Director Kitao Sakurai’s Street Fighter frequently depicts Ken Masters (Noah Centineo) as an oaf, but he can actually fight. He’s a little like the film itself in that way: the editing choices, scene transitions, and even the basic plot are frequently baffling. And yet, it can throw a punch when it wants to. Its fight scenes are, for the most part, well-choreographed and well-shot. Its 2D animation sequences, cleverly used to separate the scenes set in the past from the ones set in the present, are gorgeously brought to life by Titmouse. That makes it all the more frustrating, then, when Street Fighter chooses to spend its time doing the equivalent of Ken fighting a polar bear, reducing its potential to a poorly planned gimmick.

When Street Fighter opens (with one of those excellent animated sequences), it’s 1987, and Ryu (Andrew Koji) is fighting in the first World Warrior Tournament. He wins, but things go sideways for him pretty quickly after that. His master, Gouken (Don Lee), is murdered, and by the time 1993 rolls around, he’s disappeared from public life and he hasn’t spoken to Ken, with whom he formed a brotherly bond when they trained under Gouken together, for six years.

Far from retreating from the spotlight, Ken has embraced it. In 1993, he’s all over MTV, a major celebrity, but a joke, reduced to participating in stunt fights with cars and exotic animals (or, at least, men dressed up as exotic animals). So when Chun-Li (Callina Liang) comes around, inviting him to participate in the second World Warrior Tournament, hosted by M.

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