Alpha follows Ryu who, after the recent death of his master, finds himself facing his toughest opponent yet, himself. After the death of his father-figure, Ryu's inner demons start to come out and he starts to succumb to an evil energy that lies buried deep inside of him.

The movie opens up to Ryu's long-time friend, Ken Masters, showing up at the shrine. Ken's arrival is soon followed by the appearance of a young boy claiming to be Ryu's little brother. Ryu and Ken take the boy in and they soon learn of a new Street Fighter tournament taking place. Because of his lack of control over the dark energy taking over his body, Ryu refuses to take part in the tournament, and follows the other two to the battle grounds.

During this new adventure, Ryu and Ken will meet up with many of the characters from the Street Fighter Alpha game. Besides the game's brief appearances with Zangief, Rose and Sakura, the movie also focuses on key characters like Chun-Li and Akuma.

Not only is the main plot of Ryu's inner struggle resolved by the end of the film, but several other sub-plots also work their way into the movie, and all of these various plots really help to make the characters feel more real and three dimensional.

Street Fighter Alpha: The Movie is definitely a movie for the fans since it takes the background story laid out in the games and puts it all together in a nice package. It should be noted that, unlike the first animated movie, this one isn't all about action. There is a serious effort in Alpha to develop the characters so that when Ryu struggles with the dark energy, you empathize with him and truly want him to overcome the evil within him.