# ‘Street Fighter’ Director Kitao Sakurai Built a Career by Embracing the Ridiculous

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/street-fighter-director-kitao-sakurai-built-a-career-by-embracing-the-ridiculous/
- Published: 2026-10-21T22:33:51+00:00
- Updated: 2026-10-21T23:39:58+00:00
- Original publisher: The Hollywood Reporter
- Original article: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-features/street-fighter-director-kitao-sakurai-ending-sequel-1236737763/
- Topics: Americas, Entertainment, Film, Gaming, World

## Key points

- Sakurai’s absurdist style now shapes the Street Fighter film.
- He helped create The Eric Andre Show, which has 60 episodes.
- Bad Trip’s cinema release was derailed by the pandemic.

## Summary

Kitao Sakurai has turned a taste for the absurd into a filmmaking career, bringing that sensibility from The Eric Andre Show and Bad Trip to Street Fighter, now described as America’s number-one movie. His path illustrates how an unconventional style, built around energy rather than strict narrative logic, has carried him from independent projects into a major franchise.

Sakurai grew up in Cleveland, acted as a teenager in Dogma, then moved to New York at 19 and began as a music-video cinematographer. He and Eric André developed The Eric Andre Show after networks repeatedly rejected it; Adult Swim picked it up in 2010, and it has since produced 60 episodes, specials and an Emmy win. His film Bad Trip, planned for a 2019 cinema release, was delayed by the pandemic and ultimately released on Netflix in 2021.

---
Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.