LOS ANGELES MONDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2026
Now that Mortal Kombat has had not one but two movie reboots, it's only fair that its biggest rival gets a turn. The new Street Fighter arrives in cinemas this week, and it's swinging big: set in an alternate 1993, the film follows estranged friends and former street fighters Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) and Ryu (Andrew Koji), recruited by the mysterious Chun-Li (Callina Liang) for a plot to take down the authoritarian M. Bison (David Dastmalchian) and his World Warrior Tournament.
01 That Cast, Though
Read the call sheet twice, because it doesn't get less surreal: Jason Momoa, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, Joe "Roman Reigns" Anoa'i, Cody Rhodes, Eric André, Vidyut Jammwal, Olivier Richters, UFC champion Alexander Volkanovski and Kyle Mooney round out the ensemble. It's the kind of lineup that suggests the movie knows exactly what it is — a big, loud, maximalist fighting tournament — and has decided to have fun with it. Director and co-writer Kitao Sakurai, a frequent Eric André collaborator (who pops up in the cast too), is promising a faithful vision of the game's vast dystopian world.
02 The Video-Game Movie Test
The bar for game adaptations has moved a lot in the last few years — audiences will show up for these now, but they can smell a cash-grab from the trailer. What Street Fighter has going for it is specificity: a period setting, a director with a distinct comic voice, and a cast full of people who look like they actually throw hands for a living. Whether it lands or not, it's the biggest theatrical swing for a fighting game since the genre's '90s heyday. Round one starts this week.
Directed by Kitao Sakurai; written with T.J. Fixman; produced by Legendary.
A fighting-game movie starring actual fighters, wrestlers and Jason Momoa is either going to be the most fun two hours of the fall or a beautiful disaster — and there's genuinely no in-between. We're in for round one either way.
