“Street Fighter” may appear to be a simple video game from the outside looking in. It features a bunch of colorful characters with interesting power moves, and they just … fight. That’s it. There’s nothing complicated about it, much less a convoluted plot to speak of. Except, in the annals of “Street Fighter,” there is quite a lot of background world-building and character stories that support the fighting.
Indeed, the “Street Fighter” franchise features a vast range of characters, including mutants, demons, and even cyborgs. Moreover, each of them has an interesting and expansive backstory that the games only hint at. Now, the colorful martial arts romp that is 2026’s “Street Fighter” movie adaptation has brought many of the property’s weirdest characters to the big screen, like Blanka.
A feral savage with long orange hair and green skin, Blanka is a behemoth of a man feared by all of M. Bison’s prisoners, and for good reason. But despite his knack for brutal violence, Blanka can also be a bit of a gentle savage and have a child-like demeanor. As it turns out, his original name is Jimmy, and all he wants is to find his mother after getting lost in the jungle and raised by electric eels. And while we don’t learn much about him in this particular movie, that may change if “Street Fighter” continues to perform well enough at the box office to warrant a sequel.
In case Blanka looks familiar under all the CGI and green skin, that’s because he’s played by none other than Jason Momoa. Yes, the same Jason Momoa who starred in “Game of Thrones,” “Aquaman,” “Dune,” and even “A Minecraft Movie.”
Jason Momoa is a reliable dorky big guy with a mean streak
Though his intimidating physical build and piercing eyes have led to Jason Momoa being frequently cast as villainous or morally ambiguous characters, he kicked off his career by playing the headstrong heartthrob Jason Ioane on “Baywatch: Hawaii.” However, it was only after his breakout role in “Stargate: Atlantis” that Momoa revealed he’s better than anyone else at playing what our own Sandy Schaefer once described as “chill dude-bros who can also kill you with their pinkie” (even if Momoa doesn’t seem to think he’s played many villains before).
For sure, over the past 20 years, Momoa has excelled at toying the line between playing outright villains and antagonists who happens to be so cool you can’t help but root for them. It’s that very quality that he brought to “Game of Thrones,” along with movies like “Bullet to the Head” and “The Bad Batch.” Since then, Momoa has started playing increasingly wild characters, culminating in his turn as Dante from “Fast X” (a true Joker-like criminal who gives mani-pedis to the corpses of his former henchmen and is easily the best “Fast & Furious” baddie ever).
Even when not playing outright villains, Momoa brings an edge to his characters that can transform a goody two-shoes like Aquaman into a livewire badass. It’s part of why James Wan’s “Aquaman” movies work so well, as Momoa turns what used to be a mockery of a comic book superhero into one of the coolest DC characters around … even if his portrayal of the character is basically the same as his take on Lobo in this year’s “Supergirl.”
“Street Fighter” is currently playing in theaters.