The new live-action Street Fighter arrives with a difficult reputation to escape. It could have been enjoyably terrible, simply terrible, or something in between. In practice, it manages to be both kinds of bad at once—and occasionally something much more entertaining.
This is effectively two films sharing the same running time. One is a wildly self-aware martial-arts comedy that treats Capcom’s fighting-game mythology as raw material for increasingly strange jokes. The other is an incoherent production whose storytelling, editing and character choices can be genuinely baffling. The connection between them is a series of energetic fights, several missing or frustratingly abbreviated confrontations, and a cast willing to perform every piece of nonsense with complete commitment.
A Ken and Ryu story with a crowded roster
Despite bringing a large selection of Street Fighter characters to the screen, the film centres on Ken and Ryu. Their familiar friendly rivalry becomes a much darker relationship built on jealousy and resentment after years apart. They meet again at the World Warrior tournament, which is secretly a vehicle for M. Bison’s plan to extract Ryu’s growing psycho power and claim it for himself.
Chun-Li is working undercover as a double agent within Bison’s operation, although her own objectives complicate that assignment. Other familiar fighters appear around the central plot, often in smaller roles. Cody Rhodes makes Guile a standout presence, while Jason Momoa’s Blanka embraces a wonderfully unrestrained performance that seems to operate on its own glorious wavelength.
The ensemble’s greatest strength is its ability to deliver absurd dialogue without acknowledging how absurd it is. That commitment occasionally turns a weak gag into a successful one. Unfortunately, the hit rate is inconsistent: clever moments sit beside stale, dated jokes that feel imported from the film’s 1990s setting. The movie also undercuts its own seriousness with constant irony, self-conscious music choices and humour that often exists only because the filmmakers could not resist the bit.
When every character becomes a punchline
That comic approach reaches even the most important figures in the story. M. Bison is still a tyrant attempting to steal Ryu’s power, but the film also gives him an increasingly bizarre fixation on feet. David Dastmalchian plays the role with extreme facial intensity, including several shots that push the joke far beyond ordinary villainy. Sexual humour appears repeatedly, often in deliberately excessive and juvenile ways.
There is a strange charm in how completely the film commits to this tone. It resembles a late-night voice chat between exhausted fighting-game players, with everyone improvising around the same collection of character quirks. That makes it excellent material for a group viewing, even when the film itself offers little meaningful structure to analyse.
Too much plot, not enough tournament action
The roughly two-hour runtime feels surprisingly crowded. The film jumps between several storylines, sometimes within the same scene, without establishing why the transitions matter. One conversation between Ken and Chun-Li is edited so that its middle section is withheld, only to be shown in the following sequence. The choice adds confusion rather than suspense.
The large cast is also underused. By the time the tournament gets underway, the film reveals that Guile and Vega have already fought off-screen. That decision signals a broader problem: a movie filled with fighters repeatedly chooses to skip the fights audiences have come to see.
The action that remains is generally well choreographed. Watching performers reproduce recognisable special moves is still satisfying, particularly when Ryu throws fireballs. However, Zangief and Guile are among the characters forced into a group bar fight instead of a proper tournament match. Only a portion of the roster receives substantial combat time, so viewers expecting every fighter to cycle through their signature techniques will be disappointed.
Verdict: best enjoyed with friends
Street Fighter is a bad movie: unevenly acted, awkwardly edited and frequently incoherent. Its treatment of the female characters is especially disappointing. Cammy is reshaped from a stoic, duty-focused Doll into something closer to a frenzied Juri substitute, while Chun-Li’s scenes are sometimes burdened by distracting sexual humour that weakens their dramatic weight.
Even so, the film’s relentless commitment to its own bizarre sense of fun gives it a quality that many failed fighting-game adaptations lack. It is not merely a film to mock while watching. The better experience is to watch it with friends, then spend hours discussing how something can contain genuine craft, entertaining fights, terrible decisions and complete nonsense at the same time.
Fans considering a dedicated setup for classic fighters can explore RETROCADE’s arcade machines, compare options in the Arcade Machine Buying Guide, or choose a smaller bartop arcade. For hands-on projects, the arcade parts range is another place to start.
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