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Michael McWhertor is a New York-based journalist and editor with more than 20 years of experience covering games, industry events, technology, movies, and TV.
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The soundtrack to Capcom and Legendary's new Street Fighter movie is nothing if not eclectic. The film's music choices skew heavily toward the '90s, during which Street Fighter is set, with songs like Tupac's "Ambitionz Az A Ridah," Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun," and Meredith Brooks' "Bitch," but it's not afraid to dip into other decades. It's understandable why 50 Cent's "Many Men (Wish Death)" plays during a fight featuring boxer Balrog (who is played by 50 Cent), even if the song feels temporally out of place.
Another '90s earworm, "What's Up?" by 4 Non Blondes, is surprisingly integral to the plot of Ken and Ryu's journey in Street Fighter. But the final song of the movie feels like a completely random choice. I'm talking about one-hit wonder The Weather Girls' "It's Raining Men," which sends viewers out on a confusing but high-spirited note.
What's up with "It's Raining Men," Street Fighter?
According to Street Fighter movie director Kitao Sakurai, the random, unexpected needle drop of "It's Raining Men" was the whole point of using the song. It was a decision that came late in the filmmaking process and in the spirit of the film's tone, Sakurai told me.
In a video interview with Polygon, Sakurai explained why Street Fighter ends with "It's Raining Men," which may prove to be one of the film's least controversial but still-baffling choices.
"It was pretty late into the editorial process where [we were] trying to find the right song, but nothing was really clicking," Sakurai said of the film's post-climax scene. "We had a take where [the cast] just started singing 'It's Raining Men' as a joke just to try something and as a fun thing to do. I looked at it, and we set it to music, and I was like, This is kind of incredible. [laughs] Like, it just works. Also, the interaction between Ken and Ryu in that moment is just so sincere and so real, it's such a perfectly weird and stupid choice to end the movie on that it felt just right."
"The thesis of our style of the movie is just being like, 'Fuck it, man,'" Sakurai added. "The Weather Girls? Why not? But it emotionally works, you know?"
Street Fighter is now playing in movie theaters.