Director: Kitao Sakurai
Writer: Kitao Sakurai, T.J. Fixman
Stars: Noah Centineo, Andrew Koji, David Dastmalchian
Synopsis: Street Fighters Ryu and Ken reunite when Chun-Li recruits them for the World Warrior Tournament. As they face a hidden conspiracy, they must confront each other and their past-or face destruction.
Video game to movie adaptations are notoriously hard to get right. All you’d have to do is ask the filmmaking teams behind the dozens of failures in recent memory to understand. However, 2026 has seemingly been somewhat of a turning point, with arguably Mortal Kombat II and definitely Resident Evil showing the feat is entirely possible when put in the right hands. So understandably, expectations for a new Street Fighter movie were fairly high. After all, it is one of the most iconic gaming franchises of all time. Unfortunately, that faith proves to be misplaced as Street Fighter never finds the balance between fan service and creating a coherent movie, ultimately failing to satisfy either side of the divide.
Set in 1993, several years after Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) and Ryu’s (Andrew Koji) brutal encounter with a demon named Akuma (Joe Anoa’i), in which they lost their master, Gouken (Don Lee), the story unfolds as a new World Warrior tournament is being set in motion. The competition is the brainchild of the antagonist M. Bison (David Dastmalchian), who bears an alarming resemblance to a Nazi SS officer. He intends to use the event to carry out his sinister plan to harvest the powers and energy of the fighters, generating Psycho Power that would make him a colossal and unstoppable force. However, Bison’s intentions are not as secret as he might think, with one of his confidants, Chun-Li (Callina Liang), actually being an undercover Interpol agent with a personal vendetta to settle.
To complicate matters even further, a reluctant Ryu, who has been missing ever since that fateful encounter, is psychically visited by Akuma, who plans to kill whoever wins the tournament. With his old friend Ken Masters among the participants, Ryu is forced to either fight or watch someone close to him die. If that wasn’t already enough plot, there’s more, with other fighters thrown into the mix who believe the competition offers them a legitimate chance to become the world’s best.
It almost goes without saying that the script, co-written by director Kitao Sakurai alongside fellow writer T.J. Fixman bites off a lot more than it can chew. There’s an excessive number of plotlines scattered throughout the world they have tried to build, meaning none of them are ever given the chance to breathe for even a second. Instead, the narrative is completely frenetic as it desperately attempts to tie all these loose and largely uninteresting threads together without ever coming close to doing so in a coherent or entertaining way. To make matters worse, Sakurai inexplicably leaves multiple storylines unresolved in the hope that a sequel will be greenlit, without offering anything even remotely satisfying in this first installment.
The characters they have to work with are truly iconic. Generations of fans have grown up with these figures and have come to genuinely love them, yet none are given any meaningful depth amongst the array of plotlines, not even Ken or Ryu, who are supposed to be the leads. It might be passable for diehard fans who already understand enough of the lore to not need a fully fleshed-out backstory. However, for those who are relatively new or haven’t stayed up to date with the franchise, it proves to be an incredibly frustrating experience, as there’s no real reason to root for any of them.
Perhaps the most disappointing element, though, is the complete lack of time devoted to the actual tournament that made Street Fighter a household name in the first place. Entire rounds of the competition, including the mouthwatering prospect of a Guile versus Vega showdown, are skipped altogether. It begs the question as to why some of these characters were introduced at all if we don’t even get to see them fight. Without a doubt, the movie would’ve been much stronger had more attention been devoted to what is easily its most entertaining aspect. Instead, audiences are left wondering what could’ve been.
Rather surprisingly, the action sequences, which you’d assume would be the one element that would be an automatic slam dunk, feel distinctly lackluster. At the end of the day, these are fighters with superhuman and supernatural abilities who can destroy each other as they unleash devastating knockouts. So, you’d feel safe in assuming the filmmakers would come up with fresh, inventive, and visually inspired ways of bringing these encounters to life. Alas, even the combat is remarkably mundane, with a glaring absence of the adrenaline-fueled fun that the movie was crying out for so dearly.
Like many recent movies within the same genre, as we’ve seen with Mortal Kombat II and Masters of the Universe, it attempts to adopt an overly jokey and completely unserious tone that, rather impressively, misses the mark almost every single time. It’s actually quite strange, as the humor doesn’t seem to have any idea who it’s aiming for. It’s hard to imagine teens finding any of this funny, and even the dads of the world will likely find most of the gags painfully unamusing. What’s even more nauseating is the artificially inserted pauses in the hope of generating laughs, to the point where the whole experience starts to feel genuinely uncomfortable.
While Street Fighter does boast an impressive amount of star power on paper, sadly, the cast was pretty much doomed from the get-go by some of the cringiest and cheesiest dialogue of the year, which is bound to leave many squirming in their seats. Among the mess, though, David Dastmalchian is easily the most enjoyable aspect. He takes what he’s given and really tries to make the most of it, playing his over-the-top villainous role remarkably well. Aside from that, even Andrew Koji and Noah Centineo, who are given the most to work with, are largely forgettable.
It all culminates in the feeling that this version of Street Fighter is a huge waste of time. There’s nothing that particularly stands out as an improvement over the 1994 film, nor is there anything especially noteworthy that will please either hardcore fans or newcomers to the franchise. The inexplicable cliffhanger it leaves audiences on is also bound to leave a sour taste in many mouths. A sequel should only really be necessary if the first movie warrants one, and there was never any danger of this version of Street Fighter earning a follow-up on merit. Perhaps, though, it still might financially.
