Street Fighter: The New Film Challenges the Ghost of 1994

To understand how much the relationship between Hollywood and video games has changed, one only needs to look at Street Fighter. In 1994, the film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme took the Capcom characters and inserted them into a military story dominated by Colonel Guile. In 2026, the path seems to be going in the opposite direction.

The new version, also expected in Italian cinemas around mid-October 2026, brings Ryu and Ken back to the center of the story and revives the World Warrior tournament. The two, once training partners and now separated, will be involved by Chun-Li in a competition behind which something much more dangerous is hidden.

This time the ring returns as the protagonist

Andrew Koji will be Ryu, Noah Centineo will play Ken, and Callina Liang will be Chun-Li. Around them will revolve names like Jason Momoa as Blanka, Cody Rhodes as Guile, and 50 Cent as Balrog. David Dastmalchian, meanwhile, inherits the legacy of Raul Julia in the role of M. Bison.

And it is precisely the comparison with the 1994 film that makes this new operation interesting. Back then, Dhalsim had become a scientist and Blanka the product of an experiment: the world of the video game was practically rewritten to adapt it to cinema.

This time, the opposite seems to be happening. Hadouken, fights, and the tournament no longer need to be justified: they are an integral part of the Street Fighter universe. It remains to be seen if that will be enough to turn a good idea into a good film.