Street Fighter

Do we finally have a good video game movie after a year of wasted efforts? I don’t know. It’s fair to enter these things with a great deal of pessimism, but all I’ll say is that the trailers for Kitao Sakurai’s Street Fighter look amazing. Does the actual film live up to the hype?

It’s 1993, and Ryu (Andrew Koji) has given up fighting. The former World Warrior champion and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) were raised like brothers by their sensei, Gouken (Don Lee), until a tragedy left Gouken dead and the two going their separate ways. Ryu is convinced there’s a darkness living inside him, so he now spends his days serving soup to tourists from a street stall. Ken, on the other hand, cashes in on his name and skills without throwing a single punch.

Chun-Li (Callina Liang) stands ready in her iconic blue qipao in Street Fighter.

“But the more Ryu taps into his power, the more something darker comes with it—purple energy and glowing red eyes.”

But M. Bison (David Dastmalchian), the dictator of Shadaloo, needs Ryu and his Hadou power. So he throws a second World Warrior Tournament in Metrolao to lure him out of hiding. Enter Chun-Li (Callina Liang), an Interpol agent working undercover with her own score to settle with Bison. She recruits the world’s strongest fighters, Ken included, and Ryu fights his way into the tournament just to keep an eye on him. Ken, meanwhile, is there to finally get out from under Ryu’s shadow. With her Interpol partner Marvin (Kyle Mooney) in tow, Chun-Li works her way into Bison’s inner circle—she even presses her palm into a flaming brand to prove her loyalty—and butts heads with his “dolls,” Cammy (Mel Jarnson) and Juli (Rayna Vallandingham).

As ring announcer Don Sauvage (Eric André) works the crowd, the tournament fills up with fighters like Guile (Cody Rhodes), Blanka (Jason Momoa), and Balrog (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson). Ryu and Ken’s reunion gets complicated by an old secret and a betrayal, and every fight seems to push them closer to the same ring. But the more Ryu taps into his power, the more something darker comes with it—purple energy and glowing red eyes. And lurking behind it all is Akuma (Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoa’i), an actual demon.