Review: ‘Street Fighter’ is dumb, ugly and ridiculous, I liked it

I still remember the first time I played Street Fighter II. Hyped into oblivion by a magazine feature, I begged my dad to drive me 30 miles to an arcade. It’s safe to say it lived up to the hype. From that day on, I’ve been a Street Fighter nut: I’ve played every single game in the series across every platform imaginable and know this franchise like the back of my hand.

A couple of years ago I even visited Japan to try out my Third Strike skills in Tokyo arcades. Naturally, the players there wiped the floor with me, but being utterly demolished was satisfying in its own way. What I’m trying to say with all this is that if this movie is going to appeal to anyone, it’s me.

And yet I took my seat with rock-bottom expectations. I try not to let my opinion be influenced by anyone else, but I couldn’t escape seeing advance comments on social media along the lines of “the worst movie of the year,” “embarrassing,” and “what on Earth were they thinking?”

“You’re an orphan… but HE was raised by EELS.”

It’s difficult to argue with much of the criticism. Yes, Street Fighter is garish, ugly, and often surprisingly cheap-looking for a major studio production. Yes, it’s astonishingly stupid and runs on Saturday morning cartoon logic. And yes, it has some of the most heinous needle drops I’ve heard in years (the final one left my jaw on the floor).

Despite all that, I enjoyed Street Fighter. I kept thinking of the Wachowskis’ unfairly maligned Speed Racer (currently enjoying something of a critical reappraisal), with both movies leaning into a dayglo color palette, outrageously cheesy costuming, a playful mix of animation and live-action, and an absolute refusal to sand down the weirder edges of the property they’re adapting. All of which results in dialogue like, “You’re an orphan… but HE was raised by EELS.”

Plus, on a more prosaic level, there’s an admirable drive to jam as many fight scenes into the movie as possible. Often, these fights take place on streets, so it’s at least difficult to argue you’re being short-changed on the title’s promise. My hopes were high for the fights after an early hotel room fight between Ryu and Ken that ventures into Jackie Chan territory with its pratfalls and imaginative use of objects scattered around the place.

Sadly, the rest of the combat doesn’t match that high, though it’s competent and kinetic stuff. Sure, it’s bonkers cartoony violence, but there’s a genuine feeling of force and impact when someone takes a major blow, aided by decent sound design that takes cues from the bitcrushed thwack sound effects of the arcade game.

It should also be noted that at least a quarter of this movie is animated. These are stunning sequences that feel in alignment with the excellent 1994 Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. These are so stylish that every pivot back to live-action feels like a downgrade, I would have quite happily watched the entire movie in this animated style.

Street Fighter is also quite the casting feat. The protagonist is, broadly, Noah Centineo’s Ken Masters. Centineo delivers an appropriately broad and extroverted performance and certainly looks the part. Following closely behind him is Andrew Koji’s tortured Ryu, bringing some depth to a character whose sole personality trait is really really liking street fighting.

Callina Liang’s determined and vengeful Chun-Li is also great fun, as is Mel Jarnson’s dominatrix-pixie Cammy. And, while Andrew Schulz’s Dan Hibiki initially had me wincing every time he appeared on screen, by the final scene I was somehow rooting for him.

The only real wrinkle is David Dastmalchian’s M. Bison. His performance exists entirely within the shadow of Raul Julia in the 1994 movie (to the point of directly quoting his most iconic line) and though he imbues Bison with a range of tics and twitches (for some reason he likes sniffing things?) there’s never any sense of menace or power from him. Sure, he goes big. He could have gone bigger.

Street Fighter’s biggest crime is being way too Street Fighter for a mainstream audience. Speaking as someone who loves this franchise, I freely admit that the story is nonsensical garbage cobbled together as an afterthought by people whose talents lie in developing killer fighting games, not writing compelling drama. Leaning into Street Fighter‘s insane story probably won’t deliver a box office bonanza, but it’s resulted in a cheesy, strange but unexpectedly entertaining watch. Future cult classic incoming.