The year was 1991 and the release of a brand new video game was about to revolutionize the industry. The game in question, Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, had been designed with a groundbreaking framework, high-speed special moves, and a wide range of characters each armed with their own unique fighting style. Before long, the release of Capcom’s new game would revive the one-on-one fighting genre, and bring the arcade scene back from the brink of collapse. Advertisem*nt Advertisem*nt
Courtesy Capcom.
There were plenty of damsels in distress, too: ditsy, distracted characters who had many disadvantages drawn into their design, and, as a result, needed rescuing from peril. Take the beatific Princess Zelda (1994) or the permanently kidnapped Pauline in Donkey Kong. One notable example is the wide-eyed Princess Peach in Super Mario 64 (1996), whose only defence against enemy attack came in the form of a dimpled, smiling heart.Then there were the sexy fighters—the gun-slinging Jill Valentine in Resident Evil (1996), Samus Aran in the Metroid series, and the global phenomenon of Lara Croft (1996)—whose unnaturally large breasts and extraordinary physical prowess revealed a desire for female characters to be both eroticized and lethal.In the midst of this digital world designed, developed, and dominated by men, Chun-Li defied expectations about women in games entirely. She wore an athletic modified qipao, combat boots, spiked cuffs around each wrist, and had massive, impressively toned muscles. Plus, she was one of the best competitive Street Fighter characters; her speed, agility, and match-ending Super Combos proved a devastating mix for her opponents, and ensured top-tier dominance throughout the series.
While Chun-Li emerged as an irrepressible action hero, the creation of her character was anything but straightforward. The Street Fighter artists were tasked with making Chun-Li “cute,” “graceful,” and “beautiful,” and one of the game’s lead designers, Yoshiki Okamoto, even wanted to give her a shorter life bar to show that women were the physically weaker sex (he was thankfully overruled). Chun-Li’s identity and backstory also proved a great source of deliberation for the team. At one point, she was going to be called “China Daughter,” while her original design was an army soldier, based on Vasquez from Aliens. When it came nailing down the visuals, character designer Akira Yasuda was extremely particular about the rendering of Chun-Li’s legs and stockings. According to Akira Nish*tani, the original Street Fighter game director at Capcom, he redesigned them three times, causing the team to nearly miss deadline. (It’s even been reported that Yasuda had a major thigh fetish, but in any case, fans have been pleased that her extraordinarily muscular thighs helped redefine the model of femininity in gaming.) Advertisem*nt
Courtesy Capcom.
Chun-Li immediately shot to popularity as the franchise’s first playable female character. And by giving her the same depth of backstory and combat ability as every other player, Street Fighter set the bar for female characterization. From her skillful strikes and powerful air throws to her infamous Spinning Bird Kick, Chun-Li’s offensive capabilities proved she was a woman who could finally fight on an equal playing field with her male counterparts. Chun-Li was so popular that two years later, Street Fighter introduced the supercharged military soldier “Delta Red” Cammy in Super Street Fighter II: The New Challengers. A member of the elite British special forces team, Cammy would frequently team up with Chun-Li on investigations. Advertisem*nt
“It is possible that for many young men and women of the early 1990s,” writes Bryan J. Carr in 100 Greatest Video Game Characters, “Chun-Li might have been their introduction to the idea that a woman could be as capable as a man both in the virtual world and outside it.” Other Street Fighter fans fondly remember practicing her signature lightning kick, feeling inspired by her sense of justice, and in the words of one gamer, enjoying beating a “tournament full of over-muscled men” as well as her fellow male players in one sitting.Thanks to the success of the Street Fighter series, Chun-Li has enjoyed immense crossover appeal in pop culture, with live-action American and Chinese films, comics, animated TV shows and chart music inspired by her legacy. Most recently, Chun-Li made headlines after Nicki Minaj announced a new single named after her, with cover art evoking her powerful legs and signature ox-horn buns. Like her muse, Minaj has long been representative of female strength in a male-dominated industry. And she’s no stranger to being the first important player in her field either, as the current most-awarded female rapper of all time. Listen to Chun-Li cry “Yup” each time she delivers her lightning kick, and you can almost hear the future Ms. Minaj laying down her own lyrical legacy.
More importantly, Chun-Li showed that video games could benefit from having female protagonists. Without the influence of Street Fighter II, it’s likely that female characters would have languished in supporting roles for far longer than they did. Progress has been painstakingly slow, but most fighting games now have at least one or two playable female characters, if not a female character taking center stage.“Street Fighter pioneered feminism in the video game industry through the character of Chun-Li”, wrote Patricia Sarkar in 2016. “ Video games as a whole were relatively sparse on female characters, and they still are to this day. Much like every other entertainment industry, the main roles are primarily dominated by male, white characters. Chun-Li was the exception to this rule, and started the move towards a more diverse line of characters. Chinese and a woman, she was perhaps one of the greatest first female characters of all time”.