In attempting to fulfill desires of world domination, Bison takes a group of innocents hostage, requesting some twenty-billion dollars to buy their safe release. Van Damme’s having none of this ransom lark and mounts his own assault on Bison’s temple headquarters, rented from the same people who supplied Pol Pot with quality interiors for years. Van Guile garners the assistance of his fellow Good Guys in the offence, and open threads of character development and conflict slowly converge on a grand finale full of cranial punches and thudding blows to the groin.

Disregarding the disappointing lack of stretchy limbs sported by Dhalsim and Blanka’s terminal secondary-character-syndrome, it’s hard not to shake with glee at the thought of Street Fighter. The zany audacity with which it places into the hands of ruthless villain Bison a copy of the arcade machine control panel as his master console is but one signifier of a film reveling in its absurdity. Characters clutching their one dimensions, cartoon scraps, the subtle allusions to hours wasted pummeling Sagat to see if his eye-patch falls off – and, of course, the Van Liner.

Even with stiff competition from Bison, Van Damme is able to steal the show: his delivery of the wry remark is simply unbeatable and the film is populated by their wise syllables. Words flow from his tongue like poetry, just admire the following: “It’s the collection agency, Bison. Your ass is six months overdue, and it’s mine.”

See what he did there, likening himself to a collection agency and Bison’s ass to the items to be collected. Genius! Almost as svelte as the kicks ushered from out of Van Damme’s pelvic juggernaut.

Crisp combos held by Van Damme help efface the dodgy sub-Michael Biehn antics that follow Ken, of Ken and Ryu-fame. His face may channel Kyle Reese’s most superb gestures to the well of cinema but he clearly lacks all the beatific substance that lines the organs of he who we must accompany if we want to live. Ample Van Dammage enables us to ignore such minor besmirchments.

Stephen E. de Souza, director, should at this very moment – if I’ve prepared things correctly – feel an appreciative tickle in bodily areas vigorously clothed. As if scripting Hudson Hawk were not testament enough, Street Fighter cements a reputation awash with brilliance.

Alas, in the end, only the Van Aphorism can possibly solve the mystery as to why this film prompts one to conjure such eccentric dalliances in the subconscious. It can’t be a repressed fear that M. Bison didn’t actually die, that he survived Van Damme’s final kick into the sheet of widescreens, his electromagnetic powers being slashed at the source. Or could it be that Bison somehow transcended the world of fictional action schlock, taking a place at the very heart of our nightmares, a wraith-like presence haunting with persistence an otherwise unblemished dreamscape?

It is a scary thought.