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Even if you’ve never seen the 1994 film adaptation of Street Fighter, you probably know about one scene; a legend on the internet.
M. Bison, a military dictator and the primary villain of the games and the movie, listens as his captive Chun-Li (Ming-Na Wen) explains her desire for revenge. Chun-Li remembers her father leading a band of farmers against Bison’s nascent army, driving them out of the village, but at the cost of his life. Chun-Li savors every word of her speech, pausing to scoff at her recollection of Bison’s thugs running from peasants, and even at his shooting her father in retreat.
After Chun-Li finishes, Bison pauses and then apologizes, admitting that he remembers none of it. “For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day in your life,” he explains, his grandiloquence punctuated by the pair of fancy drinks he holds in his hand. “But for me? It was Tuesday.”
It’s an incredible line, the sort of thing that you get when you hire flashy ’80s screenwriter Steven E. de Souza to write your script. But it only works because of the delivery from Bison’s performer Raul Julia. A revered actor, who had won or been nominated for every major award, Julia was far above acting in a ’90s video game adaptation, playing supporting lead to Jean-Claude Van Damme of all people. Furthermore, Julia was dying from stomach cancer while he shot Street Fighter, his final film appearance. Yet the celebrated thespian never condescended to the material, not once. He makes Bison feel like a real human being, albeit one within a wacky world of cartoon characters, in which Belgian Van Damme plays flat-topped American military man Guile, and scientists create green-skinned super soldiers.
Julia’s remarkable performance makes more sense when we consider why he took the part in the first place. Although he had acted in a wide range of projects, ranging from playing Gomez Addams in the Barry Sonnenfeld movies to acclaimed turns in Kiss of the Spider Woman and Moon Over Parador, to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 classic Overdrawn at the Memory Bank, Julia wanted to make a movie for his kids. They loved the Street Fighter franchise and aided his research for the character.
Of course, it helps that Julia gets to deliver some wonderfully hammy lines from de Souza. De Souza made his name writing whip-smart scripts about fast-talking tough guys, movies like 48 Hrs., Die Hard, and Commando. He knows how to give characters absurd lines to match the absurd tone, amping up the theatricality. Like Julia, de Souza learned of Street Fighter via his kids, but he really took the job because it allowed him to direct a feature, and a big budget one at that. By now the longheld legend that de Souza wrote the movie in one substance-assisted overnight binge has been debunked. However, both de Souza and Capcom, the company behind the games, had high ambitions for the project. De Souza saw the film as his shot at making a legendary genre movie. Capcom wanted the film to launch a franchise with wide appeal, especially in the States, which led to decisions such as casting Van Damme and changing the focus away from the usual protagonist, Japanese fighter Ryu (Byron Mann in the movie).
For the most part, these delusions of grandeur resulted in a messy film that pleased neither fans nor casual viewers. However, it also gave Julia room to chew some scenery while delivering hair-raising speeches.
Take another infamous moment in which Bison describes the motivations behind his super-soldier program. “Why do they still call me a warlord? And mad?” Bison asks his minions Zangief (Andrew Bryniarski) and Dee Jay (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.) “All I want to do is to create the perfect genetic soldier! Not for power, not for evil, but for good. Carlos Blanka will be the first of many. They shall march out of my laboratory and sweep away every adversary, every creed, every nation, until the very planet is in the loving grip of the Pax Bisonica. And then [beat] peace will reign, and the world, and all humanity, shall bow to me in humble gratitude.”
Julia relishes every single word, striding through a model of his ideal city while bellowing the speech. Even better, he delivers the monologue like a true believer. In addition to studying the character from the games, Julia spent time researching real-world dictators, people who described their actual plans for world domination with conviction.
Julia’s devotion to the part isn’t just a gift to his kids and to us viewers, something we can enjoy 30 years later. It’s also a model for talented actors today in our current IP-driven media landscape. Without question, it’s not good that only franchises and fan-friendly adaptations get most of the funding from studios now, and not just because it limits the roles available to actors. However, condescending to the material doesn’t help anything.
Anthony Hopkins sleepwalking through his performance as Odin in the Thor movies didn’t stem the growth of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, nor did the MCU prevent him from getting great parts in movies such as The Father. Emily Watson‘s dreary delivery of Frank Herbert lore in Dune: Prophecy isn’t keeping that show from getting a second season. Instead disinterested performances just make everything worse.
Raul Julia’s devotion to his ridiculous character doesn’t turn Street Fighter into a good movie. But it does cement his reputation as a professional and a screen favorite. Thirty years later, Street Fighter remains a mess of a movie, but Julia still shines.
The post Street Fighter: An Appreciation for Raul Julia’s M. Bison appeared first on Den of Geek.
