Streets of Fire – Monday 7th July 2025

I grew up heavily into computer games, arcades, comic books and movies (pretty much your typical pop culture diet in the 1980s).‘Beat ‘em-ups’ were all the rage, and Final Fight was the king; later, Streets of Rage, Sega’s ‘Final Fight’ rip-off, took the crown on the MegaDrive.

Even though we were regulars at the video shop, my siblings and I somehow managed to bypass the film’s of Walter Hill. Years later when I saw Hill’s ‘The Warriors’ for the first time, I was like “WTF?! Final Fight blatantly ripped this off!”

I had the exact same reaction on Monday night when I watched another Walter Hill film for the first time, ‘Streets of Fire’. It seems like ‘Streets of Rage’ returned to the source, instead of merely being a rip-off of ‘Final Fight’!
ANYWAY!

‘Streets of Fire’ is a proper 80’s ‘big dumb action movie’ with cliché characters, cheesy dialogue, good looking men, even better looking women, wet streets, neon signs with everything shrouded in haze and a rocking soundtrack that takes centre stage!
It’s not a perfect film; the plot is basic and a more fleshed-out romance would have added to the bitter-sweet ending, but that said, I REALLY enjoyed it!! It’s actually a damn good film!

From the second it starts, the music kicks in, and you know you’re in for a ride! The film does not disappoint! The songs are amazing! I’ve since spent countless hours rinsing the opening and ending songs of the movie to death!!

The storyline is nothing to write home about; it’s literally the same as all those ‘damsel in distress, fight the gangs to save the girl’ arcade games we played back in the day, but the characters, the way they look, the costumes, the dialogue; I loved it all!

Seriously, if you played those ‘beat ‘em-ups’ and thought ‘they should make a movie based on this?’, well, the movie existed before the games, and this is it!
Honestly, the film is a vibe: pure 80’s, and if that’s your flavour, you need to see this film (if you haven’t already!).

..now where do I meet these rock chicks with big hair, big shoulder pads, short skirts, and a ‘damsel in distress’ dilemma?