Street Fighter Director Breaks Down Roster, Dhalsim Casting and Viral Anthem

Director Kitao Sakurai explains how the new Street Fighter reboot built its roster, why Dhalsim proved difficult to cast and how “What’s Up” became part of Ryu and Ken’s brotherhood.

Street Fighter is one of this month’s most highly anticipated films and there’s no surprise why it is. From the big ensemble cast that includes names like Black Adam‘s Noah Centineo and Presence‘s Callina Liang to the hard-hitting fights, this new reboot looks to give fans the live-action reeturn they’ve waited for. This version of Street Fighter takes a focus on Ryu and Ken Master’s brotherhood, but darker powers seek to manipulate the two to fight each other.

Although 2026’s Street Fighter focuses on that bond, there’s also much that goes on that involves Chun Li, M. Bison, and the powers of Akuma. However, director Kitao Sakurai makes sure that every element and set piece honors the spirit of the franchise. I had the opportunity to speak with Sakurai to hear why he settled on the film’s current roster, the iconic song that fans caught on, and which character was the hardest to cast.

Street Fighter Makes an Iconic Masters of the Universe Joke Its Anthem

One of the more hilarious, yet touching, elements of 2026’s Street Fighter is a song that forges Ken and Ryu’s relationship. That song is “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes, which was made popular by a YouTube parody of Masters of the Universe called “Fabulous Secret Powers“.

The song, which was also used in the film’s first trailer, is sung throughout the film to remind Ken and Ryu about their close bond. During out conversation, Sakurai discussed how the 1993 song became an integral element to Street Fighter‘s story as well as its popularity.

“It came from the end of the movie, when Ken k saves Ryu with that song,” Sakurai begam. “We were like, ‘We need to earn that and we need to like set that up somehow.'”

“The more we kind of dug into setting that up, we were like, ‘Okay, well, we’re going to use it in the movie in like these various ways.’ It just organically became this lbigger and bigger element. There’s something like so catchy and distinct. Also, people online love that song, like as of late. It all just kind of like came together.”

Kitao Sakurai Discusses Why Certain Street Fighter Characters Appear Instead

Fans of the games know that 2026’s Street Fighter features some prominent characters, whether that be Ryu and Ken to Chun Li and Guille. However, there are certainly some underrated characters from the franchise that fans hope to see on the big screen, like Sean Matsuda from Street Fighter III: New Generation. Sakurai also discussed why the film focuses on the roster of fighters that’s chosen for this new reboot.

“I think for us, setting the movie in the ’90s, it was about understanding where this franchise kind of originated,” Sakurai explained. “I think for me, it’s the world of Street Fighter 2 and that iconic cast of characters, like we’ve got a place to start from.”

“Obviously, we do some characters from later games, but that was just it really because there was something that I really wanted to work with that didn’t fit in necessarily as a Street Fighter 2 player, like Eric Andre, for example. I was like, ‘I really want to work with Eric on this.'”

“He wanted to play Blanka, but I was like, ‘Sorry, Jason Momoa’s playing Blanka,'” Sakurai recalled. “We asked Capcom, we were like, ‘Hey, look, I really want Eric to be in this. What do you think?’ They were like, ‘We have Don Sauvage as this character that has his own show and we’re like, ‘Yes, perfect!’ That was the reason why Don Sauvage, who’s not in [Street Fighter 2], is in this movie. We wanted to set it to the world around like the characters you see in [Street Fighter 2].”

One Street Fighter Character Was Difficult to Cast in Sakurai’s Reboot

Given how Street Fighter has a star-studded cast, Sakurai faced some challenges in finding the right actors. Surprisingly, one of the film’s characters that was the hardest to cast is Dhalsim, a “pacifistic” yogi from India who can stretch his limbs to fight. During our conversation, Sakurai looked back on the process of finding the right actor to embody Dhalsim in the film.

“I was really challenged by Dhalsim because I think it’s a risky character because if you don’t handle Dhalsim correctly without a cultural sensitivity around that character, it could get offensive pretty quickly,” Sakurai noted. “I was butting my head up against the wall a little bit.

“From the heavens, Vidyut Jammwal came up. He’s this huge Bollywood star and not only that, but he’s a fifth generation monk. He is the biggest proponent of Indian martial arts in the world and he’s a teacher and a yogi. He’s more Dhalsim than Dhalsim.

“I just had this amazing conversation with him and he was like, ‘I want this to be my first Hollywood movie. I want to use this as a platform to showcase this ancient Indian martial art lineage.'” What was something that was like, ‘Oh, this is risky. I don’t know if this is going to work,’ suddenly swung in the opposite direction. Dhalsim is one of the characters in the movie that feels like universally just like, ‘Fuck, yes. Like, like he’s perfect!'”

Full Cast of Street Fighter

Street Fighter brings together a massive ensemble led by Noah Centineo as Ken Masters, Andrew Koji as Ryu and Callina Liang as Chun-Li. The cast also includes David Dastmalchian as M. Bison, Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoai as Akuma, Cody Rhodes as Guile, Jason Momoa as Blanka, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson as Balrog, Olivier Richters as Zangief, Vidyut Jammwal as Dhalsim, Orville Peck as Vega and Hirooki Goto as E. Honda.

Andrew Schulz stars as Dan Hibiki, Eric André plays Don Sauvage, Rayna Vallandingham appears as Juli and Alexander Volkanovski plays Joe.

Street Fighter premieres in theaters on October 16.

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