Video games are not roundly praised for their stories. Modern examples manage to earn the backhanded compliment of being compared to movies, but fighting games are frequently considered the weakest in this department. Fighting game stories tend to be sprawling inconsistent epics that follow huge casts of characters. Street Fighter is a perfect example, and its upcoming big-screen adaptation has a lot to look into.
Fighting game movies don't have a very good track record. The first Street Fighter movie has exactly one unforgettable character in its otherwise dull events. The latest Mortal Kombat movie was something of a success, so the world has been prepared for a competitor.
The First World Warrior Tournament
Before most of the actual plot entered the Street Fighter franchise, the game was about a straightforward fighting tournament. Inspired by Bruce Lee's famously incomplete classic Game of Death, the player travels the world as either Ryu or Ken and defeats a list of powerful foes. Most of the characters from this entry didn't return to the franchise, but this moment is a flashpoint in the narrative. Ryu canonically wins the tournament, but it changes his life forever. Young Ryu is trained in a powerful but obscure martial art that happens to have a dark side. After being soundly beaten by his final foe Sagat, Ryu succumbs to the Dark Hado, the "Surge of Killing Intent." He wins the tournament through tremendous violence but must spend the rest of his life grappling with his evil half. Following Ryu and his rival Ken through the first tournament would be a solid format for a martial arts movie and an introduction to the franchise's hero.
Chun-Li
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is widely considered one of the worst video game movies of all time. It's a disaster, but the problems with it are entirely in its execution. The idea of a film in this franchise following Chun-Li's straightforward quest for revenge is solid. She's never the main character of a game, but she remains one of the flagship figures. Chun-Li is a martial artist and an Interpol agent who works tirelessly to defeat M. Bison. She's tasked with dismantling Bison's crime syndicate Shadaloo, and she has a personal score to settle with the villain. Bison killed Chun-Li's father in cold blood, so she spends almost every game hunting him down. This allows for a unique introduction to Street Fighter that cuts out a lot of the supernatural stuff and centers a familiar action narrative.
Ryu and Ken
The ultimate rivalry would make a pretty solid structure for a martial arts movie. Ryu, the orphan who spent his life training. Ken, a wealthy heir who was sent away to learn discipline. Give equal screen time to Ryu and Ken's early lives, then follow their rivalry from the earliest days of their training to their big meetup at the first tournament. The idea of headbutting heroes or dual protagonists who dislike each other is common, but the idea of a pair of protagonists who spend the entire film locked in respectful rivalry is clever. Mountains of build-up could lead to the final fight scene, perfectly establishing both heroes before they go into future outings.
M. Bison
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Aside from being the best part of the original Street Fighter movie, Bison is the overarching antagonist of almost every game in the franchise. Most people know him for his frequently broken moveset, but his backstory is absolutely mad. Starting with the bad guy would be a strong and unique way to build a franchise. Bison was born into a small community that taught him to manipulate a mystical energy called Soul Power. Bison swiftly discovered that his soul was bifurcated, with one good half and one evil half. He subsequently purged all the goodness from his soul, resulting in the birth of a woman named Rose. Bison built his criminal empire with the end goal of forcefully saving the world from itself. He's basically domestic Thanos, and he'd be an excellent protagonist for a Street Fighter movie. Put him in the lead role or follow Rose's perspective for an interesting new start.
The Second World Warrior Tournament
This is almost certainly the angle that the film will actually end up taking. Almost all the memorable characters were introduced in the second game, which also properly introduced the main antagonists and the Dark Hado subplot. It wouldn't be tough to start the film franchise here, introducing the classic World Warriors and the Four Grand Masters. Flashbacks can handle Ryu's battle with Sagat and his upbringing with Ken. It would be a big project with a lot of weird edges and a ton of backstory. Maintaining the plot as is would probably be untenable, but there are ways to get where they need to go. The Street Fighter movie could take a lot of interesting directions and the games provide enough source material to craft a new franchise.