Street Fighter Resurrection: A Sitdown With Mike Moh

Street Fighter: Resurrection, the web series that coincides with Capcom's Street Fighter V, releases on go90 today. I recently had a chance to chat with Mike Moh, who plays Ryu in Resurrection, reprising his role from Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist. We talk about working with the new crew as well as the process of moving 10 years ahead from the last film. Without further ado, let's get to our conversation.

Matthew Mueller: I know you're actually a big Street Fighter fan and of Ryu in particular. What do you enjoy most about playing the character now that you are playing him the second time around?

Mike Moh: I just like the fact that I get to play as him, holding a controller, and now I get to be the embodiment and the representative actually of him in the official film project, so as far as the fanboy in me that's pretty exciting, and the whole reason I got into the entertainment business in general.

Matt: Was there a little giddiness when you saw the first post production trailer when you're heaving a fireball and you're like "holy cow, I never thought that would actually happen."

Mike: Yeah totally, I mean especially a few years back when we did Assassin's Fist, that was incredibly cool. I geeked out for sure. I tried to hide my emotions, but you could definitely tell. I was super stoked and even this time around I was able to play a different story and just continue on with it, which is really cool and I'm really grateful to Joey and the team for trusting me with it.

Matt: So since Assassin's Fist, what is the biggest thing you've learned since you started playing the character?

Mike: Haha, I don't know, I learned that fans will never be happy with my body size haha.

Matt: hahaha

Mike: I do my best to try and look like the muscle-bound iteration that he looks like now, but you know you just do your best, and I'm trying to be natural and healthy with my life. I feel like I'm pretty good at letting that stuff roll off, realizing that some fans will never be happy, but in terms of performance wise, I try and continue to remind myself that this is 10 years past Assassin's Fist, and he's no longer this country bumpkin that has never seen anything you know? He's come in contact with actual women. He's faced bad guys. He's faced adversaries. He's faced Bison and defeated him, so there's a lot of things that we kind of have to draw in the blanks for before we actually get back to covering the World Warrior, which in all hopes we can continue to do.

Matt: It has to be a little different, almost Star Wars like to tackle a project that is further on in the timeline, and then go back. You're trying to find the right take on the character for that specific time frame, and then when World Warrior happens its okay, he's in the past and he would feel this way about things, and Street Fighter's history is so intertwined anyway, I imagine it makes things that much more difficult to kind of nail down where the character is at a certain time.

Mike: Yeah you're right about that. I mean if you look at the games, nothing is in order anyway. I'm not even sure if there's anybody that truly knows the exact timeline, so to follow that we are kind of jumping around, but I know that Joey wanted to save all that tournament Street Fighter 2 timeline for when we eventually do World Warrior, but um, yeah it's just a cool chance to showcase a different side of the Street Fighter world, and for people that will undoubtedly argue that this is not Street Fighter, for anyone who has played any of the recent games, they should know that the story is very, very varied and that this is pretty close to what the current storyline is.

Matt: Yeah, I mean I love the series, but it is also the place where you play someone like Sakura where the big ending to her story is that she got an ice cream cone, finally making it there after like 5 levels and it's like, okay, that was interesting. It's like don't hammer it, it's fine and it is what is.

It's also cool to see, since it went forward in time, characters like Nash and Laura, who are brand new to the series. Nash is one of my favorites, I think partly due to my love of charge characters. How was it working with some of the new people that were brought into the movie?

Mike: In terms of like the new characters like Decapre, Laura, and Nash, from a personal standpoint it's always great to infuse an existing team like we had with Joey, Chris, and all the producers and bring in some fresh blood and get some new energy, so Alain, Natasha, and Katrina, they all jumped right in, clicked with the team and now its just cool to have a bigger family, a Street Fighter family, so I think fans will be excited to see some faces other than myself and Chris, as I'm sure they've already had their fill of us in Assassin's Fist.

Matt: Now as far as the combat, how does laying out a fight scene work? Is it something where you guys go over a bunch of scenarios beforehand, or is there kind of a loose outline and then you guys figure it out on the fly?

Mike: Um, it varies from project to project. In each of the series that we've done I've been involved fighting with Chris, so we have a really good rapport in terms of timing, knowing when we should hit each other really hard and when to back off. We tend to have a lot of trust in that aspect, and Joey, he trusts us which is always great as performers, and then Alain, who plays Nash, is super powerful and a giant in general, but he knows his stuff and is an expert martial artist as well. We had about a week of prep, so I went over there about a week early and throughout that week we just got some things laid down for groundwork in terms of what we would like to showcase and how the flow of the fight would go, but when it comes down to it, especially on a project where we don't have unlimited budgets and unlimited resources, we have to get it done in a certain amount of time. Like all projects you are either running behind or we need to get a couple of things redone. With all that being said, we had a plan, we followed it, and as always we had to make adjustments that, you know, either make it better or make it just different than we've done in the past, so the end result is going to be pretty sweet, and I can't wait for everybody to see how the fights turn out.

Matt: Well I can't wait to see it, and the trailer looks great. Before we go, what is the thing you're the proudest of with Resurrection?

Mike: I think the fact that we can come off not as one note. I mean I know fans are really clamoring for a direct continuation of Assassin's Fist, and once they realize we are not canning that or giving up on that, we were just asked to tie something into Street Fighter V. Once they get over that or they understand that I hope they can appreciate that, especially Joey. I don't speak for Joey because I'm just an actor, I'm not a creative, but I think it's cool that we can jump into a different universe within the same universe and completely play a different side of the coin and still provide something that's really entertaining and also that stays true to the game and the franchise.

Matt: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk a bit, really appreciate it!

Mike: Yeah thanks a lot, I enjoyed it as well.

Street Fighter: Resurrection is now available on go90.com