chun li – My Geek Wisdom

“Quick! Change the channel!”

From: Street Fighter: The Movie

Genre: Movies

Who said it?: Zangief

The story behind the quote: This week’s quote comes from Street Fighter: The Movie, the 1994 live-action film based on the hit Capcom fighting game. While not really taking the source material to heart, the film is still remembered as Raul Julia’s final film as M. Bison as well as another famous quote involving Tuesdays. But it still has another memorable quote besides that iconic saying.

The quote comes from the middle of the film. As Chun-Li (played by Ming Na Wen) and her crew send a truck filled with explosives towards the tent where M. Bison and he cohorts are celebrating. As the group watches the truck barrel towards them on a monitor, Zangief (played by Andrew Bryniarski), in fear of his life, yells out the quote.

Geek Wisdom: There are going to be some problems you cannot simply shut your eyes and hope it will pass. Sometimes, taking fast action is needed.

“…But for me, it was Tuesday.”

From: Street Fighter: The Movie

Genre: Movies

Who said it?: M. Bison

The story behind the quote: This quote comes from the “so bad its good” movie adaption of the Street Fighter video game. But first, let’s go through a little history behind the film. With the success of Street Fighter II, it was highly inevitable that someone in Hollywood would get the idea to cash in on its popularity and develop of movie about it. However, like most of the early video games turned movies (Super Mario Brothers, Double Dragon), this really didn’t turn out very well. The story doesn’t follow much of the plot of the game. Well, to be honest, the game doesn’t really have much of a plot to begin with, but there were too many liberties taken regarding all of the characters’ backstory, such as Ryu and Ken being smugglers and Chun-Li being a reporter. This movie also has the “privilege” of getting an even more horrible video game based on it (Street Fighter: The Movie: The Game)!

Now that’s out of the way, the quote comes when Chun-Li (played by Ming-Na) gets captured by M. Bison (portrayed by the late Raul Julia) and retells the story of how Bison murdered her father a long time ago when the warlord tried to take over her village. Bison simply tells the reporter (not an Interpol officer like in the games) that he has no recollection of the matter since it was just an ordinary day for him.

Geek wisdom: We normally think of how people would react to things based on how we would react to them. This is, of course, flawed. The way a person reacts or remembers something will be different for each and every one of us. They were raised differently so their manner of thinking is different. Even identical twins will have some very notable differences on how they would handle certain issues.

We cannot just substitute their mindset with ours. Simply put, we put other people in our shoes when we should be thinking of putting ourselves in theirs. For Chun-Li, the death of her father was the memory that molded her into what she is today. For Bison, it was just another day in the office.

“The fight is all.”

From: Street Fighter

Genre: Video games

Who said it?: Narration for Ryu’s ending

The story behind the quote: Street Fighter II has a varied cast of fighters you can select. One of these characters is Ryu, a no-nonsense karate expert who travels the world testing his fighting ability. While the other people in the game have different motives for joining the tournament (Guile and Chun-Li wants revenge on M. Bison, the final boss in the game, E. Honda wants to prove the superiority of Sumo to the world), Ryu’s only motive is to test himself against the best fighters in the world.

In Ryu’s ending, a ceremony is being held to congratulate the winners of the tournament. However, Ryu, who has bested all of them, is nowhere to be seen. As the audience wonders where he is, the scene switches over to Ryu walking into the sunset. The narration states that he doesn’t care about the adulation of the crown, the glory of winning, or the prize money. All he was there to do was fight, improve his skills, and “the fight is all.”

Geek wisdom: People nowadays are focused on either the material gain for accomplishing a task or the accolades they’ll get for doing something. A lot of them don’t really enjoy what they’re doing. These are usually the same people that complain about their jobs and they just can’t wait to get paid since that’s the only thing that’ s keeping them there. However, there is a small percentage of people that actually enjoy what they do.

Finding a job that you actually enjoy doing can be difficult. But for those that do, they never really cared for the amount of their salary or the glory of success. Those things are just bonuses to them. Sometimes, its just the act of doing a good job that makes it worthwhile.