“Street Fighter” – (2026)

The street rep of video game movies has experienced a noticeable wave of improvement in the last decade, a marked contrast to the preceding two decades where crashing and burning was all but expected within the sub-genre. Thanks to such specimens of the 2020’s as the “Sonic the Hedgehog” franchise, “Mortal Kombat II”, and the latter day “Super Mario Bros.” movies, the average has swung considerably more in the direction of the thumbs up verdict for video game movies, but in this sub-genre, has a rising tide truly risen all ships if “Street Fighter” is not carried along with it? It should go without saying that the answer is a resounding no, and after two previous big-screen flame-outs in 1994 and 2009, the third time is quite the charm indeed for the Street Fighter 2026 Movie Review, which celebrates the newest cinematic iteration of “Street Fighter”, capturing the heart, soul, and fun of the video game franchise with the explosive energy of fifty Hadoukens and twenty Shoryukens, with an added topping of loving and fervent ‘90s nostalgia.

Trailer

Cast

Andrew Koji and Noah Centineo lead “Street Fighter” as the franchise’s famed Hadouken-blasting pillars and sleeveless-gi trendsetters, Ryu and Ken Masters, with Callina Liang embodying the high-kicking first lady of fighting games, Chun Li. Damian Dastmalchian portrays the ruthless dictator villain of the “Street Fighter” universe M. Bison, with Roman Reigns portraying the more demonic force of evil Akuma, and Andrew Schulz playing Ken’s close friend and manager Dan Hibiki. Cody Rhodes dons the aerodynamically improbable hair follicles of the game’s All-American hero Guile, with Bollywood’s famed King of Kalari Vidyut Jammwal making his Hollywood debut as Dhalsim. Orville Peck also masks up for the claw-driven attacks of the notorious vain assassin Vega, with 50 Cent donning boxing gloves and a widow’s peak as Balrog and Jason Momoa going a little green as the feral Brazilian carrot top known as Blanka. Olivier Ritchers also suplexes opponents for the glory of Mother Russia as Zangief, with Hirooki Goto adopting the swift hand-slapping skills of E. Honda, and Mel Jarnson and Rayna Vallandingham wielding kicks and bo staffs galore as Bison’s brainwashed “dolls” Cammy White and Juli. Additionally, Australian MMA camp Alexander Volkanovski brings Aussie kickboxer Joe to life with grit and vigor, while Don Lee’s ever-commanding presence is channeled into the voice of Ryu and Ken’s sensei Gouken in the anime-style flashback’s sprinkled throughout “Street Fighter”.

Plot

In 1987, the mysterious martial artist known only as Ryu shot to global fame after his bloody victory over Sagat, a.k.a. the Emperor of Muay Thai, in the first World Warrior tournament, hosted and organized by the ruthless leader of the Shadaloo organization, M. Bison. Unfortunately, Ryu’s victory came by way of him tapping into the darker side of his training in the art of Ansatsuken, known as “Satsui no Hado” or “Dark Hadou”. This led to Akuma, the vicious brother of his sensei Gouken, arriving to challenge the wise master, with Gouken being slain and Ryu failing to stop him. This drives a wedge between Ryu and his best friend and fellow student Ken Masters, with Ryu disappearing into seclusion and Ken becoming a celebrated but wreckless world champion and media darling. In 1993, M. Bison announces the second World Warrior tournament, inviting the world’s greatest martial artists to compete, with undercover Interpol agent Chun Li recruiting the fighters, including Ken, with her true goal being to get close to Bison in order to avenge her father’s murder at his hands. The second World Warrior tournament itself is really a ruse on Bison’s part to lure Ryu into his clutches in order to drain his Hado power from him in order to fuel Bison’s own dark energy known as “Psycho Power” in his bid to conquer the world. Meanwhile, despite their falling out, Ryu knows that Ken will make himself a target for Akuma should he win the tournament, with Ryu entering the competition and swiftly finding himself at odds with Ken, Bison, and Akuma with the fate of the world itself hanging in the balance.

Action

“Street Fighter” Is An Outlandish Yin To The Yang of “Mortal Kombat II”

With both “Mortal Kombat” and “Street Fighter” returning to cinema screens in the same year, the two sides of the same fighting game coin they’ve each embodied is captured in perhaps its sharpest live-action snapshot yet. Whereas “Mortal Kombat II” has a tongue-in-cheek campiness to it interwoven with the movie largely playing it straight with the mythos of its namesake, “Street Fighter” Shoryukens the audience into another realm of fantastical fireworks proudly untethered from anything close to realism. The world still awaits the much-asked-for Mortal Kombat vs Street Fighter video game cross over, but the fact that both franchises are landing such powerful knock-out punches cinematically in the same calendar year is just about the next best thing, even as one still hopes that “Tekken” joins them in the near future.

“Street Fighter” Is As True To “Street Fighter” As A Movie Can Get (But Guile’s Hair Is Still A Bit Much In Live-Action!)

From a standpoint of pure visual panache and action-packed craziness, “Street Fighter” is just about a one-to-one from the consoles and arcades to the big-screen. Under the direction of Kitao Sakurai, “Street Fighter” is utterly committed and completely earnest about the world it brings to life of Psycho-powered dictators, supernatural demonic entities, and Hadouken-blasting world warriors in a way that is as admirable as it is fun. “Street Fighter” knows that the world it takes place in and the characters that populate are as deferential to reality as both in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”, and the presentation of every stage, fight scene, and character introduction is as matter-of-fact about being an anime-esque world of flesh and blood. “Street Fighter” simply dives head-first into the most out-of-this-world action and visual fun with a verve and tenacity that is simply applause worthy, and make no mistake, when it comes to the special moves of “Street Fighter” games, that extends well beyond the main signature moves of Ryu, Ken, and Chun Li that go without saying in any live-action take on the franchise. Name a “Street Fighter” character in th

e movie’s ensemble, and their special moves blast through the screen like a flaming roundhouse kick to the face, an experience “Street Fighter” have been much short-changed on at the multiplex and which “Street Fighter” compensates for with wild and vibrant zeal.

BUUUUUTTTT….Guile’s hair, as recognizable and outrageous a mane of cranium-based follicle chaos as that of Ace Ventura, is perhaps the ONE visual element of “Street Fighter” that’s just a bridge too far in the live-action domain. Not that it detracts from “Street Fighter” overall or from Cody Rhodes engagingly hoo-rah performance as the franchise’s All-American hero, but the movie’s literal rendering of Guile’s anti-crew cut is perhaps one of the best reminders in recent memory that what looks great on the pages of a comic book or the pixels of a video game doesn’t always perfectly translate to live-action. In that regard, the more modified rendering of Guile’s hair for Jean-Claude Van Damme’s scalp in 1994’s camp funhouse “Street Fighter: The Movie” is, arguably, the one and only area where “Street Fighter” could have taken some notes.

The Anime Flashbacks Of “Street Fighter” Are A Great World-Building Tool

Indeed, as keenly aware of and committed to bringing the visually bananas world of “Street Fighter” to life in live-action, the movie makes liberal use of anime as a storytelling supplement. With the bulk of the movie set during the 1993 World Warrior tournament, “Street Fighter” flashes back in time at regular intervals to showcase Ryu’s initial victory over Sagat in the first tournament, along with pulling back the curtain on the history of characters like Ryu, Ken, Gouken, Akuma, and Blanka. With the upfront caveat that yours truly isn’t especially well-versed in or enamored with anime, the anime flashbacks of “Street Fighter” are yet another of the movie’s many building blocks of capturing its source material as a vibrant, colorful blast of fantastical energy that also build out its world and history in a generally streamlined and user-friendly way for die-hard gamers and casual viewers alike.

Choose Your Fighter – Andrew Koji & Noah Centineo Splendidly Embody The Ryu-Ken Friendship & Warrior Ethos (& Callina Liangh2 Phenomenal Chun Li)

As with the games from which it derives, “Street Fighter” sets Ryu, Ken, and Chun Li as its trinity of narrative pillars, with all three nailing it. Noah Centineo perhaps leans a bit more heavily into Johnny Cage-style vanity and egotism than is typically the case for Ken Masters, but he’s nonetheless a charismatic delight with the movie’s portrayal of Ken as a kind of martial arts-devoted social media influencer three decades before the profession’s origin. Callina Liang’s Chun Li is also a true tribute to the first lady of fighting games if ever there was one, with Liang’s performance and the foundation of “Street Fighter” establishing a far better launching pad for a “Legend of Chun Li”-style spin-off than the 2009 movie of the same name ever did. Andrew Koji, fittingly as the stoic, single-minded but internally-conflicted warrior Ryu, is the only one playing it straight, Koji adding a bit more of a tongue-in-cheek quality to his penchant for gruff loners with punishing martial arts skills in his portrayal of Ryu’s focused mind in a world where Guile’s hairstyle and Vega’s claws are just part of an average Tuesday.

“Street Fighter” Is Visually And Combatively Bonkers In All The Best Ways

Did we cover yet how much “Street Fighter” delivers a polite but firm “Thanks, but no thanks” to the grounded and gritty approach to reboots and embraces campy fun, over-the-top action, and visual pizazz like its 1999, or rather 1993? Because it absolutely bears repeating how gleefully enthusiastic “Street Fighter” is in how little it cares about realism and places all of its energy into capturing the visual vibrancy of the games and the fighting styles, special moves, and over-the-top personalities of its characters. And non-stop action is indeed the order of the day in “Street Fighter”, which always has either a superhuman smackdown, an anime-style flashback, a ‘90s era needle drop, or trifecta of all of the above on display from the opening to the closing credits. Like no other big-screen adaptation of the games, “Street Fighter” also captures the larger-than-life martial arts action of the franchise like an electric jolt from Blanka himself.

Not unlike the often abstractly structured canon of the franchise itself, the actual World Warrior tournament is more a plot device than a “Best of the Best” or “Cobra Kai” style showdown, but there’s great action-packed fun to be had in the arena, especially in Ken’s platform smashing battles with Balrog and Dhalism. Indeed, bonus points also awarded to “Street Fighter” for giving Bollywood action hero Vidyut Jammwal his long-awaited Hollywood debut as Dhalism, whose atypically elastic fighting style has been sat on for far too long in the franchise’s previous live-action renditions, finally done justice here with Jammwal’s charisma and Kalaripayattu skills, with a little CGI assistance where needed. Funnily enough, “Street Fighter” also scores arguably the best bar fight of the year the night before the tournament, with nearly the entire roster jumping in on the action with special moves left and right. The final third of “Street Fighter” also places Ryu, Ken, Chun Li, and even Blanka’s respective histories and vendettas front and center with wall-to-wall smackdowns in Bison’s prison complex, villain headquarters, alleyways, and the World Warrior arena where Ryu’s internal battle to keep the darkness within him comes to a head against Akuma’s drive to awaken it, with Dark Hadou galore in the showdown on Ansatsuken masters.

Summary

While the 2014 web-series “Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist” retains the throne of the franchise’s finest hour in live-action, “Street Fighter” is far too much of a blast of crazily energetic fun to not take the crown among the franchise’s trio of big-screen renditions. Playing it straight, grounded, and semi-realistic has its place in movies born of the fighting game genre, but “Street Fighter” shows that unapologetic camp and literally arena-destroying fantastical martial arts battles aren’t to be sneezed at either. In a universe of dictators, claw-wielding ninja matadors, and world warriors whose successively thrown kicks number in the hundreds in a matter of seconds, “Street Fighter” is a true champion.

Trivia

Prior to his big screen career, Andrew Koji studied Kung Fu at the famed Shaolin Temple UK (check out KFK’s interview with Shifu Yan Lei of Shaolin Temple UK here!), and also trained and competed in Taekwondo. Additionally, Koji has also studied Karate, Judo, and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and trained in Wing Chun specifically for his role as Ah Sahm on the Bruce Lee-derived series “Warrior”.

Prior to his portrayal of Ryu in “Street Fighter”, Andrew Koji played Ah Sahm on the series “Warrior”, the show based on the TV series concept created by Bruce Lee, with Ah Sahm being the role Lee would have played had the show been realized in his lifetime. Interestingly, 2014’s “Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist” and it’s 2016 follow-up “Street Fighter: Resurrection” saw Mike Moh in the role of Ryu, with Moh later going onto to play Bruce Lee in 2019’s “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood”.

Callina Liang trained in Wushu, Taekwondo, and Muay Thai for her role as Chun Li. Additionally, in order to bulk up Chun Li’s famed thighs for the movie, Liang ate every two hours, which involves consuming 12 eggs per day.

In addition to playing Blanka, Jason Momoa was also a producer on the movie.

Jon Valera served as second unit director for the movie. Some of his other credits in stunts and fight choreography include “300”, “Ninja Assassin”, “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum”, “The Wrecking Crew”, “Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn”, “xXx: Return of Xander Cage”, “Man of Tai Chi”, and “The Avengers”. Check out KFK’s in-depth interview with Jon for his role as fight choreographer on 2018’s “Aquaman”!

Favourite Quotes:

“For you, today is the day you die. For me, it’s Tuesday.” – M. Bison, during a fight with Chun Li, and echoing Raul Julia’s immortal quote from 1994’s “Street Fighter: The Movie”.

Film rating – 8.5/10

“Street Fighter” is now playing in theaters around the world? Have you seen “Street Fighter” yet? What are your thoughts on the movie’s incredible fight sequences and visual insanity? What are some of your favourite video game movies? Let us know in the comments below; Like, share and join in the conversation on Facebook and follow us on Twitter & Instagram. (And be sure to pay a visit to KFK’s FU-niversity of movie reviews and exclusive interviews, grab your official KFK gear and subscribe for more action on YouTube, too!)