Paramount Pictures and Legendary have released a new trailer for the upcoming Street Fighter movie, giving audiences their first substantial look at Jason Momoa's version of Blanka. The footage shows Ryu, played by Andrew Koji, trapped in a cage fight orchestrated by M. Bison (David Dastmalchian), where he is forced to battle Blanka.
In the trailer, Blanka is depicted as a feral, monster-like figure who appears to kill for pleasure. He drags a prisoner into his chamber and electrocutes them using his signature lightning abilities, with the scene employing Street Fighter 2's cartoonish X-ray effect as the victim is shown being zapped. Blanka then performs the character's well-known Blanka Ball attack. As Ryu tries to reason with him, saying he doesn't want to fight, Momoa delivers the line "Then you die. OK?" in a delivery described as bizarre and reminiscent of a heightened version of the character's voice in Street Fighter 6.
Coverage of the footage has been mixed. One outlet described the film as leaning into a campy tone that fits the source material, noting that the Street Fighter series already features exaggerated characters like a giant Russian wrestler and an electricity-wielding jungle man, making silliness part of the franchise's premise. That outlet also pointed out a brief cameo by fighting game player and YouTuber Maximilian Dood roughly fourteen seconds into the clip.
Another outlet's description of the same footage was less favorable, calling the CG combination of Momoa's likeness and Blanka's green skin unsettling, comparing the look to a "child's sleep paralysis demon." That coverage noted the fight takes place in a dimly lit, shady prison cage match setting, which it said only added to the unsettling appearance. It also observed that Momoa is committing fully to the physical performance during the fight with Koji's Ryu.
Background on the character notes that in the original Street Fighter 2 games, Blanka began life as a boy named Jimmy whose plane crashed in the Amazon rainforest, where he was mutated by electric eels into a green, lightning-wielding creature. While earlier depictions leaned malicious, more recent game versions, including Street Fighter 5 and 6, have portrayed him with a goofier personality, including selling plushies of himself and promoting tourism for his village.
The film features a large ensemble cast, including rapper 50 Cent, and reporting suggests Ryu and Ken are expected to be the central characters, with their rivalry going through a difficult stretch in the story. The Street Fighter movie, directed by Kitao Sakurai, is scheduled to reach theaters on October 16.