Street Fighter – Release Date, Where to Watch & Cast Explained

JOE spoke to the director and stars of one of 2026's most anticipated movie releases. Here's everything you need to know about the film.

JOE spoke to the film's director, Kitao Sakurai (The Eric Andre Show), and cast, including Andrew Koji (Black Doves), Noah Centineo (Black Adam), Callina Liang (Presence), David Dastmalchian (Late Night with the Devil), Cody Rhodes (WWE), Andrew Schultz (Tires), and Rayna Vallandingham (Cobra Kai). As such, we have the inside line on the video game adaptation.

Here is everything you need to know about how to watch the action flick.

Quick Answer Guide

When is Street Fighter's release date, and where can I watch it?

Street Fighter will spinning bird kick its way into cinemas worldwide on Friday, 16 October. It will also be available to view in the IMAX format.

What is the plot?

As a homage to the video game's massive popularity in the 1990s, the story is set then. It follows two estranged brothers and fighters, Ken Masters (Centineo) and Ryu (Koji). They reconnect when they are both invited to compete in the second World Warrior tournament.

Little do they know that the competition is only a cover for a sinister plan concocted by its creator, the evil dictator M. Bison (Dastmalchian).

Bison has an army of supposedly loyal bodyguards, soldiers, and underlings. Among them is Chun-Li (Liang), who is secretly an undercover Interpol agent seeking to take down the leader.

As all of these characters, as well as several more of the world's best fighters (including wrestler Cody Rhodes' Guile), gather for the World Warrior tournament, chaos ensues.

Who is in the cast?

Speaking to Rhodes and stand-up comic Andrew Schulz (who plays Ken's friend and manager Dan Hibiki), we noted that Street Fighter has an incredibly diverse cast. Along with many established actors, the movie stars several wrestlers (like Roman Reigns), martial artists (such as Rayna Vallandingham and Vidyut Jammwal), comedians (Eric Andre and Kyle Mooney) and musicians (50 Cent, Orville Peck).

The reasons for this were two-fold, apparently. Schulz joked that director Kitao Sakurai wanted "hot bods", while Rhodes said the goal was to emulate the video game franchise's character select screens.

Schulz told JOE: "I think [Sakurai] was going for body, man. He's got a lot of hot bods in this, you know?

"Cody, did you say you got up to like 230 [pounds] to play this?"

Rhodes responded: "Yeah, the word on set was 'porked'... It's a big set. Even David, who plays Bison, I don't think people realise how he approaches Bison, but also David is a big, imposing individual.

"I think Kitao knew what he was doing when, like you said, comedians, wrestlers, hip hop, country music..." Schulz cuts in: "Vidyut [Jammwal], who plays Dhalsim, is an actual martial artist monk. It's unbelievable."

Rhodes explained: "That variety plays really well on screen. The variety is huge because it's the same as the character select screen back in the day.

"It's not just the guy in the gi, the guy in the gi. We've got two of the best there [with Centineo and Koji as Ken and Ryu]. Then it really fills out and presents a fun, from a '90s perspective, worldview."

Comedian Schulz then joked: "Speaking of filled out, no crotch pieces. I think in a lot of movies, when they're wearing the little bikini shorts, people are used to a little padding there and none [was] used on this.

"Everything's shot practically. So if you see any prints or anything, that's real."

How real were the action scenes?

Centineo noted to JOE how Sakurai thought it was vital to have as much practical action in his Street Fighter reboot as possible.

"It's one of the foundational decisions he made as the director that added to the overall stank of our film," the star adds. "[Sakurai] teamed up with Jon Valera [John Wick, Thunderbolts*], our stunt coordinator, to do so.

"Jon Valera, it has to be highlighted, did a Herculean amount of research and development into understanding the characters, their individual fighting styles, and then when you're pitting those characters against each other, what those fights would look like with respect to their individual fighting styles.

"We got there six weeks early before we ever said 'action', and we worked about four hours a day most weeks, with each other training the martial arts and the choreography for the fights, learning the wire work as well for some of the wire gags, as they call it, the action sequences

"It was important. So when you say that you saw us [kicking ass], we were doing a good amount of it. We also had an incredible team of stunt performers… coming in for some of the more dangerous moves and a lot of the flips.

"But yeah man, this movie, a lot of it is shot in camera and practical, which is very exciting, and as you said, you can see it when you're watching the film."

Street Fighter is Chun-Li actress Callina Liang's first action movie, after her breakout role in Steven Soderbergh's acclaimed movie Presence.

On going from that one-location horror drama to this high-budget tentpole action flick, where she plays an iconic, trailblazing character, the actress admitted it was a big change.

"Oh my God, I mean, it was completely different. But you know what? For me, personally, as an actor, I approach every job with the same love and passion, and I do the same amount of research no matter what it is.

"For Street Fighter, I just wanted to honour as much of the game and the storyline and the lure of these characters as possible. I read as many mangas as I could. I downloaded the video games, and I would record Chun-Li and play her back in slow-mo to see what she would do when she won or how she stands before she goes into battle.

"But I think Presence prepared me for this in a way that I didn't really expect because Soderbergh, he really taught me to trust my instincts. He was a man of very few words.

"At first, when I came on to Street Fighter... this is my first ever action movie, so I was a bit like: 'Oh, I feel imposter syndromey', but I was like: 'You know what, trust yourself. You deserve to be here.' So it prepared me in that way."

How did David Dastmalchian prepare to play M. Bison?

The acclaimed actor David Dastmalchian steps into the role of M. Bison, played famously by Raul Julia in the 1994 Street Fighter adaptation.

That said, Dastmalchian had a unique approach to the character. This involved conversations with much of the cast, including Rayna Vallandingham (playing his bodyguard Juli), and extras.

As he outlined to JOE: "It's so boring to me when you go see… any movie on this grand scale where you've got a super villain that's sitting behind a desk just surrounded by all these foot soldiers wearing matching uniforms that are willing to rush into certain death for what? Like why? It's so easy and boring.

"It's one of the problems in adapting video [games] because in a lot of video game-to-film adaptations, you have to justify all these fodder soldiers.

"I wanted every single person in the story to have an understanding or justification of why they were there believing in Bison's vision."

Saying that he and Kitao were particularly inspired by Marlon Brando's character Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, as well as "books about dictators and cult leaders". This was to understand "how that mindset works".

Dastmalchian continued: "So I started building also this philosophy behind what [M. Bison's covert crime syndicate] Shadaloo is, and we worked together with Kitao and our writing team.

"I wanted to have the pillars of what this movement is all about, because it has to mean something. It has to benefit people's lives; otherwise, why are they going to follow you into the dark? Even if it's a lot.

"Every person on the film was so willing to jump in and really get their hands dirty and do the work.

"But I was like: 'If you're going to be a member of the Shadaloo Army, you break all of your human essence down to a core animal. Then you build up from there. We're going to evolve our species forward.

"So the martial arts, the training, the discipline, the work, the commitment, the willingness to go outside the rules of man. We talked about it a lot."

Gesturing to [Rayna Vallandingham], he added: "You were great, awesome. We had so much fun going there."

Vallandingham then said: "David was incredible too because he really was a cult leader in the best sense of the freaking word on set.

"With the background actors, for example, David was having that same conversation with them too of: 'You strive for excellence. What we do is for excellence. It's for perfection. You can't mess up, otherwise I'm gonna kill you.'

"So every single movement you make is precise, even if it's just turning and walking. You've got to be precise, and you have to be strong. That's what I loved about working with David."

Dastmalchian noted how being a background artist [another term of extra] is a "tough job" and that they "become like set dressing in a lot of films".

"We wanted them to feel lived in", he explained. "We wanted them to have something going on behind their eyes that meant they understood that what they could be doing for their families and for their futures by being a part of this movement meant something."

Dastmalchian then joked: "Also, the threat of death and physical violence was something we all lived under because I understand it's press. Kitao's being nice; he's smiling, he looks well-groomed here. It was a violent set.

"He had a little electric prod every time you didn't destroy your performance. Right in my butt."

Is there a post-credits scene?

Stay seated once the film ends. There is a mid-credits scene, which we won't spoil.

Street Fighter will be released in cinemas on Friday, 16 October.