You Must Avoid the Evil Within, Ryu

Going in to watch Street Fighter, the new 2026 film based on the franchise of the same name, I was struck by similar thoughts to those I had for Mortal Kombat II, which came out earlier in the year. In both cases the films were savaged by critics, saying that the movies weren’t very good, that they showed just how bad video game movies could be. But in both cases the films themselves delivered about what you’d expect from movies based on fighting game franchises. These aren’t games with a lot of depth to them. You show up, select a character, and duke it out until, eventually, all other fighters are defeated and you get a little bit of text saying, “you win!”

So what should we expect from a Street Fighter film. Well, obviously we should expect better than the 1994 Street Fighter film and the 2009 Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li. Both of those films were terrible, but they were bad in ways that weren’t fun. The 1994 film is overstuffed and stupid, and it never feels like the movie is in on the joke that is, well, itself. Meanwhile the 2009 movie wanted to be a very serious endeavor, a play-it-straight adaptation of a video games series that is anything but. Neither of them understood the core of the Street Fighter franchise. Both of them were unenjoyable.

Street Fighter (across six mainline titles and a bevy of ports, updates, expansions, and spin-offs) is fun. It’s goofy and silly, as is just about every fighting game series. Even Mortal KombatFunctioning almost like counter programming against the cleaner, brighter, and friendlier fighting games of the era, Mortal Kombat added violence, gore, and bruality in equal measure, creating a fighing game every kid wanted to play (and every adult wanted out of their house)., with all its death, gore, and violence, is an inherently silly franchise. To get at the core of the games, and to deliver on what fans want and expect, you have to be silly. The 2026 Street Fighter film understands that. It gets that what people want is some combat, so hijinx, and to see their favorite characters on screen, all wrapped in a package that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Good or bad at an objective level as a film, Street Fighter 2026 does exactly what it needs to, and whether you like the movie or not, you have to understand that going in. And I liked it, but I was able to embrace the silliness.

There’s both a lot going on in Street Fighter and also very little to the plot. The essence is that Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken (Noah Centineo) are two martial artists trained in the Hado School by Master Gouken (Don Lee). Ryu, in the first World Warrior Championship, gives into his Dark Hado power, becomes Dark Ryu for a brief moment, and seriously injures his opponent, Sagat, in the final battle. This burst of dark power summons Gouken’s brother, Akuma (Joe "Roman Reigns" Anoa'i), who demands a fight against Ryu. When Ryu resists, Akuma kills Gouken. Ryu flees, giving up fighting altogether, leaving Ken without his brother-in-combat.

Six years later, Ken has become a fighting performer, using what he knows to get by but never reaching his true potential. When Chun-Li (Callina Liang), an agent seemingly working for M. Bison (David Dastmalchian), offers Ken a chance to compete in the second World Warrior Championship, he signs on… with one requirement: Ryu has to be part of the tournament as well. Ken wants to see his old fighting partner, and he wants an explanation for why Ryu abandoned him. But if Ryu comes back to fight he might give in to his dark power, and then Akuma might just come looking for that fight he was denied for years…

Make no mistake, Street Fighter is overstuffed. Along with these few main characters there’s a massive cast all playing fighters from the first games (Street Fighter, Street Fighter II, and Street Fighter Alpha) in the series. We get appearances from Cody Rhodes as Guile, Andrew Schulz as Dan Hibiki, Eric André as Don Sauvage, Vidyut Jammwal as Dhalsim, Orville Peck as Vega, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson as Balrog, Jason Momoa as Blanka, Olivier Richters as Zangief, Hirooki Goto as E. Honda, Mel Jarnson as Cammy, Rayna Vallandingham as Juli, Kyle Mooney as Marvin, and Alexander Volkanovski as Joe. Do most of these characters serve as anything more than cameos for characters while their actors get day player walk-on roles? Absolutely not. But if these characters weren’t in the film, the various fans of these guys would have been upset that their favorite fighter wasn’t included. So in they all go.

Meanwhile, there’s a ton of little plot threads that are raised but never completed. M. Bison sets up the tournament as a way to lure out Ryu and syphon off his Hado Power so that Bison can use it to charge his Psycho Power and become the most powerful warrior in the world. This is never resolved and the film ends on a cliffhanger promising a further adventure in the second film. Clearly the second film is going to cover events more in line with Street Fighter II (while most of what we can charitably call a plot here comes from Street Fighter and Street Fighter Alpha), but it’s weird to make such a big deal about this plotline only to not even make a passing effort at resolving it.

Similarly there are many little things that don’t get covered. Blanka is searching for his mother, but we don’t see him find her. Guile is working for some covert agency, but we never find out who, how, or why. Chun-Li is actually an Interpol agent working a case to bring M. Bison down, but this thread is dropped halfway into the film and Chun-Li becomes just another fighter after that. The film sets all this up, presumably to bring it back in a later film, but none of it was really needed if the goal was a tight and cohesive plot.

So we have to assume that wasn’t the goal at all. Instead, this film takes a shotgun approach, living off vibes and style, all while delivering constant blasts of humor, action, and mayhem. The film tells its story (such as it is) through a simple formula. A couple of fighters arrive in a scene. A few lines of dialogue are shared. A fight breaks out. Someone wins, someone else loses. And whatever small matter was raised at the start of the scene is considered done. Then we move on to the next scene to do it all again with a couple of different fighters. It’s not really a plot for a movie, but it is basically a plot for a fighting game. Street Fighter has video game logic to everything it does.

And yet it works. If you can get into the groove of it, there’s a lot to like here. The film is genuinely funny in many places, mining comedy from the interactions of characters as well as some amusing dialogue and pretty decent music cues. If you can find a couple of dudes singing (poorly) to Four Non Blondes “What’s Going On” funny, you’ll be amused at the level of humor to be found in Street Fighter. It’s silly, it’s basic, but it is enjoyable.

Meanwhile, many of the action set pieces are well done. Not all of them are perfect, but it’s nice to see each of the characters have their signature moves, and there’s a basic, animalistic enjoyment in watching the film bounce the characters off each other like fighters in a video game. Action scenes are short, and they go by quick, all so the movie can get to where it wants to be next, and while not every viewer is going to find this satisfying, I at least appreciated that the film never dragged anything out. The film has the sense to let things speed along and never over stay their welcome.

Plus, the movie looks really good. The production design is on point, with well made sets and costumes that look exactly as they should from the video games. Every character is identifiable, everything looks spot on. This is a film that understands how fans want the movie to look. Hell, there are anime cut-scenes any time the movie goes for flashbacks, and they look like the video games brought to life. The movie really does nail the style of Street Fighter perfectly.

Is it a good film, in a cinematic sense? Absolutely not. This is popcorn fluff, absolute trash cinema, but enjoyably so. You have to go into Street Fighter knowing full well that this isn’t a real movie; it’s a collection of video game moments acted out in real life. From that base understanding, Street Fighter clicks together. Either you can enjoy its trash like it wants to be enjoyed, or you won’t be able to get into the film. I was able to get into it, and I had a blast.