STREET FIGHTER Review: A Gloriously Ridiculous Knockout

“To live is to fight.”

“To fight is to live.”

Paramount, Legendary, and Capcom's STREET FIGHTER is a few weeks old at the time of this review, slowly unplugging its controller from theaters after racking up close to $100 million worldwide against a modest $80 million budget.

Thankfully, The HUB in Tonkawa was still playing it on a dull and dreary Sunday morning, and after spending the previous day dragging out Christmas decorations, I decided to choose colorful, bombastic action over the horror-tinged CLAYFACE from Warner Bros. and DC Studios.

And I am so glad that I did.

STREET FIGHTER, directed by Kitao Sakurai and written by Dalan Musson and Gary Dauberman, is the closest thing we've gotten in more than 20 years to a movie that even vaguely approaches the bubblegum extravagance of gonzo 2000s blockbusters like the Wachowskis' SPEED RACER or Stephen Sommers' ridiculous, action-figures-come-to-life spectacle G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA.

I have a passing familiarity with the franchise, of course, as both a video game player and movie fan. I watched the original 1990s movie with my dad once, long ago, and I've never been particularly interested in fighting games, aside from one prepubescent summer spent obsessing over DOA: Dead or Alive for reasons that should be fairly obvious.

Still, I can recognize Street Fighter stalwarts like Ken, Ryu, Chun-Li, and the rest.

But you don't need a PhD in Japanese arcade fighters to enjoy this movie.

You don't even need a brain, really.

And I mean that with the highest possible respect.

Set in an anime-inspired version of the 1990s, STREET FIGHTER follows washed-up fighter Ken Masters (an ever-charming Noah Centineo), a brand-obsessed party boy who seems more interested in franchise deals and sponsorships than actually stepping into the ring.

Ken receives a visit from the mysterious Chun-Li (Callina Liang), who arrives on behalf of dictator M. Bison (David Dastmalchian) with an invitation to the second-ever World Warrior Tournament, held in Bison's cyberpunk dystopia of Metrolao City.

The tournament, naturally, is a ploy.

Bison hopes to lure the reclusive World Warrior Champion Ryu (Andrew Koji, stoic and hysterically deadpan) out of hiding. Ryu is Ken's childhood friend, whom he abandoned six years earlier, and Bison intends to harness the fighter's extraordinary power for his own nefarious purposes.

Traveling to Metrolao City, Ken crosses paths with a colorful assortment of fighters, including U.S. Air Force veteran Guile (a magnetic Cody Rhodes), the mysterious Dhalsim (Vidyut Jammwal), the imposing Balrog (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson), and the massive Russian Zangief (Olivier Richters).

There are also Bison's henchmen, including the eccentric and venomous Vega (Orville Peck) and the hilariously affable Cammy (Mel Jarnson).

Ken and Ryu's shared history is explored through beautifully animated, anime-style flashbacks created by Titmouse, the animation studio associated with projects such as Hi-Fi Rush.

On paper, abruptly transitioning from live action into stylized animation might sound jarring. Here, however, it makes perfect sense within the film's heightened reality.

After all, this is a movie about demons, superpowers, mystical martial arts, and larger-than-life warriors beating the absolute hell out of one another.

What makes it refreshing is that the film takes these things seriously.

Not humorlessly, mind you. STREET FIGHTER is frequently hilarious. But its humor comes from the characters and the absurdity of their circumstances rather than a desperate need to reassure the audience that everyone involved knows how silly the material is.

There is genuine heart beneath the spectacle, which feels increasingly rare in a blockbuster landscape where everything must be tongue-in-cheek, ironic, self-deprecating, or accompanied by a knowing wink to the camera.

That is perhaps where the strongest comparison can be drawn to the Wachowskis' 2008 masterpiece SPEED RACER, which is one of the highest compliments I can give any blockbuster.

Like SPEED RACER, STREET FIGHTER is an unapologetically artificial, candy-colored explosion of cinematic excess that understands the emotional sincerity of its source material.

It boasts immaculately detailed video game costumes, brought to life with cosplay-level accuracy by costume designer Kym Barrett, whose credits include THE MATRIX and AQUAMAN.

Its wonderfully realized sets, overseen by production designer Kevin Kavanaugh of the JOHN WICK franchise, look as though the backgrounds of the arcade games have been pulled directly from the screen and constructed in three dimensions.

Everything is heightened. Everything is exaggerated. Everything looks as though it belongs on the cover of a video game box from 1995. And it's glorious.

But most importantly, STREET FIGHTER tells a personal story amid its stylized fights and visually striking action.

At its core, this is the story of Ken and Ryu, and the complicated bond between two men who aren't brothers by blood but share something deeper than ordinary friendship.

It's a story about winning, about becoming the best version of yourself without surrendering to vanity, and about balancing ambition with the intoxicating temptation of power.

That emotional foundation is what elevates the film beyond an expensive exercise in nostalgia.

It even comes to a head through the inclusion of 4 Non Blondes' "What's Up?," a song that has become so thoroughly associated with memes and internet culture that hearing it used for genuine emotional impact feels almost revolutionary.

The scene isn't played for laughs. The movie actually means it.

Imagine that.

STREET FIGHTER is also populated by an incredible ensemble of characters who manage to shine even when their appearances are relatively brief. It's abundantly clear that the filmmakers have ambitions for a sequel or two, with plenty more characters waiting in the wings.

The casting itself is inspired.

Comedians like Andrew Schulz and Eric André, WWE performers like Roman Reigns and Cody Rhodes, and larger-than-life entertainers like 50 Cent and Orville Peck all contribute to the film's peculiar charm.

Many of these characters play off the heightened public personas of the performers portraying them, making the entire world feel maximalist, theatrical, and wonderfully artificial.

The result has the whimsical energy of handing a 14-year-old boy a $100 million budget and telling him to make the coolest movie he can possibly imagine.

And I mean that as an enormous compliment.

All these cartoonish supporting characters aside, the film's heart rests squarely on the shoulders of Centineo's Ken, Koji's Ryu, Liang's Chun-Li, and Dastmalchian's Bison.

Centineo first rose to prominence through Netflix's teen romances before making his Hollywood blockbuster debut in the much-maligned BLACK ADAM in 2022, where he was one of the film's highlights. He later appeared in Alex Garland's 2025 war drama WARFARE.

Here, he's a tremendously charismatic lead, playing Ken as a man whose ego and vanity are matched only by the vulnerability he tries desperately to conceal.

He's easy to loathe, easy to sympathize with, and even easier to root for.

Andrew Koji, whom audiences may recognize from the television series Warrior or his turn as Storm Shadow in the pandemic-era G.I. JOE film SNAKE EYES, is a perfect counterbalance.

His Ryu is stoic, disciplined, and frequently hilarious without ever appearing to realize he's being funny.

The contrast between Ken's flamboyant personality and Ryu's almost supernatural restraint gives their relationship an irresistible dynamic.

Relative newcomer Callina Liang shines as the intimidating and fiercely independent Chun-Li, delivering some of the film's best one-liners with an anger and intensity that practically radiate from the screen.

Her two-on-one fight against Vega and Juli (Rayna Vallandingham) is a particular highlight, showcasing both the film's inventive choreography and Liang's commanding screen presence.

Then there's David Dastmalchian. An unconventional choice for M. Bison, certainly, but a fantastic one.

Dastmalchian takes the sickly, unsettling screen presence he's demonstrated in films like PRISONERS and DUNE and injects it with a heaping helping of theatrical villainy.

It's the sort of gloriously cheesy performance that would have made the late Raul Julia, whose portrayal of Bison remains the most memorable element of the 1994 STREET FIGHTER film, very proud.

The film understands that Bison shouldn't simply be menacing.,He should be ridiculous, terrifying, and utterly convinced of his own magnificence.

Dastmalchian delivers on all three counts.

For all its bombast, STREET FIGHTER is ultimately a movie that understands exactly what it wants to be.

It's colorful, ridiculous, sincere, spectacularly over-the-top, and entirely uninterested in apologizing for any of it.

In an era when so many big-budget adaptations seem embarrassed by the properties they're adapting, there's something genuinely exhilarating about a movie that embraces its source material with such unrestrained affection.

I suspect STREET FIGHTER will find an even larger audience when it eventually arrives on streaming, whether that's Paramount+ or whatever hybrid service emerges from the ever-changing landscape of Hollywood's corporate mergers.

And I sincerely hope this franchise has a place in Skydance's future.

Because there's plenty of fight left in this cast.,And, more importantly, plenty of fun.

Round One was a thrill ride. Now I'm ready for Round Two.