The 2026 Street Fighter movie has won one fight from the beginning: being the best Street Fighter movie ever made. This is because 1994’s Street Fighter and 2009’s Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li are two of the worst video game adaptations of all time. Ergo, this new martial arts comedy/adventure would have had to be catastrophically bad in order not to achieve this dubious honor — and it is not catastrophically bad.
It is, however, chaotic, a movie that would be described as cartoonish even if parts of it weren’t literally animated (key flashback sequences are presented as ’90s-style anime produced by Titmouse Animation). Even during the live-action sequences, multiple actors are playing things to the level of Looney Tunes mayhem, and they all look pretty much identical to their video game counterparts, even occasionally growling out their video game catchphrases. In so many respects, Street Fighter works exactly the way you want a big screen adaptation of Street Fighter to work. Making the ways it doesn’t work all the more frustrating.
Plot and Characters
Plot-wise, here are the basics: In 1987, world-class martial artists/BFFs Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken (Noah Centineo) end their longtime friendship after Ryu wins the first World Warrior competition and their longtime mentor Gouken (Don Lee) dies. Six years later, Ken has become MTV famous but also a joke to the general martial arts community, while Ryu has gone into hiding. But they’re destined to be reunited when the evil M. Bison (David Dastmalchian) decides to hold a second World Warrior tournament.
The world’s greatest fighters, having been recruited by Bison’s operative Chun-Li (Callina Liang), arrive in Metrolao City to compete; everyone has an ulterior motive for being part of this tournament, or Bison’s criminal network, or both. Everyone also has a lot of aggression. Fortunately, they have a lot of opportunities to fight it out.
It’s a pretty massive ensemble, all playing characters drawn directly from the games. And not just the headlining guys, we’re talking about some very deep cuts here, like Joe. Remember Joe? From the first 1987 game and nothing else? Sure you do. He’s played by UFC Featherweight Champion Alexander Volkanovski. He’s very blonde.
Cast and Performances
Cody Rhodes is actually one of three professional wrestlers featured here (Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoa’i is the evil Akuma, while Hirooki Goto is sumo favorite E. Honda), in addition to multiple actor-slash-martial artists — meaning that most of the cast definitely knows how to take a hit, something which definitely pays off in the fight sequences, which all operate in a heightened reality.
Of course, there’s also Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson as Balrog, growling his way through his scenes and delivering some very convincing punches, and the famously masked Orville Peck as the famously masked Vega. The “Dead of Night” artist, making his film acting debut here, doesn’t get much to do — it doesn’t help that any actor would struggle to emote his way through a hard plastic mask like the signature Vega one, but it kind of feels like he was hired solely on the basis of his on-stage persona (specifically, the mask) without much consideration as to whether he actually could play a real character on screen.
At least David Dastmalchian is having a delicious time, not afraid to get very, very weird with Bison’s reactions to… everything. He even makes a meal out of a brief homage to 1994’s Street Fighter, paying tribute to the late great Raul Julia’s singular take on his character. And Eric André, whose on-screen persona has been “live-action cartoon” for the majority of his career, fits naturally into the mix as ring announcer Don Sauvage. (Director Kitao Sakurai has worked closely with André over the years, making the movie’s whole vibe make a whole lot of sense.)
Conclusion
Based on the way this movie ends, it’s clear the filmmakers are really hoping to make a sequel. And the gung-ho energy that powers this movie, in addition to the level of commitment brought by most of the cast, does inspire some interest in what happens next. Again, this does happen to be the best Street Fighter made to date… But hopefully, the next one will be better.
Street Fighter (2026) Hadoukens into theaters on Friday, October 16th.
Pixel P. Snarkbyte, widely regarded as the “Shakespeare of Sh*tposts,” is a video game expert with a unique knack for turning pixels into punchlines.
Born in the small town of Respawn, Pennsylvania, Pixel grew up mashing buttons on an ancient NES controller, firmly believing that “blowing into the cartridge” was a sacred ritual passed down through generations.
Pixel P. Snarkbyte: proving that life, much like a buggy open-world game, is better with a little lag-induced chaos.
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