电影俱乐部：《街头霸王》(2026)

Major league butt-kicking is back in town.

Film Club is where we take a look at video game movies and TV shows and offer our impressions and insights. Part review, part reflection, Film Club is a great way to find something new to watch based on all of our favorite pastime.

Spoilers Ahead

The original 1994 live action Street Fighter movie and the legendary anime Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie are two of the best (yes, I’m including the first movie, thank you) adaptations of the venerable franchise to date. It’s been a while, though, since fans have gotten a proper silver screen take on the series (no, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li does not count). Now, Paramount and Legendary have partnered with Capcom and director Kitao Sakurai to deliver fans Street Fighter, the latest stab at turning the World Warriors into beings of flesh and blood. And if you go into the movie with the right frame of mind, you’re bound to have a good time.

What I mean by the right frame of mind is if you’re expecting a Christopher Nolan-esque, grounded take on Street Fighter, this movie isn’t it, at all. Street Fighter is unabashedly and unapologetically over-the-top. All of the characters are bigger than life, all of the characters are depicted in their classic costumes, and the story is about as deep as a puddle (sometimes to a fault, which I’ll get to). But it works, and it works well, because the movie leans into being goofy and crazy, but does it with heart. Sure, Street Fighter can work without the camp; the anime proves that, and any number of UDON’s various Street Fighter comics and manga translations do, too. What fans get with this movie, though, is a depiction of the gonzo aspects of the series in a way that maintains the authentic look and feel of the games while working with real life actors.

It’s not going to please everyone, but I think, broadly speaking, this was the best way to go. Actors Andrew Koji and Noah Centineo play Ryu and Ken Masters, respectively. The film opens with an anime flashback sequence depicting the first World Warrior Tournament in a battle against Sagat. During the battle, Ryu taps into the Dark Hado, the sinister power that can grant its wielder limitless strength, but at the cost of their very soul, rendering them a dark, blood-lusting shadow of their former self. It’s here that Ryu’s struggles begin, as the awakening of the Dark Hado within himself not only becomes a personal battle, but also a siren call to Akuma, who is drawn to Ryu’s new power and desperate for combat. Ryu decides to forego his life as a fighter, abandoning Ken and living in obscurity selling terrible ramen made from fermented pigeon.

Six years pass, with Ken now more of a sideshow than a real fighter. It’s during this intro to Ken’s current life that we see he’s become a famous figure in the world of competitive fighting but is now spending more time shilling products in TV commercials than doing any real battling. Enter Chun-Li (played by Callina Liang), emissary of M. Bison (David Dastmalchian). She’s gathering fighter for World Warrior Tournament II, but with an ulterior motive: to draw Ryu back out of hiding. Bison wants to drain Ryu of the Dark Hado and use it imbue himself with Psycho Power. Chun-Li manages to convince Ken to join the fight, which Ryu learns about and is frantic to stop. He doesn’t want Ken to compete because he assumes Ken will win, which will in turn draw out Akuma. Eventually, Ryu relents and joins the tournament when Ken refuses to step down.

It’s a solid setup to get all of the players on the board. Pretty much all of the classic fighter appear here, including Guile (Cody Rhodes), Cammy White (Mel Jarnson), Dan Hibiki (Andrew Schulz), Balrog (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson), Akuma (Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoa’i), Blanka (Jason Momoa), Zangief (Olivier Richters), E. Honda (Hirooki Goto), Dhalsim (Vidyut Jammwal), and Vega (Orville Peck). In a departure for modern Hollywood, somehow Paramount managed to cast everyone authentically. The characters are all very close to their video game counterparts, which was a breath of fresh air when it comes to these sort of adaptations. Not that it should be hard when they’re the World Warriors, for crying out loud. What’s more, the characters are all shown in authentic costumes from the games. This includes Cammy’s Killer Bee thonged bodysuit, much to the chagrin of online puritans (more on that later, too).

A period piece, Street Fighter’s ’90s setting was a welcome addition to the film. The MTV intro makes an appearance, there are multiple video clips with that signature CRT grain, and more. The soundtrack features a lot of great songs from the decade, but there are some inconsistencies, including tunes that came out after the movie’s 1993 timestamp, and some of the wardrobe doesn’t look totally accurate. Some of the outfits definitely are, though; Ken hams it up with his garish male crop tops (you’d have to have been alive in the ’90s to, well, no, it didn’t make sense then, either), showing off his abs and his physique throughout the film. It fits with the character’s ostentatious nature, but amazingly, the sex appeal extends to the women in Street Fighter, as well. There’s Cammy’s Killer Bee costume, but there’s also a good eyeful of Chun-Li training in her underwear and a flash of the top of her booty as she takes a shower (an homage to the anime). Of course, the progressive crowd considers this an affront to humanity (how dare a woman be sexy!), but I was happy for some normalcy. These characters have always been built like gods and goddesses, have always been depicted as sexy, and anyone who doesn’t like it can go play Concord or something.

The characterization of the various fighters is mostly on the money. Ryu is stoic and brooding; Ken is wild and free spirited; Chun-Li is serious and determined; Guile is the all-American soldier; and so on. Some of the relationships were unexpected but worked, like the friendship between Ken and Dan. In the games/comics, Dan is traditionally more of a rival to Ken. While they both trained under Master Gouken, Gouken ended Dan’s training early because of Dan’s obsession with avenging the murder of his father at the hands of Sagat. None of that is ever mentioned in the film, instead opting to depict the two as very close pals. Look, I’ve been a fan of the Street Fighter series for decades and I didn’t really care that they made this change. I also appreciated some of the dude humor between Ken and Dan, with a bunch of jokes made about the two of them being gay or worried about being perceived as gay (they’re not). Like the sex appeal, it’s the sort of thing that normal, everyday people appreciate. It wasn’t hateful, it wasn’t mean-spirited; it was just dudes interacting like dudes.

Other great moments include Ryu and E. Honda’s mutual respect, Guile telling Vega to “go home and be a family man,” and, best of all, Chun-Li taking a stand in a dramatic moment midway through the movie. There’s some portrayals that aren’t as successful, however. Dastmalchian nails some of Bison’s facial expressions, but he is absolutely lacking as a physical presence. Bison is supposed to be huge and intimidating. This movie focused more on making Bison erratic and crazy, with some violent outbursts and weird, sexual innuendos that just don’t match the character. Indeed, there’s a clear obsession by the writers (which includes the director) with sexual humiliation fetishizing that’s apparent throughout the movie. At one point Don Sauvage, the captured MC played by Eric André, is actually licking Cammy’s boots. A lot of this part of the humor didn’t work for me, mainly because it was so obviously someone’s fetish being made manifest on the screen. You do you if that’s your thing, but it went overboard in Street Fighter.

Another oddity was Cammy, who is pretty wild and crazy compared to her usual cool, restrained self. This includes when she’s under Bison’s control as Killer Bee and when she’s her usual self with MI6 and her Delta Red squad. That said, given this is clearly supposed to be Cammy as Killer Bee, I think that the portrayal works. She serves as a good counter to the more serious Chun-Li, who she acts as something of a rival towards throughout the movie. My hope is that when she returns (more on that later, as well!), we’ll get to see her snap out of the brainwashing and be more like the character in the games/comics. We’ll have to wait and see.

Given this is a movie based on a fighting game series, one goes into Street Fighter with a reasonable expectation for brawling, and the movie delivers… mostly. The anime fight sequences are excellent, but the live action throwdowns are also very well choreographed. We get some solid bouts with much of the cast. Some standouts include the multiway battle between Ken, Ryu, Zangief, Guile, and Vega; Chun-Li versus Juli (Rayna Vallandingham) and Vega; and the final showdown with Ryu and [redacted]. There are others, and they’re all memorable, especially when classic moves from the game are utilized. There are Hadoukens, there Shoryukens, there are Flash Kicks. Some attacks didn’t make the final cut, however, like Chun-Li’s Spinning Bird kick, but hey, at least we got a lot of it. The movie does come up short with one of the tournament battles being cut, which was a downer.

One area that the film struggled with was letting certain moments sit for the audience to digest. A sobering moment where Ken commits to the tournament as a way of honoring Master Goukin, with Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun playing dramatically in the background, was strong right up until Chun-Li undercuts it by announcing to Ken she was there listening the whole time. Some pundits, like Real Fake Wizard, are of the opinion that the movie is constantly emasculating and diminishing its male characters. I didn’t feel anywhere near that strongly about that with Street Fighter, as I think the series has a pedigree with its humor and goofiness across multiple forms of media. However, just from a storytelling perspective, not allowing serious moments to be serious is a cancer brought upon genre films ever since Disney Marvel’s MCU films started doing it in virtually every production. Street Fighter would have been a bit better if it had allowed some of these moments to strike a little harder and left them alone.

Another problem area comes from some unclear storytelling. Later in the movie, there’s an escape sequence featuring two characters. I had no idea that one of those characters was even on his way to break out the other, and even less idea that they’d gone undercover to do it. It just happened, abruptly, and was pretty confusing. I was also thrown off by a conversation between Ken and Chun-Li that begins in the present (I think) and then transitions to the past (I think) and it’s not all that clear why the shift happens at all. My biggest gripe is reserved for Eric André. Director Kitao Sakurai worked on The Eric André Show, thus André’s inclusion (I assume) and horrendously large amount of screen time. Eric André isn’t funny, his Don Sauvage isn’t funny, and the entire movie would have been better off without the character. I really hope he doesn’t make it back for the sequel.

Speaking of, the movie ends on a total cliffhanger. I won’t spoil what it is, but unless the movie does well, odds are fans won’t see how things wrap up. Hopefully that’s not the case, as Street Fighter was a solid time at the theater. It’s funny, it has heart, and it’s got buckets of muscle and sex appeal and fights and craziness and fun. It might not be the super serious film some fans wanted, and it might not be the hyper-masculine take on some of the characters that others would prefer, but I felt like it captured the spirit and the energy of the games, comics, and anime that it’s based on. I recommend giving it a watch.