By: John M Jerva

Fan made short films are a curious bunch as a lot of them are made by fans of the source material and are usually better than anything Hollywood has ever put out. Most of the time, they are proof of concept films where the hope is that the filmmakers involved will be ale to make a longer feature length film based on what they did while sometimes they are just short takes made out of love.

Street Fighter is a video game franchise that has not seen the best results when it comes to film adaptations and while some see Jean-Claude Van Damme’s 1994 version as a cheesy cult classic, the subsequent film The Legend of Chun-Li was a mess of a movie that screwed up the characters and failed to deliver in the action department.

Veteran filmmaker and martial arts expert Joey Ansah has come the closest to delivering a satisfactory Street Fighter adaptation with his web series Assassin’s Fist and follow up Resurrection but sadly he hasn’t been able to do anything more with that so fans are left still wanting more.

A new fan film has just recently been released over the Christmas weekend which looks very promising and even brings a more brutal and bloody flair to the Street Fighter name. From director Stanton Chong comes the new 13 minute short film Street Fighter: Psychosis which features popular character Ken Masters in s bloody battle with Balrog.

While Masters and Balrog are the main characters here, many well known Street Fighter characters do make an appearance. Ian Rozylo stars as Ken Masters AKA Violent Ken while Marshall Bingham is featured as his opponent Balrog. Other cast members include Gigi Neil as Eliza, Darren E. Scott as Ryu, Kelvin Lum as Master Gouken, Nick Baric as Head Shadaloo Guard, Darryl King as Shadaloo Scientist, Aidan Pringle as M. Bison, A. Fraser as Sagat, Shota Tsuji as Vega, Leifennie as Chun Li, Sean Kohnke as Guile, Ghassemi as Dan, Yu Matsushita as Sakura, Tim Townley as Homeless Man, and Shaw Madson and Anthony Bailey as Body Guards.

Chong also wrote the script from an story idea from Sean Kohnke and the film definitely has some savage combat in it with Masters getting abducted by M. Bison and the ruthless Shadaloo Organization where his girlfriend Elisa is brutally murdered and he is given a serum that’s turns him into Violent Ken. Now with this new savage power, Violent Ken carves a bloody and destructive path through several soldiers while displaying his deadly skill set.

There’s no shortage of brutally to be had as Masters runs a gauntlet of Shadaloo henchmen on his way to a climatic clash with Balrog. The fight sequences are bad ass with Shawn Beaton serving as stunt coordinator and the special effects are pretty eye pleasing for a low budget short film so fans should find something to like about this one and it definitely delivers an R rated vibe that hasn’t been done in the feature films.

There also several fan service mods to the Capcom video game series as the short plays out like a video game complete with graphics, health bars and loading screens like one would see while playing the iconic game. There are also character moves that fans will recognize and this is definitely a love letter to the Street Fighter franchise.

Unfortunately, the film ends with a cliffhanger so here’s hoping that Chong will be able to bring us another installment as I’m eagerly wanting to see how the rest of this okays out.

Check out the full short film below and I must tip my cap to Chong, the cast and the stunt team for delivering 13 minutes of adrenaline laced Street Fighter fun. Enjoy!