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Soon, the best fighters in the world are gathering in Shadaloo, even as Bison has ulterior motives for holding the tournament at all, as his main goal is to get ahold of Ryu \u2013 the winner of the one previous World Warrior \u2013 in order to drain his \u201cHado Power\u201d (which gives Ryu the rare ability to create a Hadouken) for himself. <\/p>\n
So how did the tournament play out? And who had the Hado by the hand by the end? And why does Street Fighter feel notably incomplete as a movie? Let\u2019s dive into the spoiler zone! <\/p>\n
The Tournament Doesn\u2019t Really Matter<\/h2>\n To be fair, it is an intentional plot point that the tournament is all a ruse for Bison\u2019s larger plan, which is something Ken himself doesn\u2019t initially want to admit because it means so much to him. But still, it also feels weird how the tournament is handled in Street Fighter, because it does often feel like such an onscreen afterthought rather than a simple but effective way to give us more crowd-pleasing one-on-one fights in a movie called Street Fighter. <\/p>\n
Ken at least gets two big tournament brawls, as he first faces Balrog (Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson) and then Dhalsim (Vidyut Jammwal), coming out as the victor in both cases, which sends him to the finals. But then there are the fights that are completely kept offscreen to a maddening extent, as Guile (Cody Rhodes) is defeated by Vega (Orville Peck), yet we don\u2019t see a second of it, just the aftermath, as we\u2019re told Vega won and see the large triple cuts on Guile\u2019s face. And still, that\u2019s somehow better than the Zangief (Olivier Richters) and Dhalsim showdown, which isn\u2019t even verbally mentioned<\/em>, but only available as info via quick flashes on the screen of the World Warrior board. Dhalsim at least gets a little more to do in the movie beyond this, but poor Zangief is bizarrely removed from sight for the entire tournament, never seen again after a group tussle everyone gets into at a club the night before the tournament begins. We never see him have an official fight, we never see his loss, and we never see him depart. He just ghosts the movie. <\/p>\nKen never shows up for the final fight … meaning Joe never has a single fight but is still the official winner of the World Warrior tournament!
\u201c<\/span><\/span><\/div>\nCome on, Street Fighter filmmakers, if you don\u2019t want to give these other fights their own full scene, that\u2019s where the power of a fight montage can come in handy! <\/p>\n
Then there are the multiple outright forfeits that occur during the tournament, which again, is intentional thanks to Bison, even as you wonder how frustrating this would be for those tuning in to watch what appears to be a very big, internationally popular event. First, because Bison has Ryu held captive, he has Ryu officially listed as dropping out of the tournament, meaning his opponent, Joe (Alexander Volkanovski), wins by forfeit. Then Joe\u2019s next opponent, Vega, also drops out of the tournament, presumably because he\u2019s one of Bison\u2019s main henchmen and his boss has work for him closer to home that can\u2019t wait. <\/p>\n
So Joe just forfeits all the way to the finals against Ken\u2026 Except then Ken never shows up for the final fight, because he goes to help rescue Ryu. Meaning Joe never has a single fight but is still the official winner of the World Warrior tournament! Which could have been a fun bit, but Joe is barely shown at all prior to his \u201cwin,\u201d so it\u2019s not like there\u2019s even much resonance to this happening, beyond the humor for longtime Street Fighter fans of freaking non-playable original game character Joe to be elevated like this (albeit quite briefly). <\/p>\n
Going back to the in-universe viewership of the tournament, it also stands out that Ken and Ryu are both well known fighters in the film, and it\u2019s actually mentioned on TV what a big deal it is that they\u2019ll both be in the tournament after years of separation, complete with the tantalizing promise of getting to see them battle one another. But while we moviegoers do get to see Ken and Ryu fight in an alley brawl at one point, working their old issues out the only way they know how, you gotta assume folks were pissed when Ryu was a no show at that heavily publicized tournament. I know Bison is a full-on dictator with bigger, more ominous goals, but still, there\u2019s gonna be some super<\/em> pissed-off comments and tweets about the whole \u201cNo Ryu\u201d debacle. <\/p>\n<\/p>\nPour One Out for Joe<\/h2>\n Amusingly, outside of seeing the death of Ken and Ryu\u2019s master, Gouken (Don Lee), in the film\u2019s animated flashbacks, there\u2019s only one named character who meets their end in Street Fighter \u2013 and it\u2019s the one and only Joe. <\/p>\n
Yes, poor Joe gets to experience some major highs and lows in a matter of minutes, as he\u2019s declared the winner of the tournament by announcer Don Sauvage (Eric Andr\u00e9), only for Akuma (Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoa’i) to appear out of nowhere and demand to face the winner. Unimpressed when he sees Joe, given he arrived assuming he\u2019d be facing Ryu, Akuma is also quick to respond when Joe tries to challenge him, using his demonic powers to literally blow Joe up.<\/p>\n
RIP, Joe.<\/p>\n
A Triple Threat of Big Bads<\/h2>\n Street Fighter seems overly busy on the villain front as it heads towards its conclusion. There\u2019s the obvious threat throughout the film of Bison, who\u2019s got a cadre of formidable fighters working for him, including Vega, Cammy (Mel Jarnson), and Juli (Rayna Vallandingham). But then there\u2019s the otherworldly power of Akuma, who Ryu is particularly fearful of, haunted by the fact that it was his own dabbling with an inner darkness that seemed to call to Akuma when Ryu won the last tournament, only for Akuma to kill Gouken. But that means Ryu is also fearful of himself<\/em>, since he is worried that fighting again will lead to him succumbing to the dark urges Gouken warned him about, and which he tapped into when he violently defeated Sagat in the first tournament. <\/p>\n<\/p>\nSo how does Street Fighter juggle these three different potential big bads in the form of Akuma, Evil Ryu and Bison? Awkwardly, as you might expect when a movie is packing all of this into the very first film in a relaunched franchise. After Akuma kills Joe, Ryu arrives to confront him, and Akuma goes very Palpatine\/Darth Vader by actively encouraging Ryu to use his dark side to unleash in their battle \u2013 which is exactly what Ryu eventually does. With Bison watching this confrontation from the arena\u2019s otherwise empty stands, Ryu\u2019s white gi magically turns black, as Evil Ryu battles Akuma and is eventually able to overpower him, knocking him out in the process. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s when Ken, Chun-Li and Dan Hibiki (Andrew Schulz, in a role way more prominent than Dan\u2019s game history would ever have you expect) arrive, thinking it\u2019s time to celebrate their friend\u2019s victory, only for Evil Ryu to attack them too. He completely incapacitates both Dan and Chun-Li with one hit each, which is pretty insulting to Chun-Li; let her at least get in more offense than freaking Dan! But when Evil Ryu seems ready to outright kill them, he\u2019s suddenly hit with a Hadouken! Yes, Ken has finally been able to unlock this most special of special moves too, something we\u2019d seen him try and fail to do throughout the movie. And Ken\u2019s Hadouken is so <\/em>special that just the one apparently was enough to turn Evil Ryu good again right away, as Ryu oddly never really has to deal with quelling the darkness in himself \u2013 he just needed his best bro to blast him with blue energy! Hey, if it works, it works, right? <\/p>\nWhen it briefly seems Ryu might have actually taken a fatal hit from Ken, Ken sings \u201cWhat\u2019s Up?\u201d \u2013 he and Ryu\u2019s favorite song \u2013 to his old buddy, which finally leads Ryu to slowly come to and begin to sing along, soon joined by a tearful Chun-Li, Dan, and even Don Sauvage, who awakens from the rubble he was knocked into earlier by Akuma. And hey, kudos to 4 Non Blonds, because \u201cWhat\u2019s Up?\u201d remains a great song 33 years after it came out, and between its prominent use in both Street Fighter and Masters of the Universe, they are killing it on licensing this year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\nStreet Fighter!!!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/output><\/p>\n
With the whole Evil Ryu deal dealt with easier than one might think, that means it\u2019s finally time to take on Bison! \u2026Except that doesn\u2019t happen at all, because Bison and his goons sneak away, taking the knocked out Akuma with them. <\/p>\n
Realizing what Bison now has gotten ahold of, and how it could give him the power he was trying to gain from Ryu, Dan asks \u201cDid we make things worse?\u201d Our heroes try to follow, but are stopped by Cammy pulling out a goddamn rocket launcher from Bison\u2019s fleeing vehicle, which she uses to blow up Chun-Li\u2019s van. So now our heroes have to figure out how to give chase a different way, in what feels like a bit of an odd move structure-wise for a movie that earlier felt like it was nearing its climax, but now clearly still has so much left in play! <\/p>\n
The Ending That Isn\u2019t<\/h2>\n \u2026Except then the movie just ends. Okay, there\u2019s one more scene, but it\u2019s still bizarre how Street Fighter doesn\u2019t actually offer a conclusion. There\u2019s a line between having a fun sequel tease after you wrap up your film\u2019s main storyline and simply not wrapping up and leaving any sense of closure, and Street Fighter definitely crosses that line. <\/p>\n
The six Street Fighters pack into the too-small car and turn up the radio to sing along to \u201cIt\u2019s Raining Men\u201d as they drive off into the distance and into the closing credits.\u00a0
\u201c<\/span><\/span><\/div>\nThe film\u2019s final scene finds Ken, Ryu, Chun-Li and Dan on the side of the road, trying to hitchhike. And lo and behold, a car does pull over for them with Guile and Dhalsim inside, who we learned earlier were also both at the tournament on a mission to stop Bison\u2026 even though we then never saw them intervene at all after that. But now<\/em> they\u2019re for real tracking Bison, so they give the others a ride, with the six Street Fighters packing into the too-small car and turning up the radio to sing along to \u201cIt\u2019s Raining Men\u201d (sure, why not?) as they drive off into the distance and into the closing credits. <\/p>\nAnd again, I gotta stress, this all feels super weird, because it just seems like the movie stops rather than properly ends, completely putting off any sort of showdown with Bison \u2013 even one that could have ended with \u201cWe\u2019ll meet again.\u201d <\/p>\n
Hell, we never even get any sort of fight between Chun-Li and Cammy, despite several scenes used to set them up as major rivals, priming the audience for an impending showdown. But as it turns out, that too is something that is tabled for the future. All of which is a rather vexing way to have things play out.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n“Hop in.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/output><\/p>\n
The Mid-Credits Scene<\/h2>\n After the film\u2019s main credits play at the end, with fun visuals for the cast that use the same art and graphics as the individual character posters for the film, we cut to a mid-credits scene. <\/p>\n
This dialogue-free sequence returns to the animated segments that opened Street Fighter and were used throughout the film for flashbacks. The opening sequence showed Ryu defeating Sagat \u2013 a high-profile game character who was notably absent from the live-action portions of the film \u2013 in the first World Warrior tournament, but only after he tapped into his Evil Ryu powers, slicing Sagat\u2019s chest open with a mystically-powered punch up his body. <\/p>\n
The mid-credit scene shows Sagat again, years later, and now bearing the familiar large scar from the games up his torso, the result of Ryu\u2019s actions. Sagat is seen using his martial arts prowess to knock down a palm tree, as one does, only for him to turn to find a floating Bison before him, with Vega, Juli and Cammy at his side. <\/p>\n
Obviously, this is a set-up for Sagat to join Bison\u2019s team in a potential Street Fighter sequel, while Sagat only being seen as a dialogue-free animated figure also means they still have the flexibility to cast whoever they wish as the character next time out, not having to match anything specifically established here on the live-action front. And presumably, Sagat would now be seeking revenge against Ryu\u2026 <\/p>\n
…but also, can they remember they forgot to have Chun-Li and Cammy fight next time and remedy that, please?<\/p>\n
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