Jean-Claude Van Damme was reportedly coked out of his mind. Raul Julia was literally dying. The set in Thailand was a humid nightmare of shifting schedules, a ballooning budget, and a director who had never made an action movie before. Somehow, out of that absolute wreckage, we got the 1994 Street Fighter movie.
It’s easy to call it bad. People do it all the time. They point at the campy dialogue and the fact that Ryu and Ken—the actual protagonists of the games—are relegated to being sidekick arms dealers. But honestly? They’re missing the point. Street Fighter isn’t just a "so bad it's good" cult classic. It is a bizarre, high-energy time capsule that understood the "vibe" of 90s arcades better than any gritty reboot ever could.
The Raul Julia Factor
Let’s be real. Without Raul Julia, this movie is a footnote.
He was suffering from stomach cancer during filming. He looked frail, his skin was pale, and he was in constant pain. Yet, he gave a performance that should be taught in every acting school in the world. He didn't phone it in. He didn't treat it like a paycheck. He treated General M. Bison like he was playing Richard III at the Globe Theatre.
Remember the "Tuesday" speech?
Chun-Li (played by Ming-Na Wen) confronts Bison about the day he destroyed her village and killed her father. It's her life's defining trauma. Bison looks at her with genuine, bored confusion and says: "For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me, it was Tuesday."
That’s cold. It’s arguably the greatest line in any video game adaptation ever written. Julia knew exactly what movie he was in. He balanced the absurdity of a man in a red cape trying to conquer the world with a Shakespearean gravity that anchors the entire chaotic production. He did it for his kids, who were fans of the game. That’s a level of dedication you just don't see in modern blockbuster cameos.
Jean-Claude Van Damme and the Production From Hell
While Julia was the heart, Van Damme was the... well, he was the wildcard.
✨ Don't miss: Temuera Morrison as Boba Fett: Why Fans Are Still Divided Over the Daimyo of Tatooine
At the height of his "Muscles from Brussels" fame, JCVD was reportedly struggling with a massive cocaine habit. Legend has it he was consuming upwards of $10,000 worth of the stuff a week. It shows in the performance. His Guile is a frantic, sweaty, charismatic mess of a leader. He delivers an inspirational speech to the Allied Nations troops that is so nonsensical and high-octane it makes the "Independence Day" speech look like a bedtime story.
The production was a disaster. Director Steven de Souza, who wrote Die Hard (so the man knows structure), was handed a nightmare. Capcom insisted on including nearly every character from Street Fighter II. That’s why the movie feels like it’s bursting at the seams. You’ve got T. Hawk, Cammy, Dee Jay, and Zangief all fighting for oxygen in a script that only has room for about four people.
Then there were the fights.
You’d think a movie called Street Fighter starring Jean-Claude Van Damme would have world-class choreography. It didn't. The actors weren't trained martial artists for the most part. Kylie Minogue (Cammy) was a pop star. Byron Mann (Ryu) was an actor. The stunt team struggled to make the game’s signature moves—the Hadouken, the Flash Kick—look like anything other than awkward wirework.
But there’s a charm in that clunkiness.
It feels tactile. In an era where every Marvel fight is a soup of gray CGI pixels, watching a very real Zangief fight a very real E. Honda in a miniature model of a city is refreshing. It’s "Tokusatsu" style filmmaking on a Hollywood budget.
Why the Fans Were (and Still Are) Mad
The biggest gripe fans had back in '94 was the plot. Or rather, the lack of the game's plot.
🔗 Read more: Why Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Actors Still Define the Modern Spy Thriller
In the games, it’s a global tournament. In the movie, it’s a G.I. Joe-style military operation. Capcom and the producers were terrified that a "tournament movie" wouldn't have enough stakes for a general audience. This was a massive miscalculation. Mortal Kombat, released just a year later, proved that sticking to the tournament format was exactly what people wanted.
Instead, we got:
- Balrog and Honda as a news camera crew.
- Ryu and Ken as con artists selling fake weapons.
- Blanka being created in a lab via a weird "brainwashing" montage that looks like a bad trip.
- Dhalsim as a scientist in a lab coat instead of a yoga master with stretchy limbs.
It’s objectively weird. But if you stop looking for a 1:1 adaptation and start looking at it as a colorful, campy action flick, it starts to work. It’s loud. It’s vibrant. It doesn’t take itself seriously for even one second.
The Enduring Legacy of the 1994 Disaster
Despite the critical lashing, Street Fighter was a massive financial success. It made three times its budget. It’s the reason we kept getting video game movies for the next decade, for better or worse.
There’s a weird sincerity to it. Everyone on screen—especially the villains—seems to be having the time of their lives. Andrew Bryniarski’s Zangief is a delight. He plays the Russian powerhouse as a lovable, dim-witted henchman who genuinely thinks he’s the hero. When he realizes Bison is the bad guy, his reaction is priceless.
And then there's the soundtrack.
"Something There" by Chage and Aska? The MC Hammer track? It’s peak 90s. The movie is an artifact of a time when Hollywood was trying to figure out what a "video game" even was. They thought it was just "toys and colors and yelling," and while that’s reductive, it resulted in a film that is never, ever boring.
💡 You might also like: The Entire History of You: What Most People Get Wrong About the Grain
The Contrast with "The Legend of Chun-Li"
If you want to see what a truly bad Street Fighter movie looks like, watch the 2009 reboot, The Legend of Chun-Li.
It’s boring. It’s colorless. It’s overly serious. It lacks every ounce of the manic energy that the 1994 version has in spades. It proves that you can have "better" acting and "better" production values and still end up with a soul-crushing product. The 1994 film has soul. It’s a jagged, cocaine-fueled, Technicolor soul, but it’s there.
How to Appreciate Street Fighter Today
If you haven't seen it in a decade, go back and watch it with a different mindset. Don't look for the game characters you love. Look for the absurdity.
Watch for:
- The Background Goons: There are dozens of extras in Bison uniforms who have no idea where to stand or what to do.
- The Tech: All the "high-tech" computers in Bison's lair are clearly just plastic props with blinking lights.
- The Pacing: The movie moves at a breakneck speed because they had to cut so much to fit the characters in.
- Ming-Na Wen: She’s actually great. You can see the seeds of her future badassery in The Mandalorian and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. right here.
Actionable Next Steps for Fans
If you’re feeling nostalgic or want to dive deeper into why this movie exists, here is how to actually consume the Street Fighter 1994 universe properly:
- Watch the "Making of" Documentaries: Specifically, look for the interviews with Steven de Souza. He is incredibly candid about how chaotic the set was and how he had to rewrite the script on the fly because the actors couldn't do the stunts.
- Play the Movie-Game: There is a specific Street Fighter: The Movie arcade game. It’s a digitised fighter like Mortal Kombat using the actors from the film. It’s notoriously clunky but fascinating to see JCVD as a sprite.
- Seek out the Extreme Edition Blu-ray: It contains a lot of the deleted scenes and behind-the-scenes footage that explains why the movie feels so disjointed.
- Read "The Making of Street Fighter" by John L. Roberson: It’s one of the best deep dives into the production hurdles, from the military coup in Thailand to the budget overruns.
Stop hating on the Street Fighter movie. It’s a miracle it was even finished. In a world of sanitized, corporate-approved blockbusters, there is something deeply refreshing about a movie that is this unapologetically messy. It’s a glorious, neon-lit disaster, and it’s arguably the most fun you can have with a 90s action movie. Just remember: it was Tuesday.