Street Fighter Actor Callina Liang Reveals Disappointment With Movie’s Ending

Street Fighter reached theaters this October. Unlike Capcom’s other video game movie this year, Resident Evil, it was not a bona fide hit. Polygon’s review calls the film messy and at times incoherent. Still, it offers a good time at the movies if you only want to watch beautiful people smack each other around while ’90s hits play.

One weak spot is the film’s abrupt ending. One of its stars has now admitted she is “a little bit” disappointed with how it concludes.

Ed note: Spoilers for Street Fighter follow.

Chun-Li actor Callina Liang is disappointed M. Bison gets away

In Street Fighter, M. Bison (David Dastmalchian) throws a sham tournament. His goal is to lure the renowned fighter Ryu (Andrew Koji) out of hiding so he can steal Ryu’s power. Chun-Li is played by Callina Liang, who also starred in Presence. Her character has infiltrated M. Bison’s operation to thwart his plans and to avenge her father, whom he killed.

M. Bison defeats Chun-Li and drops the iconic “Tuesday” line from the 1994 movie. He then gets away at the end of the film. Chun-Li’s revenge goes unfulfilled, and the villain stays undefeated. It’s a jarring ending, and Liang was candid about it in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

Asked whether she was disappointed that Chun-Li never got her revenge, she answered, “Oh, man. Honestly, a little bit.” Liang hopes a sequel, if one happens, would let Chun-Li take down M. Bison. “I’m sure it’d be epic,” she said.

She is also curious who Chun-Li would be once her hunger for revenge is satisfied. Chun-Li has a couple of chances to attack M. Bison in the film and doesn’t take them, including after she gets branded. Liang offered her own reading: “she probably didn’t want her mission to end just yet. She was probably afraid to confront what would come for her, mentally, once it was all over. So I 100 percent don’t know how she’d feel after finally accomplishing Bison’s death.”

The branding scene was originally meant to be even more gory. Liang said, “Chun-Li was originally supposed to chop off a finger, but Capcom… They went back and forth with the script, and eventually they decided that hand-branding was the better way to do it.” The change also spares the filmmakers from digitally removing Liang’s finger in future installments, if a sequel ever fully materializes.

Street Fighter is in theaters now.

Related: Street Fighter’s cult classic 1994 movie is free on Tubi and Pluto TV.

Source: Polygon