Callina Liang expected fans to comment on her casting as Chun-Li in the upcoming Street Fighter movie, and one of the first comments focused on her thighs.
“I think when I got cast in this role, I remember that there was this Reddit post saying that my thighs were nowhere near as big as Chun-Li,” she recalled during an interview with IGN, per Netflix Junkie.
“As a huge fan myself, I would want whoever plays Chun-Li to be what I envisioned her to be like in my head,” Liang told Project Big Screen. “I was just like, ‘Have zero regrets, try your best and then some,’ and then whatever result I ended up with, I know I gave it my all.”
The 26-year-old actor also mentioned the post in her interview with IGN, laughing at it, per Netflix Junkie. Liang’s words spread on social media Wednesday, just two days before the movie’s U.S. release.
Then she transformed herself for her part. In an August interview with Empire, Liang revealed that since “Chun-Li is all kicks,” she trained in taekwondo, Muay Thai, and wushu for two hours daily, intensified her leg workouts, and revamped her diet, eating 12 eggs daily as she built mass. By the time she finished shooting the film, both thighs had grown about 6.5 centimeters (roughly 2.5 inches).
According to IGN, she had about two months to prepare, and her stunt double wore additional padding in order to fit her new physique. Liang also studied the source material, downloading all versions of Street Fighter on a PlayStation 5 and filming Chun-Li’s moves on her smartphone in slow motion to learn how to do them.
Directed by Kitao Sakurai (Bad Trip, The Eric Andre Show), the film is set in 1993 and follows estranged fighters Ryu (Andrew Koji) and Ken Masters (Noah Centineo), who get pulled back into fighting when Chun-Li invites them to the World Warrior Tournament.
The movie also stars Jason Momoa as Blanka, WWE star Roman Reigns as Akuma, Cody Rhodes as Guile, David Dastmalchian as M. Bison, Orville Peck as Vega, and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson as Balrog.
Legendary Entertainment and Capcom produced Street Fighter. This was Legendary Entertainment’s first production under its global distribution partnership with Paramount Pictures. It was shot for IMAX.
The movie premiered worldwide in October. Reviews of the event at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, where this look of Chun-Li premiered, are quite polarized. According to entertainment journalist Brandon Davis, the movie is “a silly, fun, and fearless good time,” but Tessa Smith of Mama’s Geeky says it “ultimately falls flat.”
According to IGN, Chun-Li first appeared in Street Fighter II in 1991 as the series’ iconic first female character and became one of the most recognizable figures in video games. She was portrayed in the 1994 Street Fighter movie by Ming-Na Wen and in the 2009 film Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li by Kristin Kreuk.
Liang gained popularity for her role in Steven Soderbergh’s 2024 film Presence, and she also starred in Bad Genius and the Apple TV+ series Foundation.
Recently, Liang learned that Eric André, one of the movie’s cast members who plays Don Sauvage, tweeted seven years ago, in July 2010, that he wanted Chun-Li to be real. “I want you to be real,” he wrote. In her video for IGN, Liang jokingly said she wants to find Eric and ask him why he didn’t say it sooner, since she was real all along.
