Filipino-American stunt choreographer brings ‘Street Fighter’ moves to life

Filipino-American stunt choreographer Jon Valera helped bring the signature moves of the popular video game franchise “Street Fighter” to the big screen.

Directed by Kitao Sakurai, the upcoming action film features choreography inspired by the characters’ distinct fighting techniques, with Valera and his international stunt team working alongside the visual effects and special effects departments to re-create the franchise’s iconic moves.

“There was a lot of pressure behind this movie,” Valera said in a statement sent to Inquirer Entertainment. [It’s] very high-profile, one of the most iconic video games out there […] As martial artists, we always say you never want to touch a Bruce Lee film because it’s almost sacred to us. Street Fighter ranks up there, but if I’m not afraid of a job, then it doesn’t make me work.”

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Valera, whose Hollywood credits include the “John Wick” series, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the DC Extended Universe, reunited with frequent collaborator Jason Momoa for “Street Fighter.” Momoa plays Blanka and also serves as one of the film’s producers.

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Valera said he wanted the fight sequences to reflect the film’s 1990s setting, drawing inspiration from the martial arts action movies of that era while avoiding an overly campy approach.

“In the beginning I wanted to go a little more clean martial arts because it’s been a while since we’ve seen a clean martial arts movie like The Matrix,” said Valera. “A lot of the fight styles now have gone more John Wick style. Brutal, gritty, messy. Street Fighter takes place in the 1990s, and ’90s action movies were cheesy, clean martial arts. I didn’t want to make it the cheesy, campy, clean martial arts, but to capture the beauty of it.”

The stunt choreographer’s team also studied traditional Japanese martial arts to stay faithful to the fighting styles associated with the video game.

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To execute the elaborate sequences, Valera assembled an international team of stunt professionals from the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Japan. Their specialized skills and equipment helped re-create moves that would otherwise be difficult to perform naturally.

“One of our guys who helped with the Spinning Bird Kick was a Cirque du Soleil performer, who has all kinds of special harnesses and rigs. With them, a character could be suspended in the air, with a little bit of an assist so they could stay up just a little longer than a normal human. Most of these characters are not superheroes, they’re just above a regular human,” Valera explained. 

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Valera said the production relied on close collaboration among the stunt, visual effects and special effects teams, particularly when safety concerns or logistical limitations made certain stunts difficult to execute.

“We worked with SFX on explosions and breakaways, with everything safety tested,” Valera said. “Plus, there’s always situations where we can’t do everything with a real human, it’s either a safety issue or highly time-consuming, so the VFX team was amazing too. This was one of the most collaborative efforts I’ve been on with those two departments.”

“Street Fighter” also stars Noah Centineo, Callina Liang, Andrew Koji as Ryu, David Dastmalchian as M. Bison, and WWE stars Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoai and Cody Rhodes.