‘Street Fighter’ Brings an Arcade Favorite to the Big Screen

Before playing Ken, Ryu and Chun-Li on screen, Noah Centineo, Andrew Koji and Callina Liang grew up playing the Street Fighter video games. Koji favored Ryu, Centineo spent hours playing on his cousins' Street Fighter II arcade machine, and Liang always chose Chun-Li. Now, they star in Street Fighter, the new film presented by Paramount Pictures and Legendary Pictures in association with Capcom, arriving in theaters October 16.

Andrew Shulz, Callina Liang, Andrew Koji and Noah Centineo star in Street Fighter

First released by Capcom in 1987, Street Fighter is a series of video games built around one-on-one combat. Players choose from a global roster of fighters, each with a distinct personality, fighting style and signature moves. With the arrival of Street Fighter II in 1991, characters such as Ryu, Ken and Chun-Li became arcade favorites, helping build a community of players that has followed the franchise for nearly four decades.

Co-written and directed by Kitao Sakurai and set in 1993, Street Fighter follows the story of estranged friends and former training partners Ryu and Ken Masters. Ryu has turned away from fighting in search of peace, but learns that Ken is in danger. Meanwhile, Chun-Li is recruiting the world's strongest fighters for a tournament organized by the ruthless M. Bison. She has her own reasons for getting close to Bison, who has his sights set on harnessing Ryu's power.

The cast includes martial artists, musicians, comedians and wrestling stars, united by the challenge of turning familiar moves and larger-than-life personalities into a movie with a pulse of its own. "You have to honor the game and what's integral to the game, but the film has to be its own living, breathing entity," Sakurai says.

Director Kitao Sakurai on the set of Street Fighter

Turning an Arcade Favorite Into a Film

Legendary sought a filmmaker who understood both the game's cultural significance and its blend of action, colorful characters and humor. "It was a huge moment culturally, and especially for me as a half Japanese kid growing up in Ohio, to have Ryu -- it was the first time I saw a character in fiction who reflected who I was," said Sakurai, whose credits include Beef, Dave and Bad Trip.

Legendary began developing the screenplay in late 2024, with Sakurai drawing on the music, style and energy of the early '90s. He traveled to Osaka to meet Street Fighter game director Takayuki Nakayama, working with Capcom to balance fidelity to the games with room for an original story. Meanwhile, producer Cale Boyter saw his leading duo in Koji and Centineo. A conversation about Centineo's childhood love of the game soon became an offer to play Ken opposite Koji's Ryu, with Liang rounding out the trio as Chun-Li.

Alongside the three leads are David Dastmalchian as M. Bison, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson as Balrog, Orville Peck as Vega and Jason Momoa, who also serves as a producer, as Blanka. WWE stars Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns play Guile and Akuma, while comedians Andrew Schulz and Eric André bring their timing to Dan Hibiki and Don Sauvage.

Orville Peck and Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson in Street Fighter

For Peck, landing the role of Vega came with a particularly personal announcement. "I always played as Vega, so when I got cast as him, the first people I told were my two older brothers," he says. "It was a lovely full circle moment for me."

Building Characters, Chemistry and Signature Moves

At the center of the spectacle are two former training partners who have lost their connection. Koji's Ryu is disciplined and withdrawn; Centineo's Ken Masters is impulsive, charismatic and struggling beneath his swagger. Their reunion gives the action an emotional foundation, with Liang's determined Chun-Li pushing the story forward.

Koji and Centineo arrived in Sydney six weeks before filming and immersed themselves in the script, working through their characters' histories and motivations together. "I have never been able to dive as deep into a character with another actor as I have with Koji, and that is because Koji would not let go of it," Centineo says.

Noah Centineo and Andrew Koji in Street Fighter

Preparing to embody those characters was just as demanding physically. Koji trained in the UK for six months before continuing in Australia, while Liang drilled kicks for two hours a day, six days a week, before arriving. Training together in Sydney helped the leads develop their bond. "Noah and Koji are like my brothers at this point," Liang says. "It was just us three every day."

Callina Liang in Street Fighter

With 14 major fight sequences, second unit director and stunt coordinator Jon Valera and his team developed choreography rooted in each character's style, including Chun-Li's Chinese martial arts, Guile's military force and Blanka's animalistic movement. Peck drew on his background in ballet and flamenco to give Vega his combination of elegance and aggression.

An international stunt team supplied the specialized skills to translate the games' signature moves for the screen. For Chun-Li's spinning bird kick, that included a former Cirque du Soleil performer whose harnesses and rigs could help keep a fighter airborne a little longer. Practical effects and visual effects supported the choreography. "This was one of the most collaborative efforts I've been on with those two departments," Valera says.

Building a World Fans Can Recognize

Costume designer Kym Barrett worked with production designer Kevin Kavanaugh and director of photography Ken Seng to create a world that felt physical and lived in, down to the wear on Ryu's white gi and red headband.

Costumes also had to perform: accommodating harnesses, wire work and practical effects while retaining the silhouettes fans know. For Centineo, an early camera test brought those separate disciplines together. "With Ken's lighting, and me and Koji next to each other in that gi, I just went, damn. That's Ryu and Ken," he recalls.

The film's connection to the '90s also extends to its animation. Titmouse created traditional hand-drawn flashbacks exploring Ken and Ryu's backstories, using techniques and Japanese animation styles associated with the era.