Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist thread

[Ramsay Snow]

Great! Can't wait for this.

 

[Terminator]

Gouki transforming

 

[sweetre15]

Gouki transforming

Damn does that look badass!!!!

Still can't wait for the full trailer and the series itself

 

[3dman27]

when Is the series? any ideas?

 

[Ramsay Snow]

Gouki can transform?!

 

[Nathan]

He eventually gets consumed by the Dark Hadou, and becomes Akuma. He's not powering up and Transforming like a Super Saiyan, if that's what you think. It's pretty much permanent.

 

[Ramsay Snow]

OK, I incorrectly thought that he'd super-saiyan into Shin Akuma or something.

Thanks for clarifying. This is gonna be very interesting to witness!

 

[sweetre15]

New Christian Howard Interview:

Great film. Al Pacino is one of my favorite actors. Now, you rocked the gaming & online community with the Street Fighter series. What was it that made you take part in this series & want to go after the role on Ken Masters?

Well, as I said, I was a kid of the 80s and nostalgia really influences a lot of my likes and dislikes. Stallone, Arnold and Van Damme were paving the way with action movies, they looked the part and could do what the film said they could. I was into fighting games too, all the old Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat games, which I played with my brothers. Then when I moved to London to peruse my career, I shared a flat with my good friend and long time collaborator Joey Ansah. Joey & I were both into Street Fighter and played Tekken for hours, but our main game was Marvel vs Capcom 2, which included a good Street Fighter and X-Men roster.

We played it so much we would wear out the pads, but we of course saw the 1994 Van Damme “Street Fighter” film, which was eagerly anticipated by all fans, and left fans sorely let down with the cheesy campuses and choice of roles for our hero characters, even with a martial artist like Van Damme at the front, it just wasn’t about street fighter. The special moves were lame and it just disappointed on so many levels.

Then we heard about “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li” and I was thinking “Okay, now they will get this right”, but it was worse than the last one! So while Joey and I sat there playing Akuma vs Ken, we said “Someone needs to make this right, like the manga did”, and we thought well, why not us?‏ I am just thankful I look enough like Ken to play this, we wanted to do it right & Ken was always my favorite, which was a big plus.

You definitely are spot on with Ken’s look. Ken Masters is my favorite character in Street Fighter & I am glad to see that he’s being represented perfectly on film. What kind of training did you do to prepare yourself for the role?

I’m glad you approve of my Ken. [Laughs] I trained a lot for it, even with our short “Street Fighter: Legacy“. I’ve trained in martial arts since my teens and in gymnastics too but when it came to getting the look of Ken, I needed to put on some serious size if I was going to match the in-game version. I went from around 72kg up to 83kg in a few months leading up to that role, which changed everything about my body dynamics. I look back on Street Fighter: Legacy and can see how labored it felt to jump being over 20 pounds heavier than I was used to, so I was hitting the weights pretty hard and doing body building for the aesthetics to look like Ken. I would say that I’m a bit of a hard gainer so training 5 days a week and eating everything I could was my new regime.

It took us years to get to the point of shooting Assassins Fist and a lot of my energy was geared towards making it as good as possible. I kept up weight training and was sitting around 180 pounds but now I was used to it and could now could flip and jump much easier, which put Mike Moh (Ryu) in a similar position I was in before. After we cast Mike, the challenge was on for him to bulk up, which he was committed to doing, and I am proud of him for doing so, but he was telling me how heavy he felt jumping and I thought “Yep been, there done that.”‏

So, all in all, I was cutting up for Street Fighter: Assassins Fist and went down to about 165-70pounds when we filmed and wasn’t in bad shape.

There are still people who wanted us to be muscle bound like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime but this is from the people who are used to Street Fighter IV, where the character models are freakishly big. Look at it this way, if we were that size, where do you go from there when you need a Sagat or Zangief? So I think we are a good size for the characters. Plus, there was also gymnastics twice a week to work sums and fight chore, so I performed all of those myself in the show‏.

That’s why the fans appreciate this series so much! You guys actually committed training & making yourselves look like these beloved characters. There are people saying “Ryu & Ken are bigger in the games!”, but they’re not understanding that this is a realistic approach. I’ll get it out of the way now & say that this story & characters are way better than the Street Fighter film. Great job.

Well, Ken on the surface is the cheeky joker, the Han Solo of Street Fighter universe, and is definitely fun to play around with. Ken has the freedom to not follow the rules but when Joey and I were writing, we wanted to stay true to the characters that we see throughout the games and Animus, and give them human sides. I like to think of all the characters being real enough that people can relate to their motivations.All of these characters have problems, successes and motivations, which include the ‘bad guys’. Ken gets to be cheeky, and I think fans will get a lot of replay value out of the nuisances & relationships within the story.

I’m glad you mentioned the realistic approach, and that isn’t to say that we are “dumbing down” the story and taking away the supernatural element of Hadoukens, etc. Rather, we decided to approach it like: If this truly were possible, how would it happen? We did not want to have it where the characters snapped their fingers, & now have magic powers. We made it so the story explores what it takes to get to that level of power. Again, this harkens back to that 80s genre of training ala Van Damme’s “Kickboxer”, where if you put the work in, it is achievable. As a fan of Street Fighter, I would rather see this than have them throwing fireballs all over like its nothing at all‏. Long answer to a short question there. [Laughs]

I like that because in the Street Fighter Animated Movie we get flashbacks of Ken & Ryu training & they definitely weren’t firing hadoukens back then. I like the sense of “We earned this, it wasn’t given to us.” I respect that approach a lot. Ken & Ryu are two of the most influential & recognizable game characters out here. Was it challenging to add personalities to these characters & still stay true to the core of who these characters are?‏

Yeah, I mean, all the fans have a notion of what Ryu and Ken are about. I can understand filmmakers trying to give something a new approach when its been done to death but the thing about Street Fighter is its never been done right, except in the anime. To have a character already laid out sounds restricting but it was up to us as actors to play those characters as true as possible. If Ken wasn’t the loud mouth spoiled brat, fans would be disappointed, and if Ryu wasn’t the diligent level headed warrior, it would be the same. We took all the incarnations so far that are accepted as canon and tied the strings together to make major events in the characters lives make sense‏.

Mark Killeen from 300: Rise of an Empire, The Dark Knight Rises & Game of Thrones stars as “Mr. Masters”. Can you tell us how you’re exploring this character?

Well, the Masters family history is quite thin on the ground, we could gave Ken a meaningful back story that gets us to where the story starts at for this series, which will touch on the Ansatsuken (Assassination Fist) line. I think the only appearance of Mr. Masters so far was in the Street Fighter II V the series, so we could go many ways with it and throughout all the years of prep we’ve done for the show, it evolved into what you will see. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but you do find out plenty about what Ken and his father are about. Mark was actually a last minute addition to the cast since time was not on our side, and he did a great job! I think its fully believable that he could be my father, the man is huge, & even after all my training I look like a kid next to him! We tied in his story to Gouken and beyond, hopefully it is airtight. [Laughs]

Hahaha! Mark is a big guy.‏ Joey Ansah, who plays Akuma in Legacy & Assassin’s fist brings a ferocious aura to this already badass character. Will we see a lot from Akuma in Assassin’s Fist?

I think fans will be really excited at the rise of Akuma. As you know, we see a lot gouken’s (Akuma’s Brother, Ryu & Ken’s master) dive into his relationship with his brother, Gouki aka Akuma. It’s an agonizing wait but when Akuma is on screen, you will know it, he is a bad ass character and is the one that needed the most justice to be done right. Joey was training hard for years too to get the physique and stature to make Akuma come to life, including speaking Japanese.


I CAN’T WAIT! Do you & Joey plan on expanding the series to the later years of Street Fighter? If so, what new characters would you personally like to see added to the mix?

It has always been the plan to expand the whole universe and do all the characters as they should be done. Street Fighter: Legacy was our proof of concept and led to Assassin’s Fist. However, if people dig what we have done here and love the series, we would love to do more. Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist covers the alpha period of Ryu and Ken’s training. Hopefully, moving on, we would love to tackle the “World Warrior” series and get the Street Fighter II characters in, which would include all of the favorites like Guile, Chun Li, Bison, Vega and Sagat. We have plans, and we will see how far we can go‏.

http://www.4geekslikeyou.com/video-...an-howard-from-street-fighter-assassins-fist/

 

[Zar25]

Great interview ! Christian Howard is pretty much pitch perfect as Ken Masters. I love the rivalry and friendship between our two favorite Street fighters and am looking forward to seeing the Ryu/Ken dynamic in the live series.

Should be good !

 

[Ramsay Snow]

He was in TDKR? What did he do in that?

 

[sweetre15]

New Assasin's Fist fan Q & A with Mike Moh:

[YT]tfZ0rLlPfs4[/YT]

 

[Ramsay Snow]

Can't wait for this. Younger Ryu always excites me as he's still discovering his massive potential and untapped power.

 

[Zeus]

keeping an eye on this thread...cant wait for trailer

 

[sweetre15]

Ryu rocking the RED headband!:

 

[Ramsay Snow]

Is that Ryu when he's older? Or is that pre-Alpha Ryu?

 

[sweetre15]

Is that Ryu when he's older? Or is that pre-Alpha Ryu?

I'd like to think that IF they are going the route of the Anime film then it's Pre-Alpha Ryu but if it's taking after SF:Alpha 2 then it's probably going to be like the ending shot of the series or something.

 

[Zar25]

Ryu rocking the RED headband!:

Sweet !!!

 

[Ramsay Snow]

I'd like to think that IF they are going the route of the Anime film then it's Pre-Alpha Ryu but if it's taking after SF:Alpha 2 then it's probably going to be like the ending shot of the series or something.

I see - that makes sense.

 

[sweetre15]

Now on Facebook, Christian Howard is taking questions for HIS fan Q&A for Assassin's Fist

 

[sweetre15]

From Scott Adkins's twitter:

Just seen some footage from @SFAFofficial and it looks flippin awesome!! Excited for this to come out. #AKUMA - scary dude!!

 

[sweetre15]

I saw this on twitter

Just seen some footage from @SFAFofficial and it looks flippin awesome!! Excited for this to come out. #AKUMA - scary dude!!

 

[Ramsay Snow]

Cool. Wanna see that footage!

 

[sweetre15]

Christian Howard Answers Fan Q&A:
[YT]vifgdJ819AI[/YT]

 

[Ramsay Snow]

Nice interview with Tom Cruise. Didn't know he was in the series.

 

[sweetre15]

Nice interview with Tom Cruise. Didn't know he was in the series.