“Street Fighter” is Diverse, But That’s It

Video game adaptations have a mixed track record, but in general, they tend to be better received when they stick closer to the source material.  Street Fighter doesn’t have to worry about that, for the most part.  The majority of people who have played a Street Fighter game played it either in the arcades or at a friend’s house, and are completely unaware of the lore.  That shallow experience is reflected in the new film adaptation. 

Street Fighter does have a story, but it’s one that has been told ten million times and is incredibly sloppy in this specific instance.  There are two main antagonists and three main protagonists, which makes the film feel unfocused.  Of the two main antagonists, the more prominent M. Bison (David Dastmalchian) has a very weak and generic motivation.  The other, Akuma (Roman Reigns) has basically no motivation at all other than “be evil.”  The protagonists’ motivations feel much more natural, but character decisions still make no sense as they lack set-up, due to the rushed nature of the movie’s story.  There is one revelation in particular which is supposed to be the movie’s big plot twist that makes no sense for the character who takes the action. 

Well before this moment, numerous readers are sure to have shouted something akin to “it’s Street Fighter, what did you expect?” In other words, this material isn’t supposed to be literary, it’s meant to be pure entertainment.  Challenge accepted.  If this movie is supposed to be a poor excuse to have endless fighting, they satisfied the endless part, but the fighting is underwhelming.  Everything feels rushed and generic, there are absolutely zero interesting maneuvers, and there is no tension in the fights.  Neither style nor substance can be found in the combat in this picture. 

True to the video games, and maybe even exceeding them, the cast in the film is heavily diverse.  Japanese-English actor Andrew Koji plays the main character Ryu, Canadian-Chinese actress Callina Liang plays Chun-Li, Samoan-Italian wrestler Roman Reigns plays Akuma, Japanese wrestler Hirooki Goto plays E. Honda, Jewish-Haitian comedian Eric Andre plays Don Sauvage, African-American rapper 50 Cent plays Balrog, and Hawaiian actor Jason Mamoa plays Blanca.  This must be congratulated, but at the same time, the diversity is mostly empty.  You could swap all of these characters with white men and the script would be almost entirely the same, except for the crude uses of stereotypes which are played as jokes.  Ethnicity playing a role in a character isn’t necessary, but the handling of the diverse cast is at least somewhat careless.  Women are sexualized in a way that feels like director Kitao Sakurai either thinks very little of the film’s audience, or, should be thought of very little himself. 

Nothing in Street Fighter feels original.  Nothing in Street Fighter feels elevated.  But, perhaps more relevantly, nothing in Street Fighter feels entertaining.  It is disappointing regardless of whether you expected more or less.  There is neither spectacle nor story.  It cannot be genuinely recommended.  Even if it is abundantly clear that much effort was expended in the creation of Street Fighter, it is even more clear that it didn’t pay off.