A few years ago, we here at Collider premiered director Joey Ansah’s Street Fighter Legacy live-action short film.  At that time, his goal was to make a cool short and something that would show Hollywood how a fighting game could be done in movie form.  Based on the reception from fans and YouTube views, it was a huge hit.

With the success of the short, Ansah and his producer partner Jacqueline Quella, acquired the rights from Capcom and created a multi format series called Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist.  Premiering next month on Machinima as a 12 part series and then airing on TV, the series is about the coming of age of Ken & Ryu (the two iconic Street Fighter characters).  Over the course of the series, we will see how the past, present, and future of all of the Street Fighter characters are intertwined.  The series stars Ansah, Christian HowardTogo IgawaAkira KoieyamaMike MohGaku SpaceShogen HyunriHal Yamanouchi and Mark Killeen.  To help promote the series, we're premiering the Ryu teaser trailer and you can also check out 16 images and a new poster.  We've also got a directors statement from Ansah.  More after the jump.

Before going any further, here's Ansah on Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist followed by the teaser trailer, images and poster.  Let me know what you think of the teaser in the comments.

Great to be back on Collider several years on from the success of Street Fighter: Legacy, which you premiered, to talk up the hotly anticipated Street Fighter: Assassin's Fist series.  From small acorns to great oaks!

SFAF is groundbreaking the fact that it is a truly multi format piece of feature length entertainment.

I'm excited to announce that MACHINIMA will be premiering the series on their main channel on YouTube as a 12 part series (each ep being 11-12mins long), along with a load of bonus and behind the scenes content. The release is currently set for May sometime, exact date to be confirmed soon.  We saw Machinima as the perfect first platform distribution partner. With their incredible 12Million subscribership and specialty in catering to the videogame fan, we figured this series should be served to the gamer demographic first (who know the Street Fighter brand better than anyone), before propagating out to the wider audience.  Machinima have had great success distributing other video game based series such as Halo: Forward unto Dawn and Mortal Kombat Legacy series 1&2.

The distribution deals have been sold worldwide for subsequent release platform after Machinima's exclusive period: TV, cable, On-demand and DVD/Blu-ray.  On TV the series will appear as a 6part miniseries (commercial half hour episode length) and also as a condensed 105min TV movie.  The DVD/Blu-ray will contain a full playing theatrical cut, and host a whole load of must see bonus content.

Make no mistake this series may be premiering online and seen on TV, but it has been shot as a super cinematic theatrical movie, in terms of cinematography, scale, sound, score action and drama. Love it or not you will never have seen anything quite like it.

My aim is that this series will breakthrough as the most faithful, fan loved video game to live action adaptation of all time. Proving that games can be adapted to live action keeping hyper faithful to the source material, whilst also being compelling character driven action dramas/thrillers that will welcome in wider audiences-A formula Hollywood has been attempting to find, but miserably failing.

People will come to SFAF expecting action, which they'll get in force! But what will surprise most is how deep a character story it really is. You'll be forced to look at Capcom's much loved Street Fighter Gaming franchise in a whole new and deeper light.

This 'Ryu' themed teaser trailer follows up from the initial first teaser Machinima released. We shall be releasing a further teaser trailer in 2weeks, which will be followed by a main trailer in May before the series debuts.

click on any image for high-res