Guile (Street Fighter) - in Other Media

In Other Media

In the 1994 live-action Street Fighter film, Guile (given the full name of William F. Guile) is played by Belgian martial artist and actor Jean-Claude Van Damme and is the main character. Van Damme's line in the film, "Are you man enough to fight with me?", is taken from Street Fighter II and its follow-ups. His character is given the rank of Colonel. In this live adaption, Guile is commanding the A.N. (this film's version of the United Nations) forces as he searches for General M. Bison. His motivation for searching for Bison is not to avenge Charlie's death, but to end Bison's corrupt organization and to rescue Charlie, although he receives a great deal of help from Ryu and Ken to find Bison's base, and is aided in his mission by Chun-Li, Cammy White, T. Hawk, Balrog, E. Honda and Zangief. Jean-Claude Van Damme's hair, while blonde, lacked the hairstyle from the games, and even though the character was portrayed as American, Van Damme's French accent was very noticeable.

Guile is one of the main characters in Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, where he is voiced by Masane Tsukayama in the Japanese original and by Kirk Thornton (credited as Donald Lee) in the English dub. Guile is assigned to work together with Chun-Li in order to take down Bison, whose organization Shadaloo (Shadowlaw in the English dub) has been kidnapping several martial artists and brainwashing them to do his evil bidding. Guile is at first far from happy to work with another person on the case, claiming loudly that "Bison's ass is mine", but a distinct friendship builds up between him and the Interpol agent. The film follows Guile's plot from the video game in Guile tracking down Bison to avenge Charlie's death, and his vendetta is amplified when Chun-Li is severely beaten by Vega on Bison's orders. Near the end of the film, Guile manages to track Ryu down but is followed by Bison and a brainwashed Ken. Guile engages Bison in combat but is outmatched by the cowardly lord's overwhelming speed and only manages to damage his cape with a Sonic Boom. Bison then finishes the fight by blasting Guile down a chasm. Guile survives this, although exhausted and bloodied, and when Bison finds Guile, he decides to spare him as an insult, and leaves. Guile is rescued along with Balrog by E. Honda. In his final scene, Guile, fully recovered, is moved to tears when informed that Chun-Li survived the attack by Vega.

Based loosely on the storyline of the 1994 film while combining elements from Street Fighter II, Guile serves as the protagonist of the Street Fighter animated series, and is depicted as the leader of an organization of Street Fighters consisting of Ryu, Ken, Chun-Li, Blanka, T. Hawk, Cammy, Dee Jay, Fei Long and Dhalsim. Bison has survived his battle with Guile following the events of the film, and Guile's sole goal is to destroy Bison once and for all. The cartoon ran for two seasons (October 21, 1995 – May 14, 1997) with a total of 26 episodes.

Guile appears in the Street Fighter II V anime series, where he is voiced by Tesshō Genda in the Japanese original and once again by Kirk Thornton in the English Amimaze dub and by Rob Mungle in the ADV Films dub. In this TV series, Guile is a Technical Sergeant (E-6) in the U.S. Air Force, who spends most of his time training physically and who has great pride in the Air Force. He faces Ryu in a bar fight after Ryu and Ken beat up some of his men (although it was Guile's men who started the fight in the first place when Ken stole one of their dates). Guile easily defeats Ryu, only to face Ken, who challenges him in an air force base to avenge Ryu. Despite a severe hangover, Guile is able to defeat Ken, which motivates the duo to start a training journey and improve their martial art skills by challenging opponents around the world. While in India, Ryu fights an imaginary Guile during a training session, but stops the fight and acknowledges his respect for the Sergeant for showing them how arrogant they were and inspiring them to travel the world. Later in the series, Guile is recruited by Ken's father along with his friend Charlie (who retains his Japanese name, Nash, in the dub) when Ryu, Ken and Chun-Li are taken captive by Shadaloo. He faces Zangief while infiltrating Bison's base, while Nash confronts Bison himself. Guile knocks Zangief out, but is unable to save Nash from Bison, who pits a brainwashed Chun-Li against the enraged Sergeant. Outside, Guile fights Chun-Li until Bison's demise snaps her out of her brainwashing, and he is last seen showing admiration for Ryu and Ken when they emerge unharmed from the battlefield.

In UDON's Street Fighter comic adaptation, Guile is given a central role alongside Chun-Li, particularly in the first arc but he also is a frequent cast member in later arcs. Similar to the official story, Guile is chasing after Shadaloo to discover the whereabouts of his Army buddy, Charlie Nash. Guile is first introduced to Charlie after his aircraft is shot down and Charlie commands a black-ops mission to rescue him. Like the official story, Charlie teaches Guile to fight. For the first arc of the comics, Guile spends his time looking for Ryu, believing to there to be a connection between him and Shadaloo. He traces him to the US and then back to Japan. While in Japan, he and Chun-Li engage a Shadaloo-controlled Charlie (codenamed "Agent Shadow") and fight him off. At the end of the first story arc, Charlie regains his senses and rejoins Chun-Li and Guile before they're attacked by M. Bison. Charlie unleashes his latent Psycho Power abilities and sacrifices himself to take out Bison (Charlie giving his own life to stop Bison echoes Guile's ending in Street Fighter Alpha 3), leaving Guile distraught and swearing vengeance against Shadaloo. Afterwards, Guile continues to assist Chun-Li in looking for Bison (whom they believe survived his encounter with Charlie) but all the while juggling his struggling relationship with his wife, Julia, and their daughter, Amy. Eventually the family reconciles at the end of the comic's second arc. Guile isn't heavily active during the second series of comics (Street Fighter II) but he is given an invitation to Bison's tournament, which he accepts as his final bid for vengeance. The final series (Street Fighter II Turbo) documents Guile's entry into M. Bison's fighting tournament. While on Shadaloo island, he is contacted by Cammy, who needs his help but cannot openly assist him as she is attempting to fool Bison into thinking she is under his control. Through a carefully woven set of scripted matches, Guile and Chun-Li get themselves eliminated from the tournament and successfully free the Delta Red squadron. Together they manage to locate and destroy Bison's Psycho Drive before evacuating the island as it sinks. The aftermath of the tournament show that Guile is satisfied with the results, believing he has successfully avenged Charlie, and is now comfortably living with his family.

A Guile-inspired costume for players to use in Sony's LittleBigPlanet was released on December 12 of 2008 as downloadable content for the title.