A while back both Brunpuppies and SolidMike both posted about a quick look at the Machinima videos, Street Fighter: Assassins Fist. I had never seen these episodes so I decided to take a look for myself and see what a low production, fan series could make. I was definitely surprised by what I saw and hope that there will be more episodes to come.
For those who aren't familiar with Street Fighter, it is a series of video games created by Capcom about fighters from around the world each with different styles and mystical powers. The live action, 12 part miniseries starts out at the beginnings of both Ken and Ryu, main characters in the video games. Ken is dropped off by his father at Goken's dojo and he and Ryu become good friends/competitive fighters. As they train and hone their skills, Ken discovers a book that teaches a darker side of their training, a dark Hado. Ken tries to master it himself but soon discovers that the dark Hado is more powerful than he can control. Master Goken forbids him to further train with the dark arts and helps them both further their training with other more Street Fighter video game familiar techniques like the Hadoken, Shoryuken and Tetsumaki.
Since Ken is someone who likes to dig further into why this dark Hado was never shown to them before, Master Goken decides to tell them a story of he and his brother Goki, and their own training with their master, Gōtetsu. He tells them that Gōtetsu was a war veteran and after coming home decided to open up his own dojo and train 2 young men, Goki and Goken. They both trained very hard and both became masters at their arts. Goken, could always beat Goki though which made him want to train harder and beat his brother. Goki, soonalso falls in love with Gōtetsu's niece, Sayaka and feels ashamed that he can't defeat Goken. After looking through his masters room, Goki finds his masters sacred scrolls that teaches a darker art, one that could make you a much better fighter. After attempting to train himself in this art, his master Gōtetsu, banishes him from the dojo.
Goki, wanders off into the mountains and continues his training, going so far to almost killing himself in the process. He comes out 2 years later, returning as Akuma (demon) and becoming the ultimate fighter in the process. He comes back seeking to beat his own master as there can be only 1 true master of the dark Hado. After a fierce battle, he beats him and wanders off to find more worthy opponents.
Goken, knows one day he must face Akuma and test his own strength against his brother in a battle of certain death. In the meantime though, he must first complete the training of Ken and Ryu. Goken, tells them to battle with no holds barred and tests their skills on a "rite of passage". Ryu soon discovers he himself also has a dark Hado, without even training in it, and Ken has to fight him and hopefully bring Ryu back to normal. Luckily, Ken is able to knock out Ryu and is told by master Goki to help Ryu as he knows Akuma will be coming for him.
Overall, I loved the story. I loved the whole looking back at the earlier lives of masters and how they came to be and how you can easily be strayed to a darker side by your own drive to be the best. Even if you're not a Street Fighter fan, you can easily follow the story and get into how these 2 young men strive to become the best. I'd love to see more stories, maybe of the master Thai fighter Sagat (please), or the evil M. Bison, or the strange beast Blanka, and also the mystical Indian Dhalsim. Go head and take a look yourself and see if you agree or not and hopefully like, me you'll want more!
- Kevshiro
