The brains behind Machinima’s new series “Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist” was kind enough to spend some time talking with us about producing the show. Joey Ansah of “Bourne Ultimatum” fame has been a Street Fighter fan and martial arts expert for years. This has culminated in the creation of this incredible new web series that hit Machinima today. You can catch the episodes here! Without further ado, Joey Ansah.
Photo: Ansah as Akuma
BSR!: How many episodes will this first set have?
Ansah: The series is 12 episodes that will release on Machinima.
BSR!: What’s the inspiration behind making a live action Street Fighter?
Ansah: This has been a 5-year odyssey for me. I’ve been a martial artist for over 25 years and a Street Fighter player since the late 80s. You know aside from the traditional martial arts the acrobatic side captured my imagination. It has somersaults and cool aerial kicks, like Guile’s flash kick. Some of which are possible, you just need a high level of acrobatic ability. The real motivator, was just how terrible how the other adaptations have been. I mean when I saw “Legend of Chun-Li” something broke inside of me. It needs to be done right and it can’t be within the Hollywood system. I have already done Bourne Ultimatum and that fight scene was dubbed one of the greatest of all time, so that was my big break. I had already worked on a pitch and had a treatment, and I took it to Capcom for licensing. At that time we did “Street Fighter Legacy”, after that I wanted to jump right into Assassin’s Fist but Capcom couldn’t finance it. So four years later we have it here. This is a fully licensed project, Capcom didn’t give us the rights, I had to pay like any studio would. Capcom hasn’t invested anything in this, you can imagine the work required raising several million dollars independently as a first time director and writer, it was no easy thing, but we got it done.
BSR!: The characters and actors are phenomenal, tell us about the casting process.
Ansah: We wanted it to be authentic, and I hand picked a lot of the cast. Street Fighter isn’t something you can fake, as you can see the actors are the real deal. They’re strong actors and they have to have the right look and intensity. Togo Igawa is, in my opinion, one of the greatest Japanese actors of his generation. He’s been on board since Legacy he helped out with that, he put me in touch with a Japanese casting director and she started sending me actors for Gouki, Gouken and Sayaka. The interesting thing is Gaku didn’t come from her, but as soon as he auditioned I knew, “This is Gouki”. I also had to cast someone who could transform into me, so I needed a Japanese actor that shared some of my features, so that through the transition period you can believe they are one and the same. But all the casting from the Japanese characters happened in Japan, except for Gouken Akira Koriyama was a friend of Togo. But everyone else was through Japanese links.
BSR!:You mentioned earlier that you’re a Street Fighter player, is Akuma someone you normally play in the game? And was playing Akuma something you wanted?
Yeah, he is one of my go to characters, and now that I’m a producer, writer, director, and actor. I had to think, I’ve done Bourne, and been celebrated in fight stuff, so it’d be great to be in Street Fighter, who can I cast myself as? Well, Akuma has dark skin and me being mixed-race when I get a tan I get a very reddish look. And Akuma has a very mask-like daemonic face, so with prosthetics, etc, I can pull it off. Now for the role I got to 220 lbs. in weight, and there are few actors at that size that can do what I do acrobatically. It is a difficult character to pull off. He is the one that everyone has waited to see. We released his first image on Facebook and it got 20,000 likes in a day, so it’ll be up to you guys.
BSR!: The backdrop is very reminiscent of Japan, is that where you shot the film?
Ansah: It’s great to hear you say that, we have screened with Capcom and Ono San and they said, “It looks like Japan”. Truthfully the whole film was shot in Bulgaria, I’ve done a film there before and it has a very diverse ecosystem that doubles for Japan very well. The dojo’s you see in the film we built from the ground up, not a single sound stage was used, everything you see is the genuine interior of the Dojo’s, which we designed and built from scratch.
BSR!: In one of the episodes you have a hilarious Ono cameo, how did that come to be?
Ansah: This is something I wanted to do, I wrote the script with Christian Howard who plays Ken, we’ve been friends a long time, he’s sort of a protégé’ of mine. We wanted Capcom’s approval, and we wanted to do it in Legacy, but we thought let’s get Ono on it, and we wrote that scene around Ono’s quirky personality. He happily came, I had met him previously and it wasn’t an issue getting him in, but I’m glad it was a happy surprise when you saw it.
BSR!: Are you working towards talks of doing a full length movie that fixes the horrors of the 1994 film?
Ansah: That’s the aim, I’d like to do another series because the World Warrior story has so much, but I would like to do the series and then a movie. I’m already kind of moving forward on plans for a season 2. So, watch this space for it.
BSR!: Any final words or last thoughts?
Ansah: People loved the trailer, but that doesn’t prepare you for how big this is. I along with the rest of the core team have really tried to make something groundbreaking and genre defining. And I hope people watch it, because once you watch it you’ll see what a unique viewing experience this is. I want to thank all the fans that have already supported us up to now and if you love it shout it from the rooftops.