How does one get some of the most famous thighs in video game history?
The actress playing Chun-Li in the upcoming Street Fighter movie, Callina Liang, took the responsibility very seriously.
“[I] strengthened my legs a lot and changed my diet drastically,” the Canadian actress told Empire magazine in August. “But it worked. By the end of the shoot, my thighs had grown six-and-a-half centimeters each.” That’s more than 2.5 inches, for the Americans keeping count.
The character is regarded “the first lady of fighting games” by generations of fans, following her debut in the second Street Fighter game in 1991. Since then, she’s been a pop culture icon — take, for example, Nicki Minaj’s 2018 platinum single “Chun-Li.”
In the games, Chun-Li wears a modified qipao, a Chinese dress with a collar, capped sleeves — and untraditionally, two slits go all the way up past the hip to show the most of her muscular thighs.
It’s an iconic look, but also serves the role of showing off her signature moves.
“Chun-Li is all kicks,” Liang, 26, explained. So she focused her training in three martial arts, two hours a day.
First, taekwondo, a Korean combat sport focused on kicks and punches. Plus, Muay Thai, which focuses on hands, elbows, knees and shins. And of course, wushu, a more modern Chinese martial art which is often used interchangeably with the more traditional kung fu.
Noah Centineo — who plays Ken Masters — said he, Callina and Andrew Koji (who plays plays Ryu, the main protagonist) trained together six days a week for six weeks.
It’s a regimen that makes sense for a martial arts icon who the icons themselves admire. Jackie Chan even dressed up as Chun-Li in the 1993 film City Hunter.
A diet fit for a heroine
Liang’s prep work didn’t just stay in the gym — her diet was majorly transformed, too.
“When I was bulking, I ate 12 eggs a day,” she said. “Every two hours I had to have a meal, and I was on the verge of throwing up.”
Eggs are one of the best ways to get whole-food protein in, especially if you’re trying to increase muscle mass. Protein is need for repairing muscles that get worked during exercise and making muscle fibers bigger and stronger.
In addition to diet and exercise, Liang studied up on the source material.
“I downloaded every single version of Street Fighter onto a PS5 and I recorded all of Chun-Li’s moves during fights on my phone in slow-mo, so I could play them back and study them,” she said.
There are seven main games and over 40 releases (including spinoffs and crossovers) since the first game came out in 1987.
Street Fighter is one of the most popular (and debatably launched the genre of) “fighting games,” where players fight one-on-one, generally in hand-to-hand combats. Others include Mortal Kombat, Tekken, and Super Smash Bros.
The movie hits theaters on October 16.
