The actor behind Ryu in “Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist” was kind enough to spend some time with us to discuss his role in the new web series that hit Machinima today. You can watch the episodes here, or on their YouTube channel.
Mike Moh as Ryu
BSR!: You already have an impressive martial arts background, what kind of pre-work went into your role as Ryu?
I started martial arts over 15 years ago and was inspired by Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles and later on even Street Fighter. This is full circle being able to play Ryu, I focus on Taekwondo mainly and it was a unique challenge to adapt my style to Ansatsuken, which isn’t a real style, but you know using the games and the anime. It was fun playing the game to learn the style. It was also fun doing those acrobatic moves, and practicing what I was able to do like the Tatsumaki’s, but with special effects and practice it worked out.
BSR!: You and Christian Howard have a great synergy in the show, how do did you foster that?
Christian and I met for the first time two weeks before filming, and we hit it off right away. The whole crew was really great and there was no ego, we knew we had a to do a good job and Joey knew he needed everyone fully invested before finalizing the cast and he did a great job picking team players that were fully invested.
BSR!: You mentioned playing the game, did you mess around with any other characters or did you focus on Ryu for study?
When I was a kid I mainly played Street Fighter II on Super Nintendo, I didn’t play the newer iterations. When I got cast for this project I jumped into the Street Fighter 4 series. Oddly enough, Ryu was always my character. I started with Chun-Li because I figured if I could mash one button and do ok, but once I learned the quarter circle rolls and everything I focused on him. I would do the moves for 5 or so minutes and then go into training in front of a mirror to practice the movements. It was really fun playing with the controller and then practicing to make it look as authentic as possible.
BSR!: There is a fight scene in one of the earlier episodes between you and Ken, and it’s the first time you two really go at it, what was recording that scene like?
That fight was a lot of fun, but it was really stressful as well. I remember that day, because they were trying to decide whether to shoot outside the Dojo or inside, and I was lobbying hard to do it inside, since the interior was so amazing. Selfishly I wanted to fight on that floor. Eventually because of the lighting and the amount of time we had, we went inside and set up lighting. Once we began we were under the clock, a lot of the takes were 1 or 2 takes, the Tatsumaki when Ken knocks me down was 1 take. We were like “Whoa! That was awesome! Let’s move on!” That floor wasn’t very forgiving and we’re throwing each other around, so a lot of those takes we only wanted to do 1 or 2. Coming from my background we usually do 4 or 5 takes, but we really knocked this out of the park; and for me and Chris this was our first time fighting, we had done a ton of training montages, but not full fights. We were also hitting each other pretty hard so we definitely felt it the next day.
BSR!: The scene where you guys sneak out to the bar looks like there could be more to it, did you shoot any additional scenes?
You know, not a lot was left on the cutting room floor since we were on a tight schedule. But that scene was really fun shooting in the bar in one day and being outside of the Dojo for a while.
BSR!: Do you have a favorite scene, or something you’re looking forward to seeing at the premiere?
My favorite part of the whole series is the final fight scene with Chris and I. Both of our fights were a lot of fun to shoot. I’m also really excited to see the development of Gouki/Akuma . I think you’ll be very impressed to see how Gaku and Joey pull that off. Being more of a casual fan I didn’t know every part of the story, that was something I learned when we went to shoot is that back-story which most casual fans don’t know.
BSR!: What are you working on now?
Right now I’m just training, I’m also set to open up my own full time martial arts school. Between that and a cool stylized martial arts western. Mainly that and amping up my training and lifting to prepare for another part of the seriesso I can rival Gouki.