Fil-Am stunt choreographer Jon Valera brings ‘Street Fighter’ moves to big screen

MANILA — Filipino-American stunt choreographer Jon Valera helped bring the signature moves of the “Street Fighter” video game franchise to life for the upcoming film adaptation, working with director Kitao Sakurai and an international stunt team to translate the game’s exaggerated fighting styles into cinematic action.

Sakurai said Valera, along with VFX supervisor Sandra Balej, were longtime fans of the game and understood the importance of preserving its iconic moves.

“In the same way that the actors were all super involved with how they thought about their characters, Jon Valera, our stunt choreographer, Sandra Balej, our VFX supervisor, are also huge fans of the game,” Sakurai said. “They were super passionate about bringing all the iconic moves from the game to life.”

Valera, whose credits include the “John Wick” series as well as projects in the Marvel and DC universes, said he felt both excited and nervous when he was approached about working on “Street Fighter.”

“There was a lot of pressure behind this movie,” Valera said. “Very high profile, one of the most iconic video games out there. I call it ‘the Bruce Lee effect.’”

Valera said the film presented an opportunity to move away from the gritty, realistic fight style common in recent action movies and explore the cleaner martial arts choreography associated with action films of the 1990s.

“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,’” he said. “A lot of the fight styles now have gone more ‘John Wick’ style. Brutal, gritty, messy.”

“Street Fighter” is set in the 1990s, and Valera said he wanted to capture the visual appeal of that era’s martial arts films without making the fights overly campy.

“I didn’t want to make it the cheesy, campy, clean martial arts, but to capture the beauty of it,” he said.

Valera and his team also drew from the Japanese martial arts influences behind the game’s choreography. The stunt team included practitioners of Goju-ryu, Shotokan and judo.

“We wanted to take a lot of the moves in the game — Japanese based with a little flair — to stay true to the Japanese martial arts and show off the beauty of it,” Valera said.

Each character was given a distinct fighting style.

Chun-Li’s choreography draws from Chinese martial arts including wushu, tai chi and kung fu. Blanka, a self-taught fighter, combines animalistic movements with elements of capoeira, while Guile’s style emphasizes powerful, military-inspired strikes.

For Dhalsim, Valera said the team drew on yoga and breakdancing. Balrog’s movements were influenced by heavyweight boxer Mike Tyson and the character Clubber Lang from the “Rocky” films.

Valera assembled an international stunt team with members from the United Kingdom, France, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and Japan. The team also included specialists with skills that helped execute some of the game’s more unusual moves.

For the spinning bird kick, for example, the production worked with a Cirque du Soleil performer who had specialized harnesses and rigs that allowed performers to remain suspended in the air longer than would otherwise be possible.

Previsualization was also used to help the cast understand the choreography and how complex sequences would unfold.

David Dastmalchian, who plays M. Bison, said the stunt and VFX teams created fully choreographed versions of the fights so the actors could see how the scenes would play out.

The production also relied on visual and special effects when stunts were impractical or presented safety concerns.

“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.”

One of the film’s major action sequences, set in a burlesque venue, took nearly two weeks to shoot and features dozens of extras, aerial stunts and timed pyrotechnic effects.

Actor Orville Peck, who plays Vega, described the sequence as the film’s longest fight scene and one that brings together much of the cast.

The film also stars Andrew Koji as Ryu, Noah Centineo, Callina Liang, Jason Momoa as Blanka, and WWE stars Joe “Roman Reigns” Anoa’i and Cody Rhodes.

“Street Fighter” opens in Philippine cinemas October 14.