The Andromeda Strain).

Hehe, why did I get the impression from the synopsis that Marebito might not be that great? It mentioned a photographer “obsessed with fear,” which suggested a creepy weirdo. I agree; I much prefer my central characters to have some redeeming quality, so that one might be a turnoff. I’ll let it record anyway and see.

That “obsessed with fear” bit reminded me (in an unpleasant way) of the extremely disturbing Crash, which I first saw in — of all places — a hotel room in Thailand where it was being shown on HBO. (They also were airing an episode of ER dubbed in Thai, which got me laughing because they managed to find a Thai guy who sounded exactly like George Clooney.)

You should definitely see The Andromeda Strain. Hell, forget the movie and just read the book — it’s awesome. I finished the whole thing in one sitting back in the ’90s because I could not put it down. I’d seen the movie first and loved it — the set design is the most amazing bit of institutional-futurism I’ve ever seen — but the book was even better, which I hadn’t thought possible. Give it a read sometime.

As for the movie, it’s a Robert Wise production that pioneered a lot of things in moviemaking, including synthesized soundtracks and technology for displaying high-resolution computer graphics on film (that had to be literally invented for this production). It’s obviously dated by today’s standards, but still really cool in a surreal and weird way. The recent Universal re-release of the film on DVD looks masterfully cleaned up, and even includes the 30-minute “making of” documentary (recorded back when the movie was made, for extra coolness) which was a great insight. The DVD was only $9.99 when I bought it locally.

Hehe…but yeah, funny how we got off the copy-protection discussion and onto movies themselves. I guess that the media rights topic inevitably ends up with “It sucks, whaddya gonna do” so we might as well talk about more interesting stuff…

I also find it amusing that this discussion has veered away from “RARGH! COPY PROTECTION BAD!” to a discussion of Asian movies.

It really seems to me that Shimizu is real hit-and-miss as a director. I love Ju-on, but could take or leave Ju-on 2 (which he also directed, I think). I hate Marebito. And I recently saw Reincarnation — another film of his — and it was “meh” (actually, for that one I have some problems with some of the storyline and how it pertains to reincarnation and karma, but I won’t go into that here, as you haven’t seen the film), but not horrible.

Koma, on the other hand, wasn’t too bad. It’s all about kidney theft and being left in a bathtub of ice!

I’ll have to show you Linda Linda Linda when you come up here, then. Interestingly, the four actresses in the band in the movie actually released a CD under their fictional band’s name in Japan in China (”Paran Maum” is Korean for “Blue Hearts,” as the band in the movie plays songs by the Japanese punk band The Blue Hearts). They actually don’t sound too bad in the movie (I’m not sure, but it appears that they actually play their instruments and stuff — if they don’t, they’re really good at miming), so it might be worth checking out one of these years.

You know, I’ve never ever seen The Andromeda Strain. I might have the novel lying around here somewhere, but I’ve never read that either.

So you’ve seen Koma? Sweet, I just programmed it to record. The following week they’re airing Marebito, so I set that one to record too for the hell of it.

Speaking of movies — although definitely not Asian ones — today Universal HD aired The Andromeda Strain in glorious high def. Holy shit, it’s awesome. Geek paradise.