With a height of about 2.20 cm and a weight of 185 kilograms, Zangief is one of the gigantic fighters in the Street Fighter series, and is always considered a national hero fighting for the victory of his country. This little sparrow, which first appeared in the second game of the series, attracted a lot of attention with its huge hairball and mohawk hair in the middle of its chest, wore red frost and whose body was bruised by wrestling with brown bears, is undoubtedly one of the unforgettable names of our childhood.
The first name considered for Zangief, designed by Akira Yasuda, is said to have been Vodka Gobalsky. It is intended to be very powerful but slower compared to other fighters. The character’s first designs are very similar to his final appearance, but fortunately, in a cover photo of the second game, we see that Zangief has some kind of anchor tattoo on his arm. As far as we know, there is no such tattoo in later games, even in the first game in which it appears.
The character of Zangief, who is said to be inspired by the Russian wrestler Victor Zangiev and the character named Goda in the manga Hokuto No Ken as an external appearance, has many similarities with Haggar in another Capcom production Final Fight game as a movement set. Considering that all of this content existed before Street Fighter 2, Zangief can be called a character who is a little bit of her, a little bit of this.
Street Fighter Zangief;s Story
Zangief, who grew up in the Soviet Union, is an extremely patriotic character who is motivated to fight for the land of his birth. He is obsessed with his patriotic as well as his enormous physique, tying the fights he loses to his lack of muscle strength. Among the things he doesn’t like are young and beautiful women who think they’re distracted, and bears who don’t know how to wrestle properly (which might sound a little funny here). Even if he wins against Kuma in Street Fighter X Tekken; He utters derogatory words like, ‘The bears in Siberia are better than you, you’re like a kitten!’
While similar stories are present in the Street Fighter Alpha series and other Street Fighter games, the background in all of Zangief’s appearances is that he usually participates in tournaments by order of the Soviet president. For example, in Street Fighter Alpha 3, we can see a similar story in the second game as he is sent to fight the forces of the Shadaloo organization, whose corruption has begun to spread to the Soviet state. However, the main issue here is not the story behind it, but rather the fact that the Soviet leader who sent Zangief to the tournaments bears a lot of similarities with the real-life Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
In fact, in the finale of the second game, he performs a sweater dance with President Zangief who comes down from the helicopter.
In the meantime, let’s not forget to add this.. While you can easily see symbols such as sickles and hammers or words that adopt a socialist mindset in the old games of the series, such things are not included in the new games. In the new games, there are elements that we can call humorous about Zangief’s relationships with bears or his devotion to the muscles I just described. In fact, this topic is a bit of an exaggeration with Game 5 because we see Zangief smashing a sword on his chest.
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Zangief in the Street Fighter Movie
Finally, Andrew Bryniarski played the character of Zangief in the Street Fighter movie, which has nothing to do with Street Fighter, which I never tire of saying every time. Contrary to the usual, Zangief is portrayed in the film as a person who initially worked for M. Bison, later defected, and usually looked a little absurd and naïve.
If there is a memorable scene of the film, let’s finish this article here by saying that it is the fight with Honda.
As always, don’t forget to mention your favorite character in the Street Fighter series or who you’d like the next character to be in the comments. Also, if you want to watch this article as a video, you can use the link below. Take care of yourself, stay healthy.
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References;
streetfighter.fandom.com/wiki/Zangief#cite_note-SFV_Japanese_site-5
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zangief
tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihail_Gorba%C3%A7ov
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