Video game movies have had a complicated history. But something about the upcoming Street Fighter film keeps clearing every bar it needs to clear. The latest clip, released on 30 July, is sixty seconds of absolute chaos — and every second of it is deeply, deliberately ridiculous in the best possible way.
The scene introduces Jason Momoa as Blanka, the green-skinned Brazilian fighter who has been a franchise staple since Street Fighter 2. The result is a shot-for-shot love letter to one of gaming’s most outlandish characters.
What Happens in the New Clip
Ryu, played by Andrew Koji, finds himself chained in an arena, forced into a fight orchestrated by M. Bison — played here by David Dastmalchian in what appears to be a genuinely unhinged performance. Into the arena comes Blanka, dragged in by a group of goons who immediately regret being there.
One of those goons gets hit by Blanka’s electrocution power. What follows is the X-ray skeleton visual effect that fans of the Street Fighter games will recognise immediately — the character briefly becomes a glowing skeleton as the current runs through them, lifted straight from Street Fighter 2’s opening sequences and cutscenes. It is an absurd thing to put in a live-action film. It works perfectly.
“I don’t want to fight you.” — Ryu (Koji). “Then… you die.” — Blanka (Momoa).
Every Game Move Blanka Pulls Off
The sixty-second clip is a surprisingly faithful catalogue of Blanka’s game moveset. After the electrocution opening, Blanka launches into the Blanka Ball — the cannonball roll attack that many players open a match with, hurtling across the arena and smashing through the environment. A roundhouse kick follows, then the drop kick that sends Ryu sailing across the cage. Ryu’s Hadouken fireball appears at the end, suggesting the fight goes on beyond what the clip shows.
The level of game-accuracy here is notable. The skeleton X-ray effect is a specific detail that required a deliberate decision to include — it is not something a general audience would catch, but fighting game fans will. The cannonball roll’s trajectory, the drop kick animation, even the proportions of Momoa’s green Blanka form all track closely with how the character moves in the recent Street Fighter 6.
Release date: The Street Fighter movie hits theatres on 16 October 2026, from Paramount Pictures and Legendary.
Who Is Blanka? The Street Fighter 2 Lore
In the original Street Fighter 2 story, Blanka was once a boy called Jimmy whose plane crashed in the Amazon rainforest. Left to survive alone, he was mutated by electric eels — which is, frankly, about as much scientific rigour as a fighting game lore entry has ever needed. The character has remained a franchise icon for over thirty years, beloved for being the most overtly monstrous of SF2’s core roster while also being, canonically, just a lost kid trying to find his mother.
The film appears to be leaning into the feral, dangerous version of the character rather than his more sentimental arc, which suits Momoa’s casting. His delivery of “Then you die” — reportedly accompanied by a cheerful “OK?” that sounds uncannily like a heightened version of Blanka’s voice lines in Street Fighter 6 — has become something of an early highlight for the film’s promotional run.
The Full Cast and What to Expect This October
The Street Fighter movie has assembled a genuinely eclectic cast. Beyond Momoa and Koji, Noah Centineo plays Ken Masters, Callina Liang is Chun-Li, Cody Rhodes takes on Guile, Orville Peck is Vega, and Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson plays Balrog. Vidyut Jammwal brings Dhalsim to life, while Roman Reigns steps in as Akuma — a casting choice that continues to raise eyebrows in the best possible way.
If this clip is representative of the film’s overall tone — self-aware, game-faithful, and entirely committed to its own absurdity — then the Street Fighter movie may be one of the more enjoyable gaming adaptations in recent memory. Resident Evil’s recent revival showed that game movies can land when they respect the source material. This one looks like it learned from that playbook.
