Chun-Li: Encyclopedia - Chun-Li

Chun-Li

Chun-Li (春麗) is a video game character created by Capcom. She is part of the Street Fighter series of fighting games, and is considered to be the first female fighting game character. 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. Various bootleg versions of the game gave her a projectile attack, something that was later officially incorporated into Street Fighter II Turbo as the Kikouken and has been part of her official move repertoire since. Her most famous attack is the Hyakuretsukyaku (a.k.a. the Lightning Kick), where she repeatedly kicks her opponent from a standing position with incredible speed.

Chun-Li is also notable for being one of the first successful and popular female video game protagonists. 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. Beyond RPGs, there were very few female heroes in action-based video games. After the success of Street Fighter II and Chun-Li's popularity, female protagonists became more and more common. Since then, in games with selectable characters, at least one or two of them will be female; and there has been a number of games released since that have placed a woman or girl in the lead role.

In a number of games since Street Fighter Alpha, her voice is provided by actress/singer Yuko Miyamura, while in Street Fighter III and other recent games 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 - Vital Statistics

• Fighting style:— Chinese Kenpo
• Birthplace:— China
• Birthdate:— March 1, 1968
• Height:— 173cm
• Weight:— ?kg (she'll never tell)
• 3 sizes:— B88, W58, H90
• Blood type:— A
• Special Skill:— Shooting (ranked 6th in an international contest)
• Likes:— Fruit, American Candy
• Dislikes:— Crime, Indecisive People, M. Bison

Chun-Li - Story

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'll kill her-just like he did to her father. Chun-Li, tears in her eyes, swore revenge.

Chun-Li teamed up with an American Air Force member, Charlie, to try to track and take down Shadoloo. She then ran into someone she wouldn't have expected at all-Charlie's good friend and fellow lieutenant, Guile. Telling him he shouldn't 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 and begging him to leave them alone, to which he replies that he'll 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 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.

Having made her peace, she continued her work as a police officer, and retired from mainstream street fighting to teach young girls martial arts after taking down Shadoloo for good. Urien has kidnapped a young child 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.

Chun-Li - 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.

Chun-Li - Clothing

The clothing that Chun-Li wears is a traditional Chinese dress called a qipao in which it was quite popular clothing during the early 20th Century in China amongst girls; it should be noted, however, that Chun-Li's outfit is a modified version that allows a far wider range of movement than a normal qipao. In addition, she usually wears dark brown tights with her traditional fighting costume. She was originally supposed to wear a peach-colored qipao, and her in-game profile in the original Street Fighter II displays this. This was corrected to the blue one in Street Fighter II': Champion Edition.

During the period covered in Street Fighter Alpha, she wore an embroidered vest, leotard and athletic shoes, as well as studded wristbands. It is unclear why she chose to stop using this outfit and switched to a qipao; she also replaced her athletic shoes with the more familiar combat boots. With the switch to the qipao, she also swapped her wristband for spiked bracelets, likely to do more damage against other opponents.

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, and jeans. It has been shown in some official art when wearing her casual attire she also wears her Alpha wristbands.

Chun-Li - 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.

Chun-Li - Techniques

• Hyakuretsukyaku: Chun-Li's signature move, she stands on one leg and kicks rapidly with the other.
• Spinning Bird Kick: Chun-Li flips and spins across the screen upside down, with her legs like helicopter blades.
• Kikouken: Chun-Li fires a projectile of ki.
• Tenshoukyaku: Chun-Li performs several rising kicks to knock opponents out of the air.
• Senretsukyaku: Chun-Li's Super Move. She kicks her opponent twice and follows with a Hyakuretsukyaku.
• Kikoushou: Another one of Chun-Li's Super Moves, she forms a ball of ki in her palms that doesn't leave her hands.

Chun-Li - Trivia

• Gen was a friend of Chun-Li's father, as mentioned, but a popular artwork of a young Chun-Li being taught martial arts by an old man is NOT Gen, but rather her uncle Shao-Efei. Still, Gen did teach her father some moves that apparently got passed down to her anyways. A good example is her crouching Roundhouse attack.
• Older official sources from the early 90s indicate Chung was Chun-Li's last name, although it's worth nothing this could be very well not the case anymore. In the live-action Street Fighter movie Chun-Li was given the last name Zang/Xiang, but Capcom hasn't officially recognized it.
• In the Marvel vs. Capcom series, Chun-Li receives an offer to join the X-Men despite not having any mutant powers. She considers mutant abilities to be nothing out of the ordinary, citing her abilities to fire a projectile (the Kikouken).
• Chun-Li has an alternate version in Marvel vs. Capcom called Shadow Lady. The appearance is a palette swap of Chun-Li but with darker colors. Her fighting style hints that it may be a clone of Chun-Li similar to Shadow. She also has a Shun Goku Satsu-like move like Shadow does, called Final Mission, sending her opponent to the air with her standing High Kick prior to the actual attack.
• She is portrayed by Ming-Na in the movie. She also wears qipao during the movie, though it is red rather than blue.
• Chun-Li is a favorite cameo personality of anime and manga directors. She has appeared in cameo in various settings from the manga Fairies' Landing to a background scene in the US 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.
• In the Jackie Chan live-action movie City Hunter, he magically transformed to Chun-Li and fought against his adversaries (he was first transformed into Honda in the beginning).
• On the American and European SNES version of Street Fighter II, the thong that she wears was edited.
• She has a poster of Bruce Lee in her room at all times and seeing a movie of him at five years old convinced her to take up martial arts.
• Due to Urien's comments in 3rd Strike, Chun-Li is a popular contender for winner of the second World Warrior tournament. However, the endings in Street Fighter II indicate she was happy with 'destroying Shadaloo' and not Bison himself for her father's memory, and this is supportive of the fact Guile's ending is the only one that truly needs Bison to be fought personally for it to make sense. But even Guile can't be confirmed as the tournament's winner, since the final lines from his ending seem to point he was only dreaming about defeating Bison.

Chun-Li - Related characters

• Gen
• Charlie
• Guile
• M. Bison

See also

• Street Fighter
• Pocket Fighter
• Marvel vs. Capcom series
• SNK vs. series
• Namco x Capcom
• Capcom Fighting Evolution

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Chun-Li", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki