Paramount Pictures and Legendary have released a new trailer for the upcoming live-action Street Fighter movie, set to hit theaters on October 16. The trailer centers on the tense relationship between Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo), former training partners who are no longer on good terms. According to Polygon and Kotaku, Ryu hesitantly enters the World Warriors Tournament after Chun-Li (Callina Liang) tells him that Ken has entered, and Chun-Li ends up having to orchestrate a meeting between the two. Kotaku notes that jealousy appears to be at least part of the reason for their falling out.
The trailer also features a wide array of characters from the Street Fighter games, including Dhalsim, Balrog, E. Honda, Guile, Cammy, and Zangief, according to Kotaku. Several game-accurate moves and moments appear throughout, such as E. Honda's headbutt slam and hundred-hand slap, Ryu's Tatsumaki spin-kick, Chun-Li's Lightning Legs, and a fist bump between Ken and Ryu referencing Street Fighter 3, per Polygon. PC Gamer highlights a notable moment involving Guile (Cody Rhodes) and Dan after Dan suffers a facial injury, while Polygon calls this exchange the trailer's best line.
David Dastmalchian plays the villain M. Bison, who has invited the world's greatest fighters to a tournament for undisclosed but apparently sinister purposes, according to PC Gamer. Cody Rhodes and Roman Reigns, both professional wrestlers, appear in the film as Guile and Akuma respectively. PC Gamer notes a pro-wrestling sensibility to the trailer's tone and singles out Rhodes for having several standout moments, while also expressing hope that other cast members, including Jason Momoa and Eric Andre, will get memorable moments in the full film.
Legendary also released an interactive version of the trailer that lets viewers perform quick-time-event button prompts on a virtual arcade cabinet, with some inputs modeled on actual game commands, such as a quarter-circle motion timed to Ryu's Hadouken, according to Polygon.
Reactions to the trailer are mixed. PC Gamer describes it as fun and flashy, saying the movie might strike a good balance between taking itself seriously and embracing its campy source material, and expresses cautious optimism that it could be a good video game movie. Kotaku takes a different view, describing some character recreations as looking "hideously stupid" and others as "delightfully stupid," adding that the film seems campy in a way that could be "so bad it's good." Polygon points out that Street Fighter has a rocky cinematic history, referencing the panned 1994 live-action film starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, though it notes Raul Julia's performance as M. Bison was well received, including his memorable line about the day Bison "graced" Chun-Li's village. Polygon also mentions the more positively received Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie from the same year, and notes that most prior attempts to adapt fighting games, including the Mortal Kombat films, have fallen flat.
Kotaku notes that the release comes amid a busy period for Capcom properties at the box office, with the Resident Evil movie also scheduled to arrive in theaters on September 18, ahead of Street Fighter's October 16 release.