Street Fighter (2026) Review

The 2026 version of Street Fighter is the third attempt at starting a live-action Street Fighter film series. This attempt is a silly, campy adaptation of the popular video game series.

In 1993, M. Bison (David Dastmalchian) organises a second Street Fighter tournament so he can harvest the power of the winner. His main target is Ryu (Andrew Koji), the winner of the first tournament, but the Japanese martial artist has gone into hiding and vowed to never fight again to prevent the demon spirit Akuma (Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoa’i) from entering the moral world.

Ken Masters (Noah Centineo), Ryu’s old friend, accepts an invitation to the tournament so he can prove he is the best fighter in the world. However, Ken is being used to lure Ryu out of hiding.

The Street Fighter franchise has had a torrid time when being adapted into a film series. The 1994 version of Street Fighter was infamous for being an overstuffed mess that was rushed into production because of the success of Street Fighter II and helped set the negative reputation of video game adaptations, and 2009’s Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li was a cheap B-movie that ended up being released straight-to-DVD in many markets. The anime film was the best-received adaptation and has become a cult classic.

In theory, Street Fighter (2026) had a low bar to clear. Financially, it has already done well, but the critical reaction has been mixed-to-negative, and the scores on IMDb and Letterboxd have been tepid. Street Fighter (2026) had similar issues as the 1994 film, being an overstuffed film, and the 1994 film had Raul Julia scenery-chewing performance, something made even more remarkable because he was dying of cancer.

Fighting games are supposedly character-driven. Every character has motivations for why they join a tournament, but the backstory came from the manual, especially fighting games in the 1990s. Fighting games hardly had any storytelling. The Street Fighter (2026) wasn’t a story; it was a character motivation. Ken sought to prove himself, Ryu wanted to protect his friend, Chun-Li (Callina Liang) joined M. Bison’s organisation so she could bring him to justice, and M. Bison and Akuma wanted power. All these plotlines overlapped, leaving nothing a chance to breathe, and made Street Fighter more of a mess than it should have been. Street Fighter (2026) attempted to replicate the backstory nature of the games by using anime sequences for flashbacks, which were used as storytelling clutches.

The fighting tournament, the central conceit of the film, was pushed into the background. There were few fights in the arena; they took place before the tournament, in a prison, and in M. Bison’s lair. Compare it to Mortal Kombat II, where the tournament was given more focus, and the fights had more jeopardy. If those heroes failed, then Earthrealm would be conquered by a power-hungry dictator. Mortal Kombat II did a better job of connecting its different storylines.

Street Fighter (2026) aimed to be a fan service film. There were lots of references to the franchise. The opening was inventive because it was an animated prologue showing the first Street Fighter tournament. This was both a reference to the first game and the anime movie. However, as the film progressed, these references got a bit grating. It felt similar to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie, where the references were prioritised over the storytelling.

Street Fighter (2026) leaned too heavily on comedy and silliness. No one goes into Street Fighter expecting a gritty, serious film (that was one of the mistakes The Legend of Chun-Li made), but there should have still been some sense of earnestness. Street Fighter (2026) suffered the same issue as Masters of the Universe earlier this year; it mocked the source material too much. Both films even had sex jokes despite being aimed at a younger audience, although Street Fighter (2026) had the good grace to only have one scene with a sex joke and not make it into a running gag.

The saving grace could have been the action: that should have been the selling point for a Street Fighter movie. It should have had a mix of martial arts and visual effects, with characters using special moves like hadoukens, sonic booms, and hyakuretsukyakus. Stephen Chow’s work could have been the model to follow. Sadly, as a martial arts action film, Street Fighter (2026) was disappointing. Many of the fights were quick and overly edited. The action highlight was the prison escape and Chun-Li’s raid into M. Bison’s penthouse since the fighting lasted a bit longer.

Street Fighter (2026) aimed to be a dumb, fun film, but it was too dumb to be fun. It will challenge The Super Mario Galaxy Movie for the worst video game movie of 2026.