Street Fighter (2026) Review

By Ben Wright (@Iamzavagno | www.xgeeks.co.uk)

This review is spoiler-free.

Set in 1993, estranged fighters Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) are drawn back together when Chun-Li (Callina Liang) recruits them for the World Warrior Tournament. But with General M. Bison (David Dastmalchian) lurking in the background, the tournament soon turns into something much bigger.

I really wanted to like Street Fighter more than I did. The opening is strong, and I was immediately on board with the style they were going for. There are some genuinely brilliant moments throughout, and the final act is where things really kick off, with the gloves coming off and everything descending into the sort of chaotic madness you’d hope for from a Street Fighter film. These moments kept me invested, but getting there was a bit of a struggle.

The middle of the film is where I started to lose patience. The pacing is incredibly stop-start, building up momentum before slamming on the brakes and taking ages to get going again. It happens often enough that the film never really finds its rhythm, and that lack of balance carries over into the comedy. Some of the jokes landed for me, but far too many were either oversexualised or just plain dumb. I’m all for a bit of silliness, especially with these characters, but the humour here can be so hit-and-miss that it starts to work against the film. One minute it’s trying to take the story seriously, the next it’s throwing in a joke that completely kills the mood.

The tournament itself also feels strangely irrelevant. There’s a huge roster of characters, but so many barely get anything to do that I found myself wondering why I should care about the fights in the first place. And when those fights do arrive, they’re a bit of a disappointment. Some of the over-the-top moves look great, but the choreography is incredibly choppy, with the editing making it difficult to follow what’s happening. Rather than making the action feel bigger, all that cutting just takes the impact out of it. Honestly, some of the fight scenes make Iron Fist look like Ip Man in comparison, which isn’t exactly the sort of thing you want to be saying about Street Fighter.

The main trio are easily the strongest part of the film. Noah Centineo’s Ken and Andrew Koji’s Ryu have a relationship that actually gives the story some emotional weight, and there are moments where you can feel the history between them. I wish the film had given their relationship more room to breathe because there’s something good here that gets lost amongst everything else going on. Callina Liang is brilliant as Chun-Li too, a badass from start to finish, although her motivations feel rushed and could have done with a lot more attention. That’s the frustrating thing about this film. It keeps introducing ideas and characters that could be interesting, then moves on before doing much with them.

I wasn’t sold on General M. Bison either. I enjoy David Dastmalchian in his other roles, but this was a swing and a miss for me. And no, I’m not even going to get into comparisons with Raúl Juliá’s iconic performance in the 1994 film. What makes it worse is that I found Bison more convincing in the brief animated sequences than in the live-action scenes. He should have been a much more intimidating presence, but my main takeaway was his apparent foot fetish. Whilst I will never kink-shame, it did feel like, at times, that Quentin Tarantino had wandered onto the set.

One thing I absolutely loved was the decision to use 2D animation for the flashbacks. The animation is incredible, bursting with colour and energy, and these sequences were some of the best-looking parts of the entire film. They honestly made me wish the whole thing had been animated. There’s something about that style that suits these characters so well, and I would happily have watched more of it. It’s a genuinely great creative choice, which makes it all the more frustrating that the live-action side of the film doesn’t always reach the same heights.

I kept thinking about the 2021 Mortal Kombat film while watching this. That had a lot of the right ingredients too, but didn’t quite know what to do with them. The difference is that Mortal Kombat 2 managed to take those lessons on board and deliver a much more enjoyable follow-up. Resident Evil has shown this year that video game adaptations can get the mix of action, humour and self-awareness right as well. Street Fighter has all those elements, but they never quite come together. It feels like they’ve tried to squeeze too much into this first film, leaving the story and characters underdeveloped when a little more time spent on them could have made a real difference.

The ending makes it pretty clear that there’s more to come, and despite all my complaints, I’d still be up for a sequel. There were enough moments here that I genuinely enjoyed to leave me wanting to see these characters again. I just hope the filmmakers take a look at what didn’t work this time around and learn from it. Give the characters more room to breathe, sort out the pacing and spend more time getting the fights right, and there’s a much better film to be made here. It’s just a shame they couldn’t learn a few lessons from Mortal Kombat before getting started.

Street Fighter has flashes of the dumb, chaotic fun I wanted from it, some fantastic animation and a handful of brilliant moments, but the uneven pacing, hit-and-miss comedy and disappointing fight choreography hold it back. I enjoyed enough of it to want another round, but this should have landed a lot harder than it did.