“I gave you a chance to accept the carrot; now we’ll try the stick!”
Capcom’s 1991 video game, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, is one of the best-selling games of all time and has spawned a vast franchise with many successful sequels. The 2026 film Street Fighter is the third live-action adaptation and is heavily influenced by the game. The plot of the 2026 film bears remarkable similarities to the story of the 1994 Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. To that point, there are several animated segments peppered around the picture, including bookend segments at the opening and ending. The film opens in 1987 and spends the bulk of its runtime in 1993, milking an odd ’90s nostalgia for the length of the film.
A strangely disjointed and anticlimactic film, Street Fighter has several good action beats, imaginative fight scenes, great callbacks to the video game and earlier media as well as actors doing their best with clunky dialogue and somewhat two-dimensional characters. Taking itself way more seriously than its source material should allow, Street Fighter is living in the shadow of its delightfully ultra- campy 1994 live-action predecessor featuring the rapacious scenery-chomping of the insatiable Raul Julia as M. Bison.
“You poor, dumb, fit, handsome boy, I pity you.”
Street Fighter is a 2026 Legendary Pictures production distributed by Paramount/Skydance Media. The movie is directed by Kitao Sakurai, from a screenplay by Sakurai and T.J. Fixman. Noah Centineo and Andrew Koji lead an ensemble cast including Don Lee, Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoa’i, Calliana Liang, Jason Momoa, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson, David Dastmalachian, Cody Rhodes, Hirooki Goto, Andrew Schulz, Orville Peck, Vidyut Jammwal, Oliver Richters and Mel Jarnson, with Eric André and Rayna Vallandingham.
“What the hell is happening?”
“He’s trying to sing him back to life, obviously.”
It is 1987. Using his master Gouken’s (Lee) teachings to their fullest, Ryu (Koji) defeats the ferocious Muay Thai fighter, Sagat, in the first World Warrior Tournament. The fallout from that victory leads to the death of his mentor and Ryu’s estrangement from his best friend Ken (Centineo), who, like Ryu, was raised and trained by Master Gouken. Ryu is acknowledged as the best fighter in the world, but his tainted victory tastes like ashes. Fame and fortune is his for the asking; Ryu walks away from it all and disappears.
The ambitious and cruel tyrant, M. Bison (Dastmalachian), watches the tournament with keen interest. Ryu’s display of power in the final round has given him ideas. Wheels within gears turn in his dark mind as malevolent plans begin to form.
It is 1993. Ken has spent the last six years squandering his talent. He is living high on the hog, appearing in second- and third-tier combat competitions, professional wrestling gigs, and endorsing products for a handsome reward, but leading to a hollow and unhealthily intoxicated lifestyle. His manager, Dan Hibiki (Schulz) frets over Ken’s dissipation and downward spiral, but Ken doesn’t want to hear it.
Ken is approached by Chun-Li (Liang), who is gathering fighters for M. Bison’s reboot of the World Warrior Tournament, which is being held in his Capitol of Metrolao. She also tries to entice Ryu to return to the ring, but he refuses. Ryu does not trust Bison’s motives for gathering all the greatest fighters in the world under his aegis. Ryu figures that Ken wants nothing to do with him but feels obligated to warn his brother-in-arms about Bison.
Instead of a joyous reunion, the brothers brawl. Ken refuses to listen to Ryu’s entreaties, thinking that triumph in the tournament is the only way he can redeem himself in the eyes of the world and the rest of the fighting community.
Ryu decides that the only way he can protect his brother is by entering the tournament himself. To get in, he needs a silver-stamped invitation; all the available brackets are full and locked. The only way he can get one is by taking it from another fighter.
Who will grant Ryu access to the tournament? Can Ryu convince Ken that M. Bison isn’t on the level? What secret is Chun-Li concealing? Will M. Bison’s sinister plans come to fruition? Can Ken find vindication in victory, or will he find another avenue to absolution? See Street Fighter to find out.
“Look at this barefoot schmuck.”
2026’s Street Fighter is a picture haunted by a ghost. Raul Julia’s presence hangs over this movie like the Hindenburg. This reviewer was waiting for a reference or Easter egg to the film’s most famous moment, Julia’s incredible dialogue with Ming-Na Wen’s Chun Li.
When it comes, it’s a dumpster fire. Dastmalachian’s dismissive, dispassionate threat is “Today is the day you die; for me, it’s Tuesday.” What a pale, pathetic reflection of Julia’s best banter. Raul gets a maniacal monologue, a line with some meat, a preening despot’s perfect narcissistic beat. Dastmalachian’s delivery is flat. He’s been given grand and pulpy lines like “The time has come, my little killer Bee, Prepare the bindings!” but can’t muster the proper relish or roll his “r’s” with enough evil glee.
Including the visual gimmick of the vehicle-smashing bonus stage in the build-up to the tournament, which is an element straight out of the game, is a nice touch. That being said, many of the CG backgrounds lack detail and look unfinished, like M. Bison’s arena. The production design is rather rudimentary: Prisons, control rooms, nightclubs, dictators’ offices, alleyways, and battle arenas are all generic and unremarkable.
A very silly scene where everyone is eavesdropping on everyone else in a very fancy bathroom is played for laughs, but these characters are pretty bad at their jobs. These people are the worst spies.
The production crew seems to have trouble with linear time. The movie takes place in 1993. The Offspring song, Come Out and Play is from 1994, as is Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun. The White Zombie song, More Human than Human is from 1995, along with Elastica’s Connection. Meredith Brooks’ Bitch came out in ’97. Who Let the Dogs Out by Baha Men, 2000. There’s really no reason for the film to take place during the nineties other than that was the height of the game’s popularity, but it seems an odd choice in the year 2026, and they definitely could have gotten easily songs from ’93 and earlier.
Interactions between most of the characters and Schultz’s Dan Hibiki are interesting. He is constantly accused of being a leech and parasite. He and Cody Rhodes’ Guile have a uniquely antagonistic relationship. Guile’s lack of respect for Hibiki (like the rest of the combatants) is palpable but Rhodes makes the character’s contempt comically memorable.
Perhaps the best fight scene happens a quarter of the way through the film. With Ryu needing to gain admittance to the World Warrior tournament, he politely asks sumo wrestler E. Honda for his invitation. Honda demands that they fight for it. What follows is a stunning display of homages to the game woven into an incredibly tight sequence where both fighters use their amazing- yet-disparate fighting techniques and incredible powers as they pummel each other while blinded by the opaque, fog-thick air of a steamy bath chamber.
This reviewer is stuck on the fact that M. Bison’s plan doesn’t hold water. His motive is wanting to drain characters of their inner strength so he can convert that power into Psycho-Energies; he deduces that since Ryu won the first tournament, he must have the most power and conspires to capture the fighter and siphon off the strength of his Chi. The problem with his logic is that, first of all, Bison keeps squandering his power, burning through it by whacking scientists, threatening Chun-Li, and showing off to his bodyguards. Second of all, Bison has Blanka confined in his dungeons. Blanka is a mutant allegedly raised by electric eels. He has inborn lightning powers. Electricity constantly seethes uncontrollably around his flesh. One would think Bison could plug that guy into his device or come to some sort of power-sharing deal with the man instead of confining him in an oubliette and only dragging him out to incinerate interlopers.
There is a hard truth that Street Fighter dwells on for a bit and uses as the basis for its big twist. “Envy is a seed from which evil grows.” The relationship between thebrothers-in-arms is profoundly corrupted by jealousy and envy, a jealousy and envy that had no factual, logical, or reasonable basis. Something like that could happen to any of us in any relationship we have in the real world. Street Fighter gives you something to think about.
Street Fighter is a peculiar picture. It doesn’t end when or how one would expect. Street Fighter just sort of putters out and comes to a halt. It plaintively asks, “Can we haz sequel now?” As a film lacking a proper beginning, middle, and end, it doesn’t deserve one, but as part of a relentless, 30-year-old media franchise, it very well may get one. Unless the viewer is a die-hard fan of the franchise, stream this film.
Street Fighter is in theatres 10/16/2026