Street Fighter Review: A Nostalgic Throwdown That Tries to Beat You Into Submission
The relentless Hollywood trend of mining video game nostalgia for cinematic gold continues with the latest big-screen adaptation of Street Fighter, a franchise that has been a staple of arcades and living rooms since 1987. This new iteration, directed by Kitao Sakurai, arrives decades after the 1994 film that starred Jean-Claude Van Damme and the largely forgotten 2009 reboot Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Sakurai’s version is clearly intended as a love letter to aging gamers, a film stuffed with so many characters, references, and deep-cut elements from the games that casual viewers may find themselves struggling to keep up. The result is a curious balancing act, one that tries to serve both devoted fans and newcomers, and ultimately leaves neither camp entirely satisfied.
There is no questioning the passion that Sakurai and co-screenwriter T.J. Fixman bring to the material. Their enthusiasm feels genuine, the kind of energy that comes from people who spent countless hours hunched over arcade cabinets or console controllers, memorizing special moves and character backstories. But that fervor ironically becomes the film’s undoing. The movie lurches between deadly serious drama and broad parody, creating a jumbled tonal mess that never quite settles into a consistent groove. Even the film’s most distinctive stylistic choice—using vibrant 2D anime-style sequences for flashbacks—proves to be a double-edged sword. These animated interludes are so effective, so full of life and color, that they wind up overshadowing the live-action footage surrounding them.
For a reviewer who is not a player of the games, and for whom the earlier Street Fighter films are only a distant memory, this new entry proved only sporadically entertaining. The fight sequences, which naturally dominate the proceedings, are colorfully staged and often inventive. Yet they feel underwhelming when compared to the modern action landscape, where franchises like John Wick have raised the bar for visceral, intricately choreographed mayhem. The film’s battles are fun in the moment, but they rarely generate the kind of tension or excitement that makes an action movie truly memorable.
The story begins with an animated prologue set in 1987, followed by a mock tabloid television segment that attempts to bring viewers up to speed. The main narrative takes place six years later, when brothers-in-arms Ken Masters and Ryu have fallen on hard times. Ken, played by Noah Centineo, has descended into a life of drunken aimlessness, spending his nights warbling a karaoke version of a 4 Non Blondes song. Ryu, portrayed by Andrew Koji, is an unkempt purveyor of ramen so unappetizing that even a stray cat refuses to eat it. The two are reunited by Chun-Li, played by Callina Liang, an underling of the evil M. Bison, portrayed by David Dastmalchian. Chun-Li recruits them for the upcoming World Warrior tournament, but both she and her boss have ulterior motives. Bison seeks to exploit the fighters’ powers for his own nefarious purposes, while Chun-Li is secretly an Interpol agent determined to bring Bison down for the murder of her father.
That is roughly the extent of the plot, and frankly, the film itself does not bother with much more. After establishing this premise, Street Fighter essentially settles for delivering big-screen versions of a staggering number of fan-favorite characters, most of whom receive only the briefest moments of screen time. Describing them all here would be pointless, as fans already know who they are and non-fans will not care. Suffice it to say that they are a very colorful bunch, played by an ensemble of varying effectiveness. The casting choices are, to put it mildly, unconventional. Singer Orville Peck and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson appear as fighters, while former Saturday Night Live performer Kyle Mooney shows up as Chun-Li’s Interpol handler, a role that comes with a major crush on his colleague. A CGI-altered Jason Momoa, who also served as a producer, appears as the green, Hulk-like Blanka. Director Sakurai’s previous credits include The Eric Andre Show and the film Bad Trip, which explains the presence of his frequent collaborator Eric André as a bellowing ring announcer.
The film is filled with vintage pop music needle drops, including a moment where Ken enters the ring to, what else, “Who Let the Dogs Out.” It also lives up to its oft-repeated mantra, “To live is to fight, to fight is to live,” with an endless procession of fight scenes. One standout sequence, a steam bath battle between a barely clothed Ryu and a corpulent opponent, is impressive but inevitably invites comparison to the similar, far more memorable fight in David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises. That film, however, did not feature such extravagantly costumed and coiffed fighters. The design and special effects teams here have worked overtime to make the actors look like their video game counterparts, and the results are often striking, even when the overall effect is more cosplay than cinema.
Centineo proves entertainingly oafish as Ken, bringing a certain charm to the role of a washed-up fighter trying to find his way back. Koji, meanwhile, infuses the proceedings with some much-needed gravitas as the emotionally tortured but still kick-ass Ryu. Liang displays impressive charisma as the formidable Chun-Li, a character who deserves more screen time than she gets. As for Dastmalchian, inheriting the villainous role played so memorably by Raul Julia in the 1994 film, he opts for a more creepy than campy approach. His M. Bison is a quietly unsettling presence, distinguished mainly by his perverse olfactory pleasures, a choice that sets him apart from the theatrical villainy of his predecessor.
The film arrives at a time when video game adaptations are enjoying a renaissance, but it also follows in the wake of recent disappointments. The latest big-screen incarnation of Masters of the Universe crashed and burned at the box office, though it found some redemption on streaming. Street Fighter, by contrast, demonstrates a certain confidence in its own world, ending with an open conclusion that all but guarantees a sequel. Whether audiences will be eager to return to this particular world remains to be seen.
In the end, Street Fighter is a film that tries to beat you into submission. It throws so much at the screen—characters, fights, musical cues, visual flourishes—that it can feel overwhelming. For die-hard fans of the games, there is likely enough here to spark moments of joy and recognition. For everyone else, the experience may be more exhausting than exhilarating. The film’s ambition is admirable, and its creators clearly care deeply about the source material. But passion alone is not enough to overcome a muddled tone, an overstuffed narrative, and action sequences that, while colorful, cannot quite compete with the best the genre has to offer. It is a love letter to aging gamers, but one that may leave many of its intended recipients wishing the letter had been a little more carefully written.
