Hands up...who likes Streets of Fire?

Such a great, overlooked movie.
Phenomenal cast with Defoe, Paxton, Townsend, Lane (!), Moranis, The Blasters.
Incredible soundtrack.
Inspired Capcom's Final Fight.

That setting though. Is it retro? Future dystopian?

I can't be the only one who considers this an AT classic.

When I saw the title I immediately thought of the old ASL Deluxe Module by the same name.

i thought it was a side-scrolling beat 'em up video game like Double Dragon

Woha, I didn't expect this topic at all!

I do like Streets of Fire. Like you say, the setting is great it's neither futuristic, nor retro. It has this atemporal feel that is built on very specific, very temporal things (50's cars, 80's urban design, etc.). Every single like in this film, every single one is a ridiculous cliché, intentionally so, I laughed all the way through. I think most members of this forum will love it if they watch it.

The main issue with the film is that starts out a 10 and goes downhill from there. The opening scene, with the song and the biker gang is amazing. I absolutely love it and the song is kick-ass. But the end is dull and rosy and nowhere as fun as the beginning or the middle bit.

Black Barney wrote: i thought it was a side-scrolling beat 'em up video game like Double Dragon

Double Dragon was broken. You could throw elbows endlessly and the bad guys couldn't stop you.

Black Barney wrote: i thought it was a side-scrolling beat 'em up video game like Double Dragon

Final Fight? It is.

IIRC, the following inspired the coin-op game:
Main Character - Cody in both
Plot - Save the girlfriend from a gang!
Setting - rundown city.

Erik Twice wrote: The main issue with the film is that starts out a 10 and goes downhill from there. The opening scene, with the song and the biker gang is amazing. I absolutely love it and the song is kick-ass. But the end is dull and rosy and nowhere as fun as the beginning or the middle bit.

I can see that point, but I like the ending. "I Can Dream About You", then The Attackers break into "Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young" (with Robert Townsend's band joining them on stage). The final song is just as blistering as the intro. All the while Cody just walks off leaving it all behind. That's great! Just like Jack Burton did in BTiLC. It's nice that from time to time the romantic leads don't get together.

Though, Cody, must be experiencing PTS because how anyone can leave Ellen Aim....

vimeo.com/51096203

There's a lot of obvious inspiration:

Cody in Final Fight looks exactly like Cody from SoF. His special ability is using knives. Cody is very good with knives in the movie.
Jessica (Final Fight) looks exactly like the girl in SoF and wears the same red dress.
Bred, one of the most common enemies in Final Fight, looks exactly like the main antagonist in SoF.
The cars with their brillant headlights in the "Corrupt cop" stage are heavily reminiscent of the cars in Streets of Fire. Look at the poster.
The subway in Final Fight is clearly influenced by the subway in Streets of Fire (The hand-grabs are a dead-giveaway)

Streets of Fire was a major success in Japan, by the way.

Never heard of it, but after watching that trailer, I'm sold. Any idea if it's streaming anywhere?

I did a summer job putting up fencing, and we did the yard of the Mom of the guy that wrote I Can Dream About You. She was so proud that she played it over and over again on her back yard sound system while we were putting up the fence. So any mention of Streets of Fire usually brings a Susquehanna Hat Company response from me.

It's playing in my head right now.