Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing something broken by mending the cracks with gold lacquer, making the broken thing even more beautiful than it was before.
It proves (and this is no small thing) that something made perfectly, something well-made and efficient, sometimes doesn’t compare to something that was just an absolute mess of broken pieces.
Street Fighter (2026) is kind of like that.
It is such a mess that I doubt most people would even consider it a good movie. If you look at Rotten Tomatoes, the critics wholeheartedly agree it isn’t, and the fans wholeheartedly agree it is. We’ll discuss that disconnect later.
But my whole point to start is this. Street Fighter as a franchise is a mess. Its lore. Its animated series. The original 1994 live-action film, with the Muscles from Brussels as the all-American Guile and the teenage love of my life, Kylie Minogue, as Cammy. Street Fighter V’s absurdly over-the-top story mode. Street Fighter 6’s absurdly cheese-focused World Tour mode. All of Street Fighter is a mess, and it has been all the way back to Street Fighter II, a game that had 207 alternate versions before Third Strike ever existed.
Street Fighter as a franchise is an unashamed, brutally messy mess of galactic proportions, and so is this movie.
It’s broken. It’s dumb. It’s over the top. It’s shattered.
And it’s also beautiful.
Seven Samurai Is Perfect. I Just Don’t Wanna.
I think Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai is probably the greatest movie ever made.
That doesn’t mean it’s my favorite. That distinction is something people get wrong very often by conflating the two. But I do firmly believe that Kurosawa’s work on Seven Samurai is the pinnacle of cinematography, storytelling, setting, acting, you name it. Seven Samurai is the absolute peak.
I have yet to see another movie that makes me feel like I am where the film is, with those people. When I watch Seven Samurai, I FEEL like I am in feudal Japan, and I completely forget I’m watching a film. Toshiro Mifune is a genius as Kikuchiyo. Takashi Shimura is perfect in the role of Kambei, their wise and stoic leader. It’s just perfect.
I literally have the Criterion Collection Blu-ray on my movie shelf, and it was one of the first I ever bought when I started my collection, because when I think of great movies, it’s always the first one.
It’s also not a movie that I regularly want to rewatch. I hardly ever even think about rewatching it. It’s a 15/10. Five stars. All of the laurels and palm leaves laid before its feet.
And I just don’t wanna.
Street Fighter (2026)? I want to rewatch it right this second.
Street Fighter was an okay “movie” from a “movie perspective.” From the perspective of a critic looking for profound meaning, deep-level storytelling, impeccable pacing, and coherent character pathing, it was just an okay movie.
But as a Street Fighter movie? It’s a whole different animal.
A Stairway to Heaven
Let’s go back to the early ’90s.
In the early ’90s, I was living in a mobile home in Kentucky, playing a washboard as an instrument and puffing air into an old jug with XXX written on it, while wearing a cowboy hat and dirty overalls. And my only escape from all of that was my Super Nintendo…
I didn’t have a lot of games back then. We never had a lot of money. Hell, I lived in a mobile home in KY, what kind of money do you think I had? I had a waterbed that used to belong to my granddad, because it was cheaper than buying me an actual bed that wouldn’t cause back pain in an 8-year-old, and I had simply learned that that’s how it was. But my Super Nintendo, God bless it, was everything.
If I was grounded, it was just from my SNES. My dad knew that was all that mattered. Taking away my toys or something would have done no good. What was the point? My SNES was all that mattered.
I remember A Link to the Past being played over and over and over and over and over again, and to this day I still believe it’s the greatest and most timeless Zelda game ever made. But I digress. For a boy who hated where he lived and couldn’t give in to all the yeehaw like everyone else did? The SNES was a stairway to heaven.
Super Street Fighter II was the first game like it that I ever played. Before Mortal Kombat, before Tekken, before Final Fantasy or Tomb Raider, Bayonetta or Resident Evil. Street Fighter was the first game that I really, truly remember feeling like it meant something.
I’d had an NES before. It was built into a TV as a 2-in-1, and I played the hell out of it, but nothing on the NES ever really resonated with me. My SNES came with A Link to the Past, and for the longest time that was the only game I had. And I loved it. But when I got Super Street Fighter II, all bets were off.
So many playable characters. A whole world map of cool martial artists. I got to travel the world and beat people up in their hometowns? Hell yeah, let’s fuckin’ go!
I’ve said before how much of an effect Street Fighter and Resident Evil had on me as a kid. Cammy, Chun-Li, Ryu, Ken, Blanka. An amazing cast of characters that almost all of us can picture fully and completely in our heads just by hearing their names. Street Fighter was the absolute shit.
Little me even started calling myself “Ryu” as a nickname, despite being the whitest yeehaw kid you ever saw, because the game had that much of an impact on me.
I played every single one that followed. If I had access to it, I played it. If I could afford it, I played it on the day of release. Third Strike. The Alpha series (my personal favorite). 4, 5, 6. (Tifa is coming to 6 soon, which means I will probably disappear into playing that for a few months once she drops.)
But my long-winded point is all about this:
Much like Resident Evil, and in many ways probably even more so, I fucking LOVE STREET FIGHTER, BRO!
And when you love something as much as I love all of the stuff I love (probably a bit autistic, and that’s fine), a movie that holds all of that stuff as close to heart as you do is a godsend.
(I told myself I wouldn’t talk about Zach Cregger during this, so this is me not talking about how Zach Cregger completely missed the point on Resident Evil and just made a movie because he wanted to make a movie.)
Anyway…
It Fucking Gets It
Street Fighter (2026) fucking gets it.
Street Fighter (2026) understands what Street Fighter is. Street Fighter (2026) understands and cares about the characters. Street Fighter (2026) doesn’t care that their outfits are unrealistically colorful or over the top. It doesn’t care that it’s throwing in hand-drawn anime sequences à la Kill Bill. It doesn’t care that it has Chun-Li fighting Vega to the Offspring’s “Come Out and Play” (fuck me, that was cool).
It doesn’t care, because all it cares about are three things:
- Street Fighter
- Street Fighter fans
- Fun
And damn… was it fun.
Made for Kids in the Nineties
I want to start on the movie itself, otherwise all of the other stuff I have to say will feel out of place or won’t make sense.
This film takes place in the early ’90s, by the way. A gritty, dystopian 1993, akin to the live-action Double Dragon or the Super Mario Bros. movie (the Leguizamo one, not the Pratt one). Everything was dystopian back then, and this movie throws us right back into it.
If you didn’t grow up in the ’90s, I don’t think any of this movie will appeal to you (except Chun-Li. She will… she will appeal to you). The humor, the music choices, the mannerisms, the nods to ’90s culture, it’s all going to fly over your head. But as our good friend Diamond Dallas Page would say…
That’s not a bad thing…
That’s? A good thing.
Because this movie doesn’t try to be for everyone. This movie was DEFINITELY not made for critics. This movie was made for kids in the nineties, sitting in front of their Super Nintendos drinking Surge, with Space Jam posters on the wall and the DuckTales theme in their heads. The movie even makes references to Jolt Cola and MTV culture. The humor of the ’90s is there. The “your mom” and “that’s my name, don’t wear it out” humor is there. The raunchy, dirty, unafraid-to-offend humor is there.
If you remember going to Toys R Us and breaking your neck to play the newest video game releases, or reading video game manuals in the back seat of the car on the way home, if you remember standing in line to see the original Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat movies in theaters, this movie was made for YOU.
Now, onto the fun stuff…
I Was Absolutely, Totally WRONG About Cody Rhodes
I want to start with the casting, and at the moment, with Cody Rhodes as Guile.
Dude, what terrible, horrible casting this was…
I have to admit, when I first saw the cast for this movie I swore it off. I said I wasn’t going to see it because of how bad the cast was. Then the trailers won me over (great job on their part). But Cody Rhodes was definitely one of the front-runners of the bad choices they made.
And holy shit, was I absolutely, totally WRONG.
Every time Rhodes was on screen, he had me laughing my ass off. Every scene he was in (if Chun-Li wasn’t also in it), he was my focus.
I love Cody Rhodes. I have a lot of love in my heart for him, having watched him move up through the WWE for literally decades, following him through NJPW (shout-out to NJPW great Hirooki Goto, who has a great scene in this movie as E. Honda) and the indies, and watching him build AEW into a legitimate wrestling organization. But when he was cast, I just wasn’t feeling it, because I didn’t have the benefit of hindsight.
His over-the-top American hero, but also badass, but also kind of low-on-brain-cells military grunt personality was just absolutely perfect and unexpected, and I want to give him all of the credit in the world for proving me wrong.
They Drew Names Out of a Hat
That goes for almost the entire cast, by the way. When the cast was first revealed, it looked like they drew names out of a hat. Cody Rhodes? Roman Reigns? Jason Momoa (I love you, don’t hate me)? Like, who decided to cast Roman Reigns as Akuma? Who did that? You should be smacked.
But also… Roman Reigns is good.
Wait, what? What’s going on? Why are they all… good?
And holy moly, Broly… they just kept getting better.
Momoa as Blanka? Absolutely, 100% works. Ryu and Ken? Exactly right. Goto as E. Honda? Yes. Rhodes as Guile? A big, stupid yes. David Dastmachalanadnannand-whatever-the-hell-his-name-is as Bison? A great big, unapologetically over-the-top yes. The dude who plays Dhalsim? How the FUCK did you make Dhalsim the coolest Street Fighter character!? Explain IT TO ME!!!
Callina Liang as Chun-Li? Ahem… well… we will give her her own section.
Everyone else did great, really. The other real standouts were Momoa, Jammwal, Dastmalchian, and, surprisingly, Roman Reigns as Akuma. But there wasn’t really a weak point in the cast.
I did have issues with the way Cammy was portrayed, until I realized that this is still while she’s being mind-controlled by Bison. Once I reminded myself of that, I accepted her as well.
Eric André is annoying, but almost intentionally so, and he did get laughs out of me, especially near the end.
This cast proved me 100% wrong, and I’m very glad it did. They all knew what they signed up for, and they stuck to it. They weren’t ashamed of it. They weren’t ashamed of the outfits. They weren’t ashamed of the cheese. They dove in headfirst and fucking did it.
And no one more so than…
Callina Liang
I’m in love with you, please call me…
Ahem… Anyway… Let’s talk about Callina Liang as Chun-Li.
In a world where source material and characters and established lore don’t mean JACK SHIT to anyone adapting a video game or book into a movie, Callina Liang said, “Fuck that, hold my beer.”
This chick is a badass. She gained 20 pounds for this role and added like two and a half inches to her thighs. (Trust me, it is very noticeable in the movie. Also, there is a track on the soundtrack called “Thigh Fidelity,” just so you know.) She’s hot as hell, she can do all of the moves, and she trained in taekwondo, Muay Thai, and wushu to prepare for this movie. And dude, just… holy shit.
But beyond all of that. Beyond the fact that she was eating 12 whole eggs a day for protein, to the point that she said there were days she thought she was going to throw up. Beyond the fact that she didn’t just want to play Chun-Li, she wanted to be Chun-Li. Beyond all of that, she also did the best acting in the movie.
Scenes where she had to cry? She made it 100% believable. Scenes where she had to be a badass? 100% believable.
Too many movies these days take some tiny chick, pit her against an entire army of fully armed dudes, and want us to just suspend disbelief. What Callina Liang does is say, “Fuck that, I’m a badass,” and she never feels small. She’s just hot, and cool, and badass all at the same time, and really the character that holds the whole movie together (kind of literally, since she’s the one who delivers the tournament invites).
Every time she is on screen she is a goddess, every bit of it in equal measure. And I’m saying this because I believe it, and because I want it: if she chooses to continue down this route, she could be the next big female action star, in the same vein as Michelle Yeoh in the ’90s.
I completely believe this.
What About the Love for the Source Material?
Realizing right about now that I actually have a lot to say about this movie.
What about Ken having the EXACT SAME, IDENTICAL fighting stance movements that he had in the anime? Not the game. The ANIME. They went that far, taking references not just from the games but from the entire franchise. Ken, with his almost Bruce Lee–style bounce and his switching fighting stances, immediately triggered something in my mind that I didn’t realize I still remembered. THAT is some serious love for the source material.
What about David Dastmalchian repeating Raul Julia’s “For me, it was Tuesday” line?
What about Justin Wong and Maximilian Dood (if you’ve read my other blogs, you know how much this guy means to me) in the crowd during the Blanka and Ryu fight? If you don’t know them, these two guys have been the glue holding the Fighting Game Community together for decades.
What about Dan’s ridiculous pink gi, and him saying that it’s white, it’s only pink because he accidentally washed it with Ken’s?
What about them actually saying their post-fight quotes after they beat someone? Guile saying, “Go home and be a family man.”
See!? This movie wasn’t made for critics. No wonder they hated it. This movie was made for US.
The Disconnect
As I write this, Street Fighter (2026) sits at 41% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and 82% with audiences.
So why are the critics’ ratings so low and the audience ratings so high?
I can’t guarantee anything, but I would guess it’s this:
None of those critics stood in line at a Babbage’s or a GameStop, waiting hours for a Street Fighter release event. None of those critics know what a hitbox or a command grab or a combo breaker is. They have no idea what “i-frame” means, or “neutral,” or “Daigo parry,” or “forward fireball.”
This movie was made for people who can tell you what every single one of those things means, and I would assume that’s exactly why the audience score is so high and the critic score isn’t.
The critics were paid to go see this movie and rate it. The audience knew from the start what they were getting into and what they wanted, and they got it, because it was made for them.
Now It’s Time for Me to Complain
Now it’s time for me to complain, despite the fact that I feel like I still have a lot to say.
I wish the fights were longer. I wish Zangief was more present. I wish “Joe” didn’t exist at all, regardless of the fact that I understand why he was there.
My issues with this movie aren’t that it wasn’t good or that I didn’t like it. My issue is that I just kept wanting more. More of Chun-Li, more of Guile, more of Zangief, more of all the characters, longer fight scenes, more fights set to ’90s music. The issue wasn’t that they weren’t giving it to me. The issue was that I liked what they were giving me so much that I wanted more.
And I understand that they had a LOT of characters they had to build all at once. That’s a tricky thing to do; you gotta make room for them all. But I would have rather this movie been three hours long with longer fight scenes. You wouldn’t have heard a complaint from me.
I Don’t Know If It’s a Good Movie
Ultimately, just like Mortal Kombat II, this was a movie I didn’t plan to go see. And just like Mortal Kombat II, I’m so glad I did.
I don’t know if Street Fighter (2026) is a good movie. I don’t. But I want to watch it again right now.
I know that Seven Samurai is a perfect movie, and I have no plans to rewatch it any time soon.
So do with that what you will. If nothing else, it was made for Street Fighter fans, and it’s one of the most fun movies I’ve ever seen.
Kintsugi doesn’t hide the cracks. It fills them with gold and shows them off.
That’s Street Fighter (2026). Broken, dumb, over the top, and shattered, with gold in every single crack.
Callina Liang, call me. *kissy face*