EXCLUSIVE: Interview With STREET FIGHTER: ASSASSIN'S FIST Director & Star Joey Ansah

Well, the journey began five years ago with Street Fighter Legacy, the YouTube short film. It all came about from a mass dissatisfaction with the new Street Fighter films and most video game adaptations. At that time in my life, I had done The Bourne Ultimatum which was my big Hollywood break as an actor where I could really showcase my action skills. That fight scene I had with Matt Damon garnered a huge amount of praise and was dubbed as one of the greatest movie fight scenes of all-time. By this point, as well as acting, I had also been a choreographer for a long time, so I thought – after seeing Legend of Chun-Li – I personally didn't like it and it needed to be done right.

I'm convinced that the way the Hollywood system is set up and the way these projects come about, we'd just never get to see the Street Fighter we wanted. At that time, I was living with Christian Howard who is a huge Street Fighter fan as well, he plays Ken in the series and he co-wrote with me. I said to him, 'I'm going to write the treatment for this series, do you want to help me write it, and if I manage to get this thing going, you'll be my first choice for Ken'. That's how it started off.

I pitched to Capcom, originally not to do a short film, but to do a web series based on the World Warrior storyline with the other characters. I hoped at the time Capcom would finance it as well, and though they loved the idea, when they asked about the finances and I suggested them, they explained it would be a big investment deal with Capcom Japan, blah, blah, blah, so we realised that wasn't going to work. We had a creative vision though and knew it would be a shame not to do something with it. Super Street Fighter IV was about to come out in six months, so Capcom's marketing department put some money in with which I made Street Fighter Legacy. That had a total of over 10 million views across five or six of our official channels and a 98.6% approval rating. People really dug that vision of Street Fighter, so we pressed forward to do what we set out to do. Jacqueline Quella, my producer, she was very instrumental in helping Legacy come to life. 

I've been an avid martial artist for a long time. About 26 years now. I originally started martial arts when I was about five, but I didn't get really serious and diligent until I was nine. My cousin used to do Wushu with Ray Park way back when and he used to come and teach me and my brother. My family emigrated to Ghana and I started doing Taekwondo out there, and they trained me really hardcore. Bare foot, stone floor, outside, no pads. That gave me a good foundation and I did that for five years. When I moved back to the UK, I then got into Bujinkan Ninjutsu in a big way and did boxing, and various other fighting styles. It then got to the point where I think any martial artist who has done that journey for long enough will instinctively reach that Bruce Lee kind of organic concept of needing to learn elements of different styles so you get less attached to a certain style. You're like, 'What are the other weak areas in my game? Where can I learn to improve?' So, through that whole process, you name it, I did it. I just do it all! You should be able to punch in all styles. You need to learn it all and cover all the major forms. Bruce Lee summed it up the best when he said, 'Look, unless we have a different form of human being with three arms and four legs, then there isn't a different style of martial arts. There's only so many ways you can master all those way of moving.'

I revel in doing stuff like that. An obsession with the game and an eye for detail helps, and I knew every postural detail of all the starters and the kicks without even trying, so we would literally look at the strikes from the game and every basic jab and movement...it's all in the details! You would think it is something very nuanced which requires a lot of attention to detail, but when you play the game obsessively and you're a martial artist, we just put it together quite naturally. People have asked me that question before saying, 'God, it must have been so difficult to put together!', but I think for the some of the other actors not trained in martial arts it was difficult. It was all about conditioning.

It's been great! In all of the social media outreach and messaging I've done since the early inception of this project, it's like, 'Look, I may be an actor who works in this profession, but I'm a die-hard fan like you guys'. I'm just as opinionated and just as geeky and passionate as any Street Fighter fan out there. Maybe more passionate! If there's a fan more passionate than me, they would have done what I've done. I've dedicated years of my life and just about everything I've earned to this quest. I want fans to feel that this is in safe hands because I'm one of them. I see it how they see it. As a result, the YouTube channel has a 99.3% thumbs up across the whole playlist which has had over 20 million views. That's pretty unheard of and the fan response has been great. It's so nice to see comments from fans where they say they never believed they'd see something like this and that it's a dream come true. That's exactly the reason why we made this thing. To read responses like that makes it all worth it.

I hope the fans support it. I've gone out there, done justice for the fans and shown the studio films up with a budget a tenth of what they had. It's embarrassing that one guy with no studio back-up and a small core team of great creativeness, producers and supporters can make something which beats the big studios with a huge budget with far more resources at their disposal. I hope the fans feel that I've done right by them as it's not something we profited from or made riches from...it was a sacrifice to bring it to life. Them supporting what we do next is all we really ask for. 

It's very exciting! I actually have a copy of the Blu-ray, the steelbook, the DVD...the extras across all forms of release are the same, but the Blu-ray for me is the ultimate way to watch it. You can look forward to the entire series which you may have already seen on YouTube complied into a continuous format so you can sit back and watch this like a proper feature film with no breaks. There is a chapter selection option where you can jump to key parts of the story, and as you mentioned, there is a secret 14 minute epilogue which hasn't been seen anywhere else yet. There is a director's commentary by myself which is very insightful as I've tried to pack in as many interesting stories, trivia and anecdotes as possible around the production and representation of what went into it, so I think fans will enjoy that. We have four deleted or extended scenes, some double the length. 
 

There are nine behind the scenes featurettes with everyone from the cast to producers to costume designers and special effects artists. The very cool thing are the Ken video diaries which are a highlight I think fans will get a real kick out of. We've really tried to go the extra mile to pack it with as much extra content as possible...there's an outtake reel as well with lots of funny stuff. It's really worth getting and you haven't seen it all until you've got the Blu-ray, seeing the picture how I intended it to be seen in full HD quality. To tell you more about the epilogue without giving too much away, you're going to see Akuma arrive at the Dojo and learn more about a lot of characters because there's a lot more to some of these guys than at first glance.

There's also a Marvel style end-credits sequence which people should stick around for! 

That's a good question. Hmm...one property which doesn't fit into superheroes, but would be great in live-action is Thundercats. I wouldn't mind giving Panthro a good performance. That's something definitely in the future if it doesn't get done before me. I think something really cool could be done with that property. I'm a huge Marvel comics fan and a huge Wolverine fan. I don't know, I'm struggling to answer because I haven't had my sights on  specific Marvel character. If I think of one I'll let you know. 

Yeah, that's definitely possible. I'm mixed race. My look can change quite a lot. I would only want to play a character I'm doing justice to visually, and even some may say for Black Panther, I'm too fair because he's not mixed. We'll see though. I'd definitely be interested in exploring the possibilities with such a role, but I'm not going to go out and say I'm the best person on the planet for Black Panther. Maybe Michael Jai White for example? Before He would be a great Black Panther who fits the look of the comic books, but hey, they want to send it my way, I'd give it a look over.

Hopefully Street Fighter will be occupying most of my time for the next couple of years if all goes to plan, but other games? To see Halo done right, and I know there are two different series' coming out, so hopefully we get what we want from those. For me, the Resident Evil films are just to derivative. They're not really Resident Evil. Your leads should be Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine; it should have been like that from day one. I would love to do that faithfuly to the game as it would be such an atmospheric series. I think Resident Evil done right would be better than The Walking Dead because it has so much potential as a narrative because of the design of the world, the Umbrella Corporation. There are so many good elements to make it one of the best series ever seen. Will it ever happen? Who knows, but down the line if I could get around to it and the rights were free, I'd love to do it. 

Wolverine being rebooted man...I would be very up for that because Wolverine is my favourite Marvel character, and I've been a big comic collector for a long time. It needs to be done right. The Japan part of Wolverine's narrative, he spent over a decade there in the comics and speaks fluent Japanese; he understands the social etiquette and the Yakuza and that's what's so cool in the comics when he goes to Japan or Madripoor and you really see the intelligence agency Logan who speaks and understands multiple languages. Instead, they made it a fish out of water thing with Logan making every clichéd social faux par under the sun and I just thought, 'How, how can you do a Wolverine film site in Japan and take out everything that made those comics great?'

I hope in many, many years to come and people look back at this and see it as the start of hyper faithful adaptation which are also good character stories.