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Ashlyn Chak

In the 1990s, Chun-Li was not only the first female playable character introduced in the Street Fighter video game franchise – she was also the first female playable character to gain mainstream recognition in the arcade and fighting game industry.
The fictional Chinese martial artist has become something of a pop culture icon over the years. She remains one of the world’s most cosplayed video game characters, while US rapper Nicki Minaj borrowed the heroine’s name for her 2018 single, “Chun-Li”.
The character made headlines again recently when Canadian actress Callina Liang went viral for a fitness regimen that grew each of her thighs by 6.5cm (2.6 inches) to match the character’s physique for the upcoming Street Fighter film.
Vancouver-born Liang’s 2026 reinterpretation wears a modernised version of the character’s iconic blue dress, retaining some cheongsam elements and adding black tights to cover her muscular legs.

“I ate a lot, and I never skipped leg day,” Liang revealed in a Q&A session posted on the Street Fighter movie’s Instagram page. In another video, it was disclosed that her stunt double had to don butt pads to match Liang’s physique.
But who is Chun-Li, and why are her thighs so thick? There are both practical and questionable reasons.
The story behind a feminine icon
Chun-Li, meaning “the beauty of spring” in Mandarin, first appeared in Japanese video game company Capcom’s 1991 smash hit Street Fighter II, becoming the series’ first female protagonist and first playable Chinese character.
She is an Interpol operative and expert martial artist whose main objective is to avenge the death of her father, a Hong Kong village magistrate or police officer – depending on the adaptation – who was killed by the franchise’s principal antagonist, M. Bison (known in Japan as Vega), the leader of the powerful Shadaloo criminal syndicate.
Driven by filial piety and a strong sense of justice, Chun-Li is a highly disciplined fighter trained in Chinese martial arts such as wushu, tai chi and qigong. As one of the few women among a cast of strong male fighters, she is known for her exceptional strength and agility.
Although one of her super combo attacks is the Kikoken, or “Qigong Fist”, she is best known for her muscular legs, with her signature moves being the Lightning Kick and the gravity-defying Spinning Bird Kick, both of which involve throwing multiple kicks in one go. She can also bounce off walls and perform a Yosokyaku, or Head Stomp.

The fetishisation of a warrior
Capcom composer Yoko Shimomura revealed in a 2014 interview that the decision to give Chun-Li unusually thick thighs – contrasting with her petite and slim frame – was down to one of her makers, Japanese game designer Akira Yasuda.
“It kind of got awkward when he started explaining his fetishes,” Shimomura recounted. “I mean, he has really strong feelings towards his creations.”
Yasuda was not alone. According to Capcom producer Yoshinori Ono, Chun-Li’s other character designer, Daigo Ikeno, was also “kind of into thick girls. So as an artist he feels that the most beautiful thighs he can give Chun-Li would be of the wide variety.”
Indeed, Chun-Li was created with the male gaze in mind, what with the frequent flashing of her underwear during her high kicks. She is also presented through a traditional lens of femininity: beauty and manipulation, but also a maternal instinct and a love for children.

Yasuda was quoted as saying his initial idea “wasn’t very sexy” and “lacked visual impact and personality”, which led him to give her “bare legs and a bodycon dress”.
He added: “That made her look like a female pro-wrestler, a sort of ‘fake’ kung fu fighter. It’s a little bit hard to describe in words, but it had a lot of impact, and I decided to go with it and release her to the world this way. She became far more popular than I had imagined; I was shocked. I guess part of it was that she was the only female character in the game.”
In interviews by Capcom, Yasuda also said that the development team had wanted Street Fighter II to be “more entertaining than its predecessor”, and the addition of Chun-Li, as a female character, pushed things “towards the full-on entertainment side”.
The human women (and one man) who played her
The character’s first official live-action portrayal came from Macau-born American actor Ming-Na Wen in Street Fighter, a 1994 feature film based on the video game series.
But perhaps the most pop-culturally iconic Chun-Li moment came a year before, when Hong Kong’s Jackie Chan cross-dressed as her in a bizarre fight sequence in City Hunter, a 1993 action comedy written and directed by Wong Jing.

In both treatments, her hair is tied up in “space buns” – as popularised by Princess Leia in the Star Wars franchise – otherwise known as “ox-horn buns” or double buns. These buns on both sides of the head are a traditional Chinese hairstyle common among children and teens. In anime and manga, the hairstyle is known as odango and is worn by young women.
Wen’s version wears a red, sleeveless cheongsam with fishnet tights, while Chan’s comedic spin-off is closer to the two-dimensional original, wearing a blue Chinese-inspired outfit with white trim and white ribbons in his hair. Both outfits have thigh-high slits.
In 2009, Canadian actress Kristin Kreuk, who is of Dutch and Chinese-Indonesian descent, played the character in Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, a stand-alone origin story loosely based on the source material. The film stripped away much of her key lore, and it was poorly received at the box office and critically.
Chun-Li is one of video gaming’s most loved characters and has even appeared in some of Capcom’s non-Street Fighter games.
Her live-action revival coincides with the rise of the “muscle mommy” archetype, which has emerged in recent years as a pop culture and fitness trend.
Whereas thin, frail and “delicate” bodies have long been idealised as the epitome of objectified femininity, mainstream media now also celebrates defined muscles for a broader representation of female athleticism that empowers women.
While her youthful looks, large breasts and tiny waist all cater to the straight male fantasy, Chun-Li’s thick thighs may also serve to accentuate her strength and give her unprecedented agency in the male-oriented action world.


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Ming-Na Wen plays Chun-Li in Street Fighter (1994), the character’s first official live-action portrayal.

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Jackie Chan dresses as Chun-Li in a scene from City Hunter (1993).

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We look at the Chinese martial artist’s backstory, sexualised design, the actors who played her – and a bizarre Jackie Chan cosplay moment


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Martial arts

Jackie Chan

Video gaming

Why are Chun-Li’s thighs so big? The Street Fighter character’s origin and cultural impact

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}We look at the Chinese martial artist’s backstory, sexualised design, the actors who played her – and a bizarre Jackie Chan cosplay moment

We look at the Chinese martial artist’s backstory, sexualised design, the actors who played her – and a bizarre Jackie Chan cosplay moment