STREET FIGHTER (2026)

Pulling off the impressive feat of being overstimulating and underwhelming at the same time, Street Fighter boasts a loud and colourful martial arts spectacle sure to appease fans of the source material yet befuddle the rest.

It's impressive at times how filmmakers can drop the ball when handed the simplest of projects. Street Fighter mark 2026 is the third adaptation of the video game source material that – despite high levels of fan service – fails to understand the most basic of rules: it’s all about the fighting.

It’s a concept that the action films of yesteryear starring the likes of Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, and Jean-Claude Van Damme had no problem in executing. Yet like so many franchise movies these days, Street Fighter is sucked into the whirlpool of worldbuilding alongside a style-over-skill approach to action that results in another overindulgent and under achieving mainstream wannabe blockbuster.

In a nod to its strong anime connections, Street Fighter begins with a 2D animation sequence in which Ryu (Andrew Koji) wins the coveted World Warrior tournament using a dark magic while drawing the morbid curiosity of the despot General M. Bison (David Dastmalchian). Several years later, Bison attempts to lure Ryu to a new fighting tournament that features the world’s greatest warriors – among them Ryu’s former training partner and estranged friend Ken (Noah Centineo) – in a play to usurp Ken’s power into his own “psycho energy”.

Of course, there is more plot – and a lot more characters – in Street fighter to further complicate things, among them undercover Interpol agent Chun-Li (Callina Liang) whose mission to bring down Bison is also driven by personal vendetta.

Director Kitao Sakurai (Bad Trip) showcases little subtlety juggling the various elements of Street Fighter, opting instead to smash everything against the wall in the hope that something makes an impression. What Sakurai delivers instead is a big old mess of a film that is high on its own supply and unable to properly portray the stakes at play, even though we are repeatedly reminded that these characters have something to prove.

The worst crime of Street Fighter is the inability to deliver a fight scene worth remembering. The action is filmed way too close and the editing by James Thomas (A Minecraft Movie) and Delaney Del Vecchio (Spa Weekend) much too rushed. The beauty of Street Fighter as a game is that every character has a style and a power unique both watchable. Sakurai instead delivers action scenes that are all noise yet little song; a mosh-pit of punches and kicks and grunts that lacks character and psychology.

It is a shame. Anyone can see that there is a love for the material in Street Fighter, with casting and costuming especially strong (save for Dastmalchian whose Bison comes across as a perverted addict salivating his next fix). Here’s hoping the (eventual) “Round 2” of the Street Fighter experience is more martial arts classic that martial arts tragic.