‘Street Fighter’ movie review: Fists, fetishes and a fighting chance at cult status

Fighter games have always posed an obnoxious little problem for Hollywood. While action games, adventure games, horror games, RPGs and narrative-driven games feature some semblance of storytelling to be excavated, expanded or improved by a screenwriter with a functioning frontal lobe, fighter games are fundamentally about selecting a colourful meathead and beating another colourful meathead into submission. Mortal Kombat has repeatedly attempted to alchemise the knuckle-dragging simplicity of this concept into cinema, with results ranging from tolerable to terminally embarrassing, while Tekken has also thrown its hat into the ring without leaving the competition quaking in its boots. Now, following the 1994 Street Fighter starring Jean-Claude Van Damme and the late, great Raul Julia, Capcom’s pugilistic freak show returns for another crack at the big screen. Round 2. Fight!

Directed by Kitao Sakurai and scripted by Sakurai and T. J. Fixman, the uninitiated require little homework for the source material beyond understanding that eccentric martial artists from across the globe convene to beat the ever-loving crap out of one another. The story opens in 1987, when Japanese martial artist Ryu (Andrew Koji) defeats Sagat in the inaugural World Warrior tournament, inadvertently awakening the dark power associated with Akuma (Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoa’i), who promptly murders Ryu’s mentor, Gouken (Don Lee), and torpedoes the relationship between Ryu and his adoptive brother, Ken Masters (Noah Centineo). Six years later, M. Bison (David Dastmalchian), the megalomaniacal dictator of Shadaloo, announces another tournament in Metrolao City, prompting Chun-Li (Callina Liang) to round up fighters from across the globe. Beyond this perfunctory scaffolding, the screenplay proceeds to haemorrhage narrative coherence with reckless abandon. The writers jettison any semblance of plot in favour of an uninterrupted parade of smart-arsed quips and deranged non sequiturs, until the credits roll.

I think the only sensible way to introduce this outlandish ensemble is to

[PLAYER SELECT]:

Andrew Koji’s Ryu: Emotionally constipated, perpetually unimpressed.

Noah Centineo’s Ken Masters: Weaponised MTV with abandonment issues.

Callina Liang’s Chun-Li: The sole adult supervising this martial arts kindergarten.

Andrew Schulz’s Dan Hibiki: Surprisingly tender comic relief.

David Dastmalchian’s M. Bison: Dictatorship with a humiliation fetish.

Cody Rhodes’ Guile: Macho bromando.

Vidyut Jammwal’s Dhalsim: Casting gimmick Monkey D. Luffy.

Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson’s Balrog: Knuckle sandwiches with a platinum discography.

Jason Momoa’s Blanka: This is just Jason Momoa.

Orville Peck’s Vega: Dominatrix Wolverine

Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoa’i’s Akuma: Glorified WrestleMania cameo.

Don Lee’s Gouken: Mentor-shaped casualty of exposition.

Eric André’s Don Sauvage: Irritating sentient foghorn.

As if this troupe of muscular weirdos were not bizarre enough already, Street Fighter is also shamelessly salacious, and its libidinal appetites are indiscriminately scattershot. The film lurches between a succession of slo-mo flesh-on-flesh or gratuitous face-to-face posturing, while most characters seem to have a latent kink the screenplay is itching to indulge — Dastmalchian’s Bison practically climaxes at the prospect of another man’s muscular potency coursing through his veins, Guile’s macho bluster comes with a queer subtext the film keeps needling, and Vega flaunts his femboy allure with spectacular brazenness. 50 Cent literally even says “who’s meat do I need to beat”. Unsurprisingly, the camera also makes periodic pit stops at women’s rears and Liang’s much-publicised 6.5-inch thigh expansion for the character. Liang has clearly put in the work, but the film’s gaze remains trapped in the pubescent hormonal amber of first oggling at a pixelated Chun-Li in her scandalously abbreviated qipao.

The film further peppers its arcade-era fan service with familiar cheesy one-liners and a litany of signature moves, from the Dragonlash Kick, Flash Kick and Psycho Crusher to the Buffalo Headbutt, hundred-hand slap, Tatsumaki Senpukyaku, Shoryuken and, naturally, the Hadouken. But its smartest flourish is the Titmouse-rendered 2D anime flashbacks, which recreate the visual language of old-school anime with a vibrancy that the live-action material frequently struggles to match. 

The ‘90s mall-arcade nostalgia is also stupidly entertaining, particularly the grainy MTV segments chronicling Ken’s descent into New Kids on the Block-era celebrity degeneracy, complete with peroxide curls, Duracell ads and even televised fights with Toyotas and zoo exhibits. Needle drops from MC Hammer’s ‘2 Legit 2 Quit’ and Montell Jordan’s ‘This Is How We Do It’ round out the period-piece kitsch, turning the whole affair into a gloriously tacky time capsule.

And few composers are better equipped to soundtrack men punching through their feelings than Leo Birenberg and Zach Robinson of Cobra Kai fame, although the film’s most inspired musical refrain is repeatedly saddling Ryu and Ken’s bromance with 4 Non Blondes’ ‘What’s Up’, which only becomes exponentially funnier each time it resurfaces.

Whenever Ken and Ryu start pontificating about honour and brotherhood, Chun-Li is on hand to tell them, essentially, to shut the hell up. The relentless dudebro theatrics are hardly surprising, but the screenplay’s inability to let anyone resolve a disagreement without throwing a punch grows tiresome. This self-serious silliness makes it feel like the closest Hollywood will ever come to a WWE movie that’s not a WWE movie.

Street Fighter spends so much time mugging at its own ridiculousness that it never finds the wit or imagination to transcend it, settling instead for a corny exercise in period nostalgia that settles for taking the piss out of itself instead of making something genuinely good. Yet its sheer, unmitigated stupidity and monumental horniness have an undeniable entertainment value, and I suspect time will be considerably kinder to it than its opening reviews.

Street Fighter is currently running in theatres.