New ‘Street Fighter’ Trailer Is About Ken and Ryu’s Beef, but Guile Steals the Show
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A newly released trailer for Paramount and Legendary's "Street Fighter" film adds further detail to the strained friendship between Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) as they compete in the World Warriors Tournament, while also confirming a release date of 16 October 2026. The footage includes numerous references to the video game series, such as Ryu's Tatsumaki spin-kick, E. Honda's headbutt slam, Chun-Li's (Callina Liang) Lightning Legs, and the pair's Street Fighter 3 fist bump, alongside David Dastmalchian's turn as villain M. Bison, suggesting the adaptation is embracing its source material with enthusiasm.
Legendary also released an interactive companion trailer letting viewers perform arcade-style quick time event inputs, including a quarter-circle motion timed to Ryu's Hadouken. The studio is attempting to succeed where earlier fighting-game adaptations have largely struggled: the 1994 live-action "Street Fighter" starring Jean-Claude Van Damme was poorly received, redeemed chiefly by Raul Julia's performance as Bison, though the animated "Street Fighter II" film released the same year fared better critically. Recent "Mortal Kombat" films have shown the genre remains difficult to translate to screen, leaving open whether director Kitao Sakurai's take, with Cody Rhodes as Guile, can break the trend.
- New trailer details Ryu-Ken rivalry ahead of Street Fighter's October 2026 release
- Trailer packed with game references; interactive QTE version also released
- Film aims to succeed where past Street Fighter and fighting-game adaptations faltered
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Ryu and Ken are longtime friends turned rivals in the Street Fighter video game series, a franchise dating back to the late 1980s built around one-on-one tournament combat with distinctive characters and signature moves. The upcoming film adaptation, made by Paramount and Legendary and directed by Kitao Sakurai, follows them competing in the fictional World Warriors Tournament, with Andrew Koji as Ryu and Noah Centineo as Ken. The wider cast includes Callina Liang as Chun-Li, David Dastmalchian as the villain M. Bison, and wrestler Cody Rhodes as Guile, and the film is due for release on 16 October 2026.
The project matters partly because video game films have a patchy track record, and Street Fighter in particular has a difficult history on screen. A 1994 live-action version starring Jean-Claude Van Damme was widely panned, though Raul Julia's performance as Bison was praised, while a separate animated film released the same year was better received. More recent adaptations of rival franchise Mortal Kombat have shown that translating fighting games into satisfying films remains a persistent challenge for studios.
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