Version Control: Which ‘Street Fighter’ Movie Is the True Champion?

Remakes, reimaginings, and readaptations have been a part of the movies as long as the medium has existed. With the series Version Control, Jesse Hassenger explores stories with multiple notable incarnations throughout cinema history, to help determine which movie version may be right for your streaming needs.

The brighter-colored Beatles to Mortal Kombat’s grittier Rolling Stones — or perhaps the classic Simpsons to Mortal Kombat’s more extreme Family Guy — Street Fighter beat its darker rival to the arcade scene, first released in 1987. (Kombat didn’t commence until 1992.) Accordingly, a movie version of the fighting game reached theaters first, too. But by the mid-1990s, the gap between the two had narrowed, and accordingly the two franchises released their films just nine months apart. 1994’s Street Fighter was a minor international hit, retrofitted for Jean-Claude Van Damme; 1995’s Mortal Kombat only made a little more globally, but on a smaller budget and without the benefit of a big-name star. (It also grossed twice as much as its rival in North America and inspired a direct sequel.)

Now, more than thirty years later, a rematch is at hand. Though both franchises have released subsequent reboots, a new version of Street Fighter is debuting in theaters in the same year as this spring’s Mortal Kombat II, the first time they’ve shared a release year (and have narrowed the aforementioned eight-month gap to just five). Beyond the competition between these two movies, however, it’s instructive to take a look at a more intra-franchise feud. Street Fighter has now been through three different iterations on the big screen; which one is the worthiest champion?

Version Control loves a good brawl, so let’s take a look at all three Street Fighter movies and declare a victor once and for all.

1. Street Fighter (1994)

   Early in the first film version of Street Fighter, game characters Ken (Damian Chapa) and Ryu (Byron Mann) prepare for a cage fight with the fearsome, claw-brandishing Vega (Jay Tavare). Before it can begin, Jean-Claude Van Damme, nominally playing the character Guile, crashes into the building with a tank and arrests everyone — eliding an actual fight scene in the most expensive-looking way possible. Later, when Ken and Ryu get into a prison-yard brawl, the movie keeps much of the action off-screen, despite the obvious presence of dozens of extras and a fairly elaborate set; it keeps cutting back to Guile as he forms a plan involving these fighters. The execution of that plan involves a shoot-out and a truck chase, and almost no fighting. These moments are Street Fighter in a nutshell: The movie simply cannot stop thinking of reasons to avoid martial arts, despite it being an elaborate adaptation of a beloved fighting game.

   There are some actual fights in the movie, and the reasons for Street Fighter not just proceeding as a pure martial-arts spectacular are at least ambitious; the movie constructs a story about civil war in Thailand as a vehicle for various characters from the popular game Street Fighter II to come together, and it’s sort of fun to see the filmmakers map those icons onto semi-real-world equivalents with more complicated motivations than wanting to be crowned the world’s greatest fighter. At times, the movie resembles the deeply strange but fascinating Super Mario Bros. live-action movie from 1993 in its attempt to put its own spin on the material.

   The downside is an emphasis on explosions and destructions moreso than actual fights, as well as the kind of production confusion that results in half a dozen credited editors. Though Raul Julia (in his final performance, sadly) and Ming-Na Wen are a lot of fun as M. Bison and Chun-Li, respectively, and the movie does land some intentional laughs with some of its dialogue asides, it seems completely uninterested in functioning as a Street Fighter movie. That would be fine if it were something else instead, but it doesn’t really work as a wartime action-adventure, either. The film has its fans, but mostly it’s a disappointment even in the realm of that’s-so-’90s second-tier blockbusters. Mortal Kombat did it better, sorry to say.

   Stream Street Fighter on Tubi

2. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)

   OK, hear me out. Yes, this movie was so ill-received by its own distributor that 20^th Century Fox gave it a cursory thousand-screen release, whereupon it flopped hard, making less in total than the new Street Fighter movie made on its opening day. And yes, it is absolutely mystifying that following his work on the terrible 2005 Doom movie, director Andrzej Bartkowiak would be handed another game-based movie, though presumably the combination of having made another one at all and dabbling in martial arts with a couple of American Jet Li movies was presumed to be proper experience for a movie centering on beloved token girl fighter Chun-Li. But with appropriately lowered expectations, the chintziness of The Legend of Chun-Li is, if hard to fully defend, plenty easy to accept.

   Essentially, it gives Chun-Li (Kristin Kreuk) a low-rent Batman Begins treatment, following her journey from concert pianist to adult-orphaned vengeance-seeker (as in other versions, M. Bison, here played with hilarious incongruity by B-movie mainstay Neal McDonough, killed her father, though her mother dies from cancer). It’s technically more grounded than either of the other Street Fighter movies, though still plenty cartoonish, especially in the field of “insanely amped Chris Klein performances.” If Legend of Chu-Li does manage to feel slightly more real, it’s more because it’s a pretty low-budget affair. Yet it does have a certain simple appeal: Kreuk looking pretty, doing the obligatory training at the hands of a wise master, and then spinning and kicking bad guys to her heart’s content. Plus, Street Fighter character Balrog is played by the late, great Michael Clarke Duncan! Basically, it’s a decade-earlier version of that G.I. Joe Snake Eyes movie: Utterly unnecessary, little to do with the source material, but pretty fun if you just want to watch a silly action movie with some vaguely branded characters.

   Where to stream Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li

3. Street Fighter (2026)

   Now, when Mortal Kombat came back to theaters in 2021 promising fans R-rated violence, greater adherence to game lore, and less sheer ridiculous than the cheesy ’90s movies, it turned out to be… kind of a massive bore, and one that didn’t even depict the titular kombat. (The recent sequel righted the ship to some degree, but it was still starting on its back foot thanks to the earlier film.) So it’s not necessarily a great sign that Street Fighter is landing on the scene claiming to be a treat for the fans — and it’s potentially even worse that, like that first Kombat film, this film treats the martial arts tournament that you’d expect to be at the center of the plot as sort of a comic sideshow, where the majority of matches are not actually depicted on screen. At some points, the movie even pays homage to the 1994 movie; thinking of it as a beloved cult classic that requires a proper tribute could indicate filmmakers who have lost the plot.

   That said, the visual and narrative tone of the new Street Fighter turns out to be, thankfully, just right. Yes, if you’re expecting a hardcore martial arts movie about a ruthless tournament between the world’s best fighters, you’re probably better off checking out this year’s terrific The Furious (which is not a tournament story either, but often feels more like one than this does). But if you can accept that Street Fighter is more of an action-fantasy movie set in an alternate 1993 where characters seemingly have access to the entirety of ’90s pop music at any given time, you might be able to get on this movie’s wavelength.

   Some story points remain intact from 1994: Ken (Noah Centineo) and Ryu (Andrew Koji) are still paired off, although as estranged ex-besties rather than an immediate team, and Chun-Li (Callina Liang) is still an undercover agent seeking revenge against M. Bison (horror mainstay David Dastmalchian). But director Kitao Sakurai gives the material a more anime-style sensibility, sometimes literally; a full 10-12 minutes of it is animated, with the medium used to depict various backstories. The actors all seem to be having fun, particularly Cody Rhodes as the goofily coiffed Guile, and from that sense of fun comes a surprising degree of warmth. Also hotness: While the movie could go further with sexuality that’s largely winking and silly, it’s still a hornier experience than most superhero movies are allowed to be.

   Street Fighter‘s action sequences could stand to be a little more sustained, that’s for sure; they’re often cross-cut, quick-cut, and/or boiled down to a few iconic-looking moments rather than creating a sustained conflict with their own sense of pacing and movement. But as a knowingly ridiculous spectacle designed to make you want to watch further adventures of these video game characters (whether said adventures actually materialize or not), it’s the first Street Fighter movie to really get the job done.

   THE VERSION CONTROL VERDICT: STREET FIGHTER (2026) WINS!

   For the second time in a row, 2026 triumphs in a Version Control video game tournament! Street Fighter isn’t on the level of Resident Evil in terms of translating gameplay into a viable, accessible, and well-made movie. But it’s a silly good time at the movie theater.

   Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.