Chun-Li

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Chun-Li
Chun-Li as seen in Capcom vs. SNK SNK Groove, wearing her original Street Fighter II and III outfit. Illustration by Shinkiro.
Game series	Street Fighter series
First game	Street Fighter II
Designed by	Akira "Akiman" Yasuda (Street Fighter II)
Voice actor(s)	Yuko Miyamura (SFA3), Atsuko Tanaka (SF3)
In-Universe Information
Birthplace	China
Blood type	A
Fighting style	Chinese Martial Arts
Likes	Fruit, European treats
Dislikes	Crime, Indecisive People, Bison
Special skill	Shooting (ranked 6th in an international contest)
Affiliation	former ICPO Special Detective

Chun-Li (チュンリー, Chun-Rī^?, based on Chinese 春麗 Chūn-Lì) is a video game character created by Capcom. She is part of the Street Fighter game series, and is the first female playable character to appear in a mainstream fighting game. Introduced in Street Fighter II, Chun-Li was the only female character in the game, and while not as physically powerful as the other characters, she was by far the quickest. Her most famous attack is the Hyakuretsukyaku (translated properly as Lightning Kick, though more commonly known as Lightning Legs.), where she repeatedly kicks her opponent from a standing position with incredible speed.

Chun-Li is one of the earliest female video game protagonists to achieve widespread popularity. Prior to Street Fighter II being released in 1991, most female characters in games existed as objectives to be rescued or cast in the roles of other supporting characters, such as townspeople, girlfriends, the occasional opponent, or simply background decoration; as such, there were very few heroines in action-based video games. After the success of Street Fighter II and Chun-Li's popularity, female protagonists became increasingly common. Since then, in games with selectable characters, at least one of them will almost always be female; and a number of games released since that have placed a female character in the lead role.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Name

Chun-Li's name is Mandarin; chūn "spring", lì "beautiful", which means she is a single young girl filled with spring beauty. This may be related to her date of birth - March 1, 1968 - which occurs in spring.

Older official sources from the early 90s indicate Chung was Chun-Li's surname, although it is worth noting this could very well not be the case anymore. In the live-action Street Fighter movie, Chun-Li was given the surname Zang/Xiang, but Capcom has not officially recognized it.

[edit] Story

Chun-Li's acrobat outfit during the Street Fighter Alpha era.

Chun-Li was an Interpol investigator who had been searching for clues to the recent death of her father. Getting into a friendly spar with an old teacher of hers and friend of her father, Gen, he gives her a lead into who may have killed her father—the mysterious crime syndicate Shadoloo. Finding its leader, M. Bison, she demands he tell her what happened to her father. To her surprise, Bison attacks and basically makes quick work of her, then flies away, laughing at her and telling her if she attacks him again he will kill her just like he did to her father. With tears in her eyes, Chun-Li swore revenge.

Chun-Li teamed up with an United States Air Force member, Charlie, to try to track and take down Shadoloo. She then ran into someone she would not have expected at all. It was Charlie's good friend and fellow lieutenant, Guile. Telling him he should not get in over his head and to leave the two be, she learns he has orders to bring Charlie back. Attempting to use force to stop him, she instead finds herself defeated; nonetheless, she insists that she and her partner be left alone, to which Guile replies that he will never abandon friends in need. Eventually, learning that Bison tricked the Air Force into cancelling the planned bombing of the main Shadoloo base, she rushed over to the two soldiers to tell them they were tricked and would have to destroy the base on their own. Chun-Li proceeded to plant bombs about the base as Charlie and Guile headed inside to destroy the Psycho Drive, but Guile then came rushing out, grabbing Chun-Li and telling her Charlie had urged both of them to get away. Along the way, Chun-Li saw a young girl escaping with several others (who turned out to be Cammy White leading the Dolls away from the base). Despite being distraught over the initial lack of evidence to prove Shadoloo's crimes, Interpol and Chun-Li managed to shut down much of the evil crime empire.

Chun-Li received an invitation to the second World Warrior tournament, and discovered that Bison had apparently survived the Thailand base's destruction. With this, she had the clear motive of destroying Shadoloo and avenging her father once again. The outcome of this tournament is not clear, but there are strong hints that Chun-Li earned the right to face Bison and possibly won the tournament^{[citation needed]}, although Bison, himself, was killed by Akuma in the long run.

Having made her peace, she continued her work as a police officer, and retired from mainstream street fighting to teach young children martial arts after taking down Shadoloo for good. Urien kidnapped a young girl for his scientific projects and Chun-Li manages to catch up to him. Challenging him, she does her best to fight him and Urien, impressed by his opponent's fighting spirit, agrees to let the child go. Since then, Chun-Li has continued to raise her adopted kids.

[edit] Media Appearances

[edit] Street Fighter

Ming-Na plays Chun Li in Street Fighter (1994)

Chun-Li was featured in an action movie Street Fighter (1994). Her character was portrayed by Chinese-American Ming-Na Wen, who is also a GNT news reporter in pursuit to seek revenge on M. Bison for causing her father's death.

[edit] Street Fighter (TV series)

Chun Li was a regular character in the series.She was voiced by Donna Yamamoto.

[edit] Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie

Chun-Li was featured as a main character of the Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie. As an interpol agent, she teams up with Guile to investigate Bison's organization. In a famous instance of fanservice, Chun-Li was given a shower scene before her fight with Vega, which has been censored to varying degrees in all American releases. In the uncensored version, Chun Li's bare breasts and buttocks can be seen in full view.

The recent re-release of the film by Manga Entertainment now offers both the "uncut" UK and original JP versions of the film on one double-sided DVD with her shower scene fully intact and uncensored in the Japanese version and clips of her frontal nudity inserted in the UK version.

[edit] Street Fighter II V

In this 29 episode anime series, Chun-Li appears as the spirited tour guide to Ken and Ryu. Her character in this adaption is a far cry from The world's strongest woman, since she's mostly a Kung-Fu student under the guidance of her father, the highest-ranked police chief in Hong Kong. Chun-Li plays a sizeable role in the finale when she is brainwashed by Bison's psycho power.

[edit] Movie (2008)

In October 2006, Hyde Park Entertainment and Capcom announced its intention to produce another film adaptation with the storyline to focus on Chun-Li. This film will be more character-centered and story-based rather than following a "nebulous plot".^[1] Also, apparently it won't be just a Street Fighter movie with Chun-Li as the main character, along the lines of Guile in the first one, but it will be an actual Chun-Li film.^[1] Screenwriter Justin Marks was attached to write a script for the adaptation. Street Fighter is set for a 2008 release for the 20th anniversary of the fighting game series.^[2] The film adaptation is part of Capcom's multi-platform launch for 2008 that will also launch video games and a potential TV series in 2008.^[1]

[edit] Other Notable Appearances

Chun-Li has made cameos in various settings from the manga Faeries' Landing to a background scene in the U.S. cartoon Jackie Chan Adventures. She is also a regularly-used cameo character in other Capcom games, such as the RPG Breath of Fire and in the first stage of Final Fight 2. She is a playable character in the crossover game Namco x Capcom, eventually pairing up with Cammy.

[edit] Media Influences

[edit] Music

Chun-Li has inspired some influence on the music industry. The British rock band Arctic Monkeys have an instrumental song titled "Chun Li's Spinning Bird Kick" and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rock Instrumental Performance. Wyclef Jean sings in his version of the song Guantanamera: "If your name was Chun-Li, we'd be playin' Street Fighter." Also Nerdcore hip-hop artist Beefy dedicated a song to Chun-Li.

[edit] Films

In the Jackie Chan live-action movie City Hunter, Chan's character magically transformed to Chun-Li and fought against his adversaries (he was first transformed into E. Honda). There is a fight scene in the Shrek 2 movie where princess Fiona performs Chun-Li's Spinning Kick against her opponents. She also performs a Sho Ryu Ken, a special move of the Ken and Ryu characters.

In the Wong Jing film Future Cops (which spoofs Street Fighter), there is a character named Chun-Li (春麗). Later on, she and her mother both transform into fighting outfits reminiscent of Chun-Li's from Street Fighter, and use moves that are obviously inspired from Chun-Li's moves in the game.

[edit] Appearance

Chun-Li's appearance has differed several times in the Street Fighter series, as well as in official art and cameos she has made in other works.

[edit] Clothing

Chun-Li wears the qipao, a traditional Chinese dress popular among girls during the early 20th Century. Her outfit is modified to allow a far wider range of movement than a normal qipao. She also wears combat boots and dark brown sheer pantyhose with her qipao. Her qipao is blue with golden yellow accents. She was originally supposed to wear a peach-colored qipao, as seen in her in-game profile and ending in the original Street Fighter II.

During the period covered in Street Fighter Alpha, she wore an embroidered vest, unitard and athletic shoes, as well as studded wristbands. It is unclear why she chose to stop using this outfit and switch to a qipao. With the switch to the qipao, she also swapped her wristbands for spiked training bracelets.

In various official art, she has also been shown in her police outfit, as well as (presumably) her favorite casual attire: a varsity-style jacket, T-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes. It has been shown in some official art that when wearing her casual attire she also wears her Alpha wristbands.

[edit] Hairstyle

Her hairstyle is called "ox horns", a typical style in which Chinese children dress their hair; depictions of girls in Chinese paintings frequently show girls in ox horns.

During the Alpha series, she chose to wear them unadorned, while in the remaining games, she uses silk brocades and ribbons to cover them, presumably to match her qipao.

[edit] Gameplay

Chun-Li's fireball special (Kikouken), introduced in 1994.

Chun-Li is the original fast character in the Street Fighter series, utilizing multiple rapid attacks rather than the slow damaging strikes of larger characters like Zangief. Her agile and swift movements are a favorite amongst game-players. It is interesting to note that in the early days of arcade fighting games, many other female characters played in a similarly speedy style. Most likely other game developers were following the example set by Chun-Li.

In Street Fighter II' Turbo: Hyper Fighting, Chun-Li was the original hybrid character, using both charge input moves like Guile, and command input moves like Ken. However, Chun-Li depends less on her special moves than other characters, and more on her normal kicks and punches and dexterity to overwhelm an opponent. This was also the time Chun Li's new power was introduced in a form where she can produce Kikouken (Force Fist), similar to Ryu's and Ken's fireballs, but slightly weaker.

Over the years, Chun-Li has appeared in almost all of Capcom fighting games. After the release of Street Fighter III 3rd Strike, she became the only character besides Ryu, Ken and Akuma to appear in all three major Street Fighter incarnations (Street Fighter II, Street Fighter Alpha and Street Fighter III) and has appeared in all crossovers involving the series (i.e. Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes and SVC Chaos).

[edit] Actors

• In a number of games since Street Fighter Alpha, her voice is provided by actress/singer Yuko Miyamura.
• In the animated movie, her voice actress is Miki Fujitani.
• In Street Fighter III, Capcom Fighting Jam, and the RPG Namco x Capcom she is performed by Atsuko Tanaka.
• In Capcom vs. SNK and Capcom vs. SNK 2, Chun-Li is voiced by Michiko Neya.
• In SVC Chaos: SNK vs. Capcom, Chun-Li is voiced by Mari Jitsukawa.
• Chun-Li is portrayed by Ming-Na alongside with Jean Claude Van Damme in the live action movie (1994). After being captured by M. Bison, she is dressed in a red qipao in contrast of the signature blue portrayed in the video games, and she does not wear pantyhose. Ming Na played a news reporter in this movie, instead of an Interpol agent.
• In all American dubs of the various Street Fighter anime, Chun-Li is voiced by Lia Sargent.

[edit] Related Characters

[edit] See also

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Chun-Li

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

• Kikouken.Com - An extensive fansite dedicated to Chun-Li.
• Omiod.Com - Chun-Li background and related characters.
• WikiKnowledge.net’s entry for Chun-Li Previously hosted by Wikibooks