Legendary's new Street Fighter reboot movie is starting to fill in its cast, adding actor Callina Liang, recently of Steven Soderbergh's Presence, as Chun-Li, one of the main characters of the video game franchise, as reported by Deadline.
The Street Fighter franchise kicked off in 1987, but didn't become a global sensation until 1991's Street Fighter 2, which quickly became one of the still-reigning most popular fighting games of all time. With six entries in the main series, the Street Fighter franchise has also grown to include dozens of connected games and spin-offs.
Through it all, Chun-Li is one of the only characters to appear in nearly every game since her debut in Street Fighter 2, with a playstyle based around powerful, lightning fast kicks and acrobatic spins.
Street Fighter is based on one-on-one combat between two players, each controlling a separate fighter, with a storyline based around a high-profile tournament that ropes in so-called "World Warriors" from around the globe to compete for the honor of facing the tournament's organizer, the villainous M. Bison (with other bosses showing up in later games).
That set-up seems like a perfect plot for a movie, but so far, neither attempt at adapting the game to a live-action film has panned out particularly well. 1994's initial attempt, Street Fighter: The Movie, remains divisive, with some fans remembering it fondly as a campy, silly take on the material with its own kind of charm, and with others, frankly, just hating it. Even less successful was 2009's Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, which is barely remembered and widely disliked by those who saw it.
So far, Legendary's Street Fighter – which will be directed by Kitao Sakurai of Bad Trip fame – has reportedly cast Noah Centineo, Andrew Koji, Jason Momoa, Roman Reigns, and Orville Peck, though most of their roles have not yet been confirmed.
The film was originally scheduled to release in 2026, but was delayed earlier this year, with no new release date yet confirmed. For more, check out our ever-growing list of upcoming video game movies.
