My bar for Street Fighter was “fine,” and I don’t mean that as an insult. I went in expecting a perfectly okay video game adaptation with thin characters, story, and overall writing, and I was at peace with that. All I needed was action good enough and pacing fast enough to cover for the surface-level storytelling. The two recent Mortal Kombat movies had already set the tone for what I expect from this kind of project, and the second one left me with a clear lesson: a tournament on its own doesn’t fix a crowded script.
I did play “Street Fighter” as a kid. Just like with “Mortal Kombat”, though, I never became a fan, and I never learned much about the world-building, the story, or the mythology the games built over the years. So I’m not the viewer who’s going to cheer at an accurate hairstyle, costume choice, or even catchy one-liners. I’m, however, someone who can tell a reference is happening without having a clue what it’s pointing at.
So, it’s 1993. Ryu (Andrew Koji, Bullet Train) and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo, Warfare) trained together and were once as close as brothers, until a loss neither of them ever dealt with pushed them apart. Ryu now lives a quiet life away from fighting, while Ken has turned into a flashy celebrity cashing in on his name. They’re pulled back in by Chun-Li (Callina Liang, Presence), who is recruiting fighters for the World Warrior Tournament hosted by the ruthless M. Bison (David Dastmalchian, Late Night with the Devil), and who clearly has plans of her own. Something much bigger is happening behind the event, and before the two old friends can face any of it, they have to face each other.
Everyone has been raving about the 2D animated sequences, and I’m happily joining that club. Director Kitao Sakurai (Bad Trip) cuts into hand-drawn animation styled after ’90s anime, and it’s a bold, refreshing decision that works wonders. It mixes brilliantly with the live-action footage, and it never feels like a gimmick stapled on top, as the movie moves between the two styles with no friction at all. Some of the animated fights are clearly better than the live-action choreography, and that says a lot since the live-action fights are pretty damn good themselves.
They’re intense and quickly edited, but the speed reads as energy, never as chaos or choppiness. Around them, Street Fighter knows exactly how silly it is and plays with it: small arcade-like movements, cartoonish dialogue, fights that feel like someone mashing buttons in the best possible way. I liked that balance. Most of the actual jokes don’t land, and that’s a separate problem. The tone works. The punchlines, for the most part, don’t.
The references are everywhere, and I can point out many of them, from the one-liners and finishing moves to the costumes and the hairstyles. Most of them passed right over my head. Fans of the games will surely get more out of those moments than I did, and this film is clearly made with them in mind first. As far as I can tell, it delivers on that front.
Chun-Li is the standout, and Liang delivers a breakthrough performance — her role in Presence was already a discovery for me. Centineo is compellingly fun as Ken, a showman who stays watchable even at his most ridiculous. Koji goes the other way and nails Ryu’s seriousness, that “main hero” aura the character needs. On paper, a lot of the casting looks strange, and in practice it works well for the most part.
Here’s my biggest issue: there’s way too much in Street Fighter. Too many characters, too many threads, and a very obvious effort to leave room for sequels and launch a new saga. Bison is the clearest example. Dastmalchian’s character is pretty much a plot device, there to make the tournament happen and set up whatever comes next. He and the side characters on his team eat up precious runtime, and most of the pacing problems trace back to them.
That sequel-baiting also costs the film a real ending. Akuma (Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoa’i, Hobbs & Shaw) shows the problem well. I didn’t even know which character he was playing before the screening, and he’s menacing in the role, but Akuma is basically a third-act villain who arrives for a fight with no motivation whatsoever. When it’s all over, the movie feels less finished than paused.
The tournament itself is underwhelming, which is a strange thing to write about a film called Street Fighter. Quite a few matches are walkovers, forfeits, or happen off-screen. I was very disappointed not to get Guile (Cody Rhodes, Arrow) against Vega (Orville Peck), especially since Rhodes is hilarious and one of the most entertaining parts of the whole thing.
I didn’t expect the look of this film to stay with me. Cinematographer Ken Seng (Project X) gives it a neon-retro style with real personality, and it never falls into the bland, CGI-heavy screens of Mortal Kombat or Mortal Kombat II. I’ve seen people knock the effects work, and I kind of disagree. The movie deserves credit for its many practical sets, using CGI mostly to extend backgrounds and surrounding environments. Blanka (Jason Momoa, The Wrecking Crew) is the CGI-heavy exception. He doesn’t look bad. He doesn’t look great either.
Under all the noise, the story this film actually cares about is a friendship broken by grief. Ryu and Ken lost the same thing and handled it in opposite ways. One went quiet and walked away from the fight altogether. The other filled the silence with fame and endorsement deals, turning a discipline his teacher gave him into a brand. Neither of them healed, and the tournament is just the excuse to put them back in the same room, where fighting is the only language they still share. There’s an interesting idea in there about what you’re actually fighting for, whether it’s an audience, a paycheck, or someone you lost. Street Fighter keeps circling back to their rift, though, and a few of those emotional beats repeat without really moving anywhere.
Final Thoughts on Street Fighter
Street Fighter delivers exactly what it sells: dumb fun packed with references for fans of the game, made by people fully aware of how silly the whole thing is. The 2D animated sequences are the clear highlight, the fights are intense and energetic, and the neon-retro look and practical sets give it more personality than the recent Mortal Kombat films. Callina Liang stands out from the cast, but Noah Centineo and Andrew Koji also make a compelling pair. It tries to do far too much, burns runtime on Bison’s sequel-baiting, skips half of its own tournament, and misses most of its jokes. Still, it’s a light, entertaining time at the cinema. If indeed there’s a second round, I’ll most likely be there.
Rating: B-
Street Fighter released in theaters on October 16th.
Learn more about the film, including how to watch it, at the official website for the title.
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