The latest video game adaptation, Street Fighter, is finally out. It’s produced by Paramount Pictures, who were successful in bringing Sonic the Hedgehog to life. Directed by Kitao Sakurai, we get a blast to the past in the 90s as the strongest fighters are brought together for the second World Warrior tournament.

In our interview with Kitao Sakurai, he discussed the decision behind including animation for the flashbacks in Street Fighter, working on his biggest production yet, and the decision behind changing iconic characters.

When did the decision come about to create animated sequences for Street Fighter and also have it be the opening for the film?

Kitao Sakurai: It felt as we were developing the story; we wanted to be able to show the backstory of Ken and Ryu and understand where they came from as a relationship. Traditionally in movies, when you do that, you either have to de-age people or hire child actors. We were kind of going down that route, and it was like, “This is just not feeling right.”

We were thinking of Street Fighter as a franchise and the legacy of it and its connection to Japanese anime and Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie and just the anime that I grew up on, like Ghost in the Shell, Akira, and Dragon Ball Z. It’s that era of classic 90s Japanese anime.

The whole concept of the movie is kind of about boldness and not necessarily doing things in the most traditional way and also honoring Street Fighter. We were like, “Okay, let’s go down this path of traditional animation.” We reached out to his animation studio called Titmouse in LA and worked with them on developing this concept.

It’s always been a dream of mine to do something in the anime or anime-inspired space. With Titmouse, we work with this whole team of artists, and every single frame of the animation is hand-drawn. It’s like fully 90s-style traditional hand-drawn animation. There’s like zero VFX used or anything like that. It’s all drawn by people.

It’s a quick reminder of why we need to push AI stepping into these productions. It was just so beautiful getting to watch this and seeing it throughout the film. Like you said, it immediately made me think of the animated movie. A more modernized version of that, even to the point where I was like, “Damn, I wish we had a fully animated Street Fighter movie.”

At any point in the back of your mind, have you felt like maybe you’d want to do a fully animated Street Fighter film, whether it was connected to this film or a separate film?

Kitao Sakurai: Yeah, perhaps. It was an incredible process and such a learning experience for me. I’ve never gone through that process before. and especially in this sort of, like, fully hand-drawn way. I mean, yes, of course, I would love to.

Ryu and Ken sounded fantastic in those scenes. Was it still Andrew Koji and Noah Centineo in those scenes?

Kitao Sakurai: Yep.

Do you know what the process was for them with that transition from having to do voice roles and the acting performances as well?

Kitao Sakurai: We kind of developed with them the characters of Ken and Ryu early on, and then the assignment for the anime was how would they sound as 16- and 17-year-olds? It just kind of took a lot of work to get working with them to develop that voice characteristic of a younger version of their characters.

Street Fighter is a very bold and risky film with this franchise being the one video game adaptation that can get away with that. With how the film concludes, it doesn’t finish off the story. It leaves something for the audience to want to come back to. What was the process behind coming up with this, and it was laway this type of ending or an ending where it was fully concluded?

Kitao Sakurai: Street Fighter is like one of the oldest and most storied video game franchises in history, and it never felt right to be one and done. We wanted to be able to say, “If people respond to this movie and they love it, then we need to be able to leave the door open to tell more of the story.”

From how it concludes, it seems like we’re heading in the direction of Street Fighter IV. We’re seemingly getting Sagat as a character for the sequel, as we saw from the post-credits scene. Are there any characters within the Street Fighter world that you’d love to personally introduce into the franchise?

Kitao Sakurai: There’s so many [laughs]; just to be perfectly honest, we’re still developing what that would be. Like, at what point in the story of the canon do we want to drop into. There’s so many things that we’re figuring out, so I hesitate to be like, “Yes, it’s these six characters.”

Street Fighter is the biggest production you’ve directed so far. What were the challenges when it came to adapting a fighting video game that is so rich with this lore and bringing it to the screen and making sure you nailed that?

Kitao Sakurai: I think that fundamentally the challenge was the same challenge as any kind of production, which is making sure the story works and that we care about the characters on the screen and that kind of fundamental aspect of the movie is working and that everything else flows off of that.

I mean, this was certainly by far the biggest production that I’ve done, and the challenges with the big production, as far as fight scenes, [and stuff like that] there’s a very large second unit, which was run by Jon Valera, our incredible stunt choreographer.

The managerial challenge was being like, “Okay, how do I make sure that every piece of the story and every shot is being told in the same way as it was and that we’re all circling the same tone of the move?. I have to say everybody who worked on the movie, in every department, and every actor wanted to be there so badly and was so in it that it was just such a joy to do.

With characters like Cammy and Guile, they felt slightly different personality-wise from what you’d traditionally expect. What was the decision process behind changing up those characters?

Kitao Sakurai: It was sort of about giving ourselves a little bit of license to just have fun. Cody Rhodes, he’s like a force of nature, and he’s so funny, and it just didn’t make sense to be like, “Don’t do those things,” because we have this incredible performer who brings so much freshness and comedy, you want to be able to say, “Yeah, go and make it fun.”

Ultimately, it’s something that we all take seriously, and it comes from a love of the game, but also it’s just a fun, crazy, chaotic game that I think on a larger spiritual level, you want to honor the kind of fun, chaos, and insane qualities of the game itself. I think some of that has to do with embracing what people as performers can give you.

Street Fighter is out now in cinemas.