Chun-Li
Chun-Li is a character in Capcom's Street Fighter video game series. She first appeared in Street Fighter II: The World Warrior in 1991 and is the first female playable character to appear in a fighting game to gain mainstream recognition. She is a martial artist and Interpol officer who seeks revenge for the death of her father by the series' antagonist M. Bison.
Since her debut, Chun-Li has become a pop culture icon, being widely notable beyond the games and one of the series' most iconic characters. She has appeared in nearly all subsequent installments of the series and several other Capcom games, in addition to third-party games. She is also featured in Street Fighter-related media, including two feature films, multiple anime and comic book productions, and other official series merchandise. She has earned much positive fan and critical reception for factors such as her backstory, athleticism and in-game playability, and she is considered a trailblazer for female characters in fighting titles and general video gaming.
Development history
Design
Chun-Li's design was primarily inspired by Tong Pooh, a female villain from Strider, an earlier Capcom game. Capcom designer Akira Nishitani, recounting the creation of the character, said: "Previously there were no women in fighting games. In Chun-Li's case, I wanted a woman in the game. I determined what her fighting abilities would be. Then China just came up as a possible homeland." Capcom artist and designer Akira "Akiman" Yasuda said the initial inspiration for Chun-Li came from the 1983 anime film Harmagedon: Genma Wars, which had a Chinese female character called Tao. Chun-Li was originally known as just 'Chinese Girl' among the development team. She had a backflip attack that was popular among testers but deemed too strong, and unfortunately had to be cut from the game after they ran out of time. Her name means 'beautiful spring' in Chinese as Chūn means 'the season of spring', and lì means 'beautiful' in Mandarin dialects.Yasuda recalled they only had five weeks to make Chun-Li in the game and he was deeply worried about the quality of her design and how she would be received. Chun-Li "was wearing pants right up until the very end . When we made the sprites I thought she didn't look right, so I had them changed to tights instead." Akiman added that they "wanted Street Fighter II to be more entertaining than its predecessor. That also helps explain how Chun-Li came to be. Having a female character in the game completely changes the game's dynamic, she brightens up the entire palette. We needed a reason for her to fight, and so an evil empire came to mind." He also said: "To be honest, I spent some time worrying about putting Chun-Li, the heroine, into such a plain setting. Ordinarily, you don't see women participating in global martial arts tournaments. Just by adding her we were starting to push things to the 'fun' side. I didn't think about it at the time, but thinking about it now, from the moment we put Chun-Li into the game we were already pushing things towards the full-on entertainment side."
Chun-Li was designed with an exceptionally strong physique because she was the sole woman among a roster of powerful male characters in Street Fighter II. To overcome this perceived imbalance, she was devised as a character who had mastered Chinese kenpo and really pushed her body to the limit so that she could compete with such a cast of large and imposing men. She was nevertheless the fastest but physically weakest character in her first game. Capcom producer Yoshiki Okamoto said he wanted to also make the life bar for Chun-Li "shorter than for the other characters because women are not as strong. But Nishitani didn't want to do that. We both had legitimate reasons, but then we came to an agreement to not make it shorter."
Chun-Li is particularly well known for her very muscular legs, while depictions of the rest of her body are more variable. According to Capcom composer Yoko Shimomura, Chun-Li's big thighs originated from Akiman's personal fetish. The size of Chun-Li's thighs massively increased in Street Fighter III. Capcom producer Yoshinori Ono commented on the issue. "I witnessed as her thighs made a sudden jump into gigantism in SFIII. When we first put her in the game, her sprite was just an outline and her thighs weren't that big...but as the artists starting coloring her in, her legs got thicker and thicker." However, they all felt the larger legs increased the expressiveness of her animations. Regarding then-upcoming Street Fighter IV, Ono said the "character designer, Ikeno, is kind of into thick girls, so as an artist he feels that the most beautiful thighs he can give Chun-Li would be of the wide variety."
Chun-Li sprite's panty-flashing animation frames have been censored for the home console releases by Nintendo. In response to fans that were disappointed with Chun-Li's absence from Street Fighter III, Capcom added her to the 3rd Strike version of the game. Since her main designer, Akiman, was busy with other assignments, she was redesigned by other members from the staff; Chun Li the most time and effort out of all characters. Her inclusion into Street Fighter EX was deemed natural by the studio Arika, with producer Ichiro Mihara describing her as one of the three essential Street Fighter characters along with Ryu and Ken.
In the Street Fighter Alpha games, where she was redesigned by Eri "Erichan" Nakamura, Chun-Li wears a sleeveless tight outfit, her arms and upper body were visibly much stronger than those of any other female character in the franchise, however many artists choose to depict her as petite and slim, in official and unofficial artworks alike, drawing only her legs strong due to her emphasis on kicking moves. An early version of Chun-Li in Street Fighter IV was reworked following complaints from location tests that she was not "cute". Ono later announced Chun-Li's controversial face in Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite would be also corrected based on a negative feedback from the fans.
Costumes
In the Street Fighter II sub-series and most of her later appearances, Chun-Li wears a usually blue qipao, an early-20th-century Chinese dress, with golden accents, puffy sleeves, and a white waistband. The dress is modified to allow a far wider range of movement than a generic qipao. In Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, Chun-Li was originally depicted wearing a red qipao instead of blue. It can be also either red or white within some games since Street Fighter II: Champion Edition and Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, respectively. In Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite, the qipao has a very noticeable silky sheen. Her other ensemble includes a pair of white combat boots and brown tights. She usually wears her hair in "ox horns", with silk brocades and ribbons in her hair. Another iconic part of her design are the large spiked bracelets she wears on her wrists.In the Street Fighter Alpha games, Chun-Li wears a Chinese acrobatic outfit consisting of an embroidered vest, a unitard, and sneakers; she is wearing her ox horns unadorned, but kept in place with yellow ribbons. In Street Fighter IV, Chun-Li's alternate outfit consists of black tabard with gold accents at the bottom, while her ox horns are unadorned, just like in her Alpha appearance, only this time it is held by red ropes with golden balls at the tip. This outfit is completed with red shoes, gold earrings and black and gold bracelets. Her alternative wardrobe in Super Street Fighter IV includes a costume inspired by Mai Shiranui and in Street Fighter V she has a Halloween downloadable content appearing as Morrigan Aensland.
Gameplay
Chun-Li's gameplay style changes notably from game to game, with for example Champion Edition restoring her flipping attacks that have been removed from the original version of Street Fighter II. Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike marked a strong departure from previous incarnations as it featured a large number of revamped moves. Chun-Li started as a weak and fast close-range fighter compared to the bigger male characters from Street Fighter II with the best aerial ability in the game, but she steadily gained an array of different moves through the games, such as a projectile attack or an anti-air defensive move, which steered her towards a more balanced type with an emphasis on poking and control of neutral game thanks to a rich set of non-special moves of relatively long range. She has been noted to be one of the most powerful characters in the game, alongside Ken and Yun.Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Alpha 3 feature Chun-Li's original outfit from Street Fighter II as an alternate version of the character with alternate special abilities and Super Combos. CVG opined she was "the most-improved character in Alpha 2, and possibly the #1 character in the whole game." She was considerably weakened in Street Fighter EX, but has remained one of the fastest characters. The development team for Street Fighter EX attempted to bring Chun-Li back to her roots as an agility-oriented character by, among other things, restoring her Spinning Bird Kick and removing the fireball attack she acquired in Street Fighter II Turbo as they felt the projectile attack had too radically altered her originally agile fighting style. Her appearances in the Marvel vs. Capcom series are reminiscent of her early gameplay, featuring her as one of the fastest characters in the games.
Appearances
Video games
''Street Fighter''
Chun-Li was introduced in 1991 in the original version of Street Fighter II as the franchise's first playable female character, an undercover Interpol agent seeking to avenge the death of her father at the hands of M. Bison and his criminal organization. Chun-Li is an expert Chinese martial arts practitioner. Her profile indicates her training in several styles of Chinese kempo at the age of five, especially tai chi, which she would later complement with sanda and fighting styles from all around the world, such as taekwondo, full contact karate, judo and capoeira. She has been noted in-universe for her fluent English, investigating skills, penetrating eyes, beauty and acting talent for deception. Chun-Li is presented as a woman with a strong sense of justice, and her motives for fighting crime range from avenging the death of her father to protecting innocents. She especially cares for kids, showing repulse for the use of brainwashed young girls in Street Fighter Alpha 3 and the kidnapping of a girl in Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. In the latter game, she decides she will teach her fighting style and philosophy to children. Chun-Li returns in Street Fighter IV, where her in-game narrative shows her at crossroads in her life, eventually returning to both street fighting and law enforcement. She returns in Street Fighter V, where she assists in stopping Shadaloo's Black Moons and first meets Li-Fen when she rescues her from the organization; in her prologue story, Chun-Li recalls how she learned of her father's death.In Street Fighter 6, Chun-Li continues to raise Li-Fen and train students in Metro City's Chinatown district, while also being promoted to become a director of Interpol. Li-Fen also acts as her eyes and ears during her Interpol work. Upon learning a terrorist group known as Amnesia attempts to assassinate Ken at Nayshall, Chun-Li tries to stop them from framing him for the crime he did not commit, but fails. Chun-Li then works hard on finding further evidences to clear her friend's name while hunting the terrorist group.