In what will be music to the ears of Street Fighter fans worldwide, the director of the upcoming, hard-hitting movie adaptation says everyone on the cast arrived with a serious working knowledge of Capcom's iconic fighting franchise.
"Everybody that's in the movie is a fan of the game," Kitao Sakurai tells GamesRadar+. "There was nobody that I cast that was like, 'what's Street Fighter? What are we doing here? Everybody came to the movie out of a love for the franchise and for the game, and with a very deep understanding of like the canon and the lore.
To that end, Sakurai reveals he would use Ryu actor Andrew Koji as his own built-in loremaster on-set.
"Andrew Koji is a huge gamer and oftentimes I would lean on him for canon stuff."
Sakurai adds, "[Chun-Li actor] Callina [Liang] is a legit gamer. She's younger, so she grew up more on Street Fighter 6 – everybody has different sort of connections to the game, but everybody definitely is coming from a place of loving the game."
That passion for authenticity and harkening back to Street Fighter's quarter-draining '90s heyday in arcades even extends to Sakurai aiming to ape the feel, tone, and texture of the decade during the movie's runtime.
"I wanted to, more than anything, make a movie that felt like it was like a '90s movie. If we could go back in time and make a game-accurate version of Street Fighter in the '90s, what would that be like?"
If you believe the cast, there were also more than a few rounds of Street Fighter taking place on consoles on-set. The victor? Apparently, Andrew Schulz – who plays Dan in the Street Fighter movie – proved his capabilities more than once. Let's hope they've saved some moves for the camera.
Street Fighter hits cinemas on October 16. For more, we have a guide to upcoming video game movies and new PS5 games.
