Street Fighter has been a part of my life as long as I can remember. I played the first game when it was in arcades, and dropped mad quarters into every sequel that came out. I was pretty good at it, too. Not so good anymore, but I have the latest game and will play it on occasion to get beat badly by some kid online. Attempts to adapt the game into a movie have been mixed. I know some people have a fondness for the Van Damme live-action movie, but to me it’s pretty awful. The only good version growing up was 1994’s Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, which found a way to introduce multiple characters, give them purpose, offer some incredible fights, and still capture the craziness of the world they existed in. You know it was great because the entire franchise has basically spun out from the direction set in that movie, and it’s one of the many things the new live-action Street Fighter gets right.
Directed by Kitao Sakurai from a script he co-wrote, Street Fighter leans hard into nostalgia and unapologetic madness. It’s brash, silly, and at times nonsensical, all of the things the video games can be. Appropriately, the film is set in 1993, a time when Street Fighter was at its creative peak, and also a nexus point for many of the characters’ most crucial events. Sakurai goes hard with the ’90s vibe, filling the screen with dazzling colors and needle drops from artists of the era. This is the kind of outrageous movie where a pitched battle to the death takes place to the sounds of “Come Out and Play” by The Offspring. It’s a film where 50 Cent, playing the villainous Tyson-esque boxer Balrog, beats people up to the sounds of his own discography.
The story draws on events that will be familiar to fans of the games, and for outsiders will seem ludicrous. Andrew Koji plays the stoic warrior Ryu; he’s basically like the Mario of a Super Mario Bros. game, or like playing James Bond in GoldenEye. Noah Centineo is his best friend and “brother”, Ken Masters, the flashier and more arrogant of the two. The film begins as Ryu is fighting his archrival, the massive Muay Thai fighter, Sagat. Ryu wins, but not without giving in to a dark, demonic force raging inside of him, unleashing the all-powerful evil that is Akuma, the ultimate warrior played by WWE champion Roman Reigns. When Ryu and Ken’s master Gouken is defeated in tragic fashion, it causes a split between the friends that lasts for years, until Chun-Li, played by Callina Liang, recruits them to fight in the second World Warriors tournament, held by her boss, the mysterious M. Bison.
M. Bison is played with max kookiness by David Dastmalchian, who is maybe the best around at playing weird, offbeat characters. His performance is different from the best portrayal of M. Bison ever, by the late great Raul Julia, but it works better for this movie which doesn’t take itself seriously at all.
In a nice nod to Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, flashbacks are done in an awesome anime style. The opening battle between Ryu and Sagat is done in this way, and we get some amazing stuff featuring Akuma and Master Gouken (played by Don Lee) done in the same energetic manner. In all honesty, there were times when I wished the entire movie was done this way, but now I just hope that if they do sequels and spinoffs they will continue to include animation as a fundamental aspect.
The difficulty in making a Street Fighter movie is finding stuff for all of these wacky characters to do. The film does a great job at showing the fractured, tenuous relationship between Ryu and Ken, fueled by guilt and jealousy. They find a way to poke fun at Ryu’s fabled stoicism, like having him give up fighting to run a shitty noodle stand. Ken becomes a celebrity joke, someone who beats up parked cars (a nice nod to the games’ bonus rounds) and fights in glitzy exhibitions for money. Andrew Schulz is a blast as Ken’s best pal, Dan Hibiki, helping to make one of the lamest Street Fighter characters kinda fun and likable. Jason Momoa brings a childlike energy to the role of the green-skinned Brazilian beast, Blanka, although I’ll admit that it’s not a take on the character that I enjoyed. Momoa is clearly having a great time, but the steel cage match he has against Ryu (a scene populated by many Street Fighter Twitch streamers, I might add) is underwhelming. WWE superstar Cody Rhodes dons the flat top hair of Guile, and he’s absolutely perfect as the douchey soldier. Also great is another pro wrestler, former IWGP champion Hirooki Goto, who palm slaps the Hell out of Ryu in a cool sauna room brawl. The casting might look like someone was throwing darts at a dartboard, but it all works!
What doesn’t always work is the screenplay, which is pretty damned awful at times. Look, I know there’s not a single person who goes into a Street Fighter movie expecting it to be Hamlet, but must every character tell us repeatedly what their primary story arc is? You get a lot of stuff about redemption and honor, with most of it sounding like people are talking to a wall. I give most of the actors credit for making the most of it, and there are some legit great scenes where the script does work, most of them involving Koji and Centineo. As expected, the comedic stuff falls flat, from the woefully unfunny Eric Andre as emcee Don Sauvage. The best jokes come from the actors doing the least to be funny, like Vidyut Jammwal as the limber yogi warrior, Dhalsim, who taunts his foes while talking to them like Yoda.
For Street Fighter die-hards, there are so many Easter Eggs you’ll be dying to have the movie at home so you can pause it to catch them all. I loved the way the film incorporates the iconic moves from the games, like E. Honda’s palm slap, M. Bison’s Psycho Crusher, and of course, the fabled Hadoken fireball! Also appreciated is the importance of costumes, such as when Chun-Li finally dons her famous blue outfit, or when Ryu’s white gi, symbolizing the honor within him, burns black to signify the emergence of Dark Ryu.
Following the disastrous The Legend of Chun-Li movie, you’d be forgiven for never wanting to see this game on the big screen again. I wouldn’t blame you. But Street Fighter is a movie that is clearly made with love by people who love these games, and you can feel it right from the start. It doesn’t mean the movie is perfect, and I may watch it a dozen times and pick at more things in the future. But I’ll say it’s a damn sight more entertaining than the recent Mortal Kombat movies, and it ranks up there with Dead or Alive as the fighting-game adaptation that best understood its audience. You can bet that if there are more Street Fighter movies on the way, I’ll be among the first to plunk my quarter down to see it.
Street Fighter is open in theaters now, and be sure to stick around through the credits!
