Massive news! That little minx we all know and love from hit TV show Smallville, Kristin Kreuk, has been cast in her first lead film role to date as the iconic "Chun-Li" for the Street Fighter II live-action movie!
I'm quite happy about that piece of casting because at least they got someone with Chinese heritage to play a Chinese character, and an important one at that as Chun-Li is such a milestone character in videogame history as one of the first strong female playable characters in beat-em-up history.
That's not all though as there is more quality casting in the form of Academy and Golden Globe Award nominated actor Michael Clarke Duncan as disgraced boxer "Balrog"!
Not many people know this but the original "Balrog" boxer character in Japan is actually called "M. Bison" and had an on-screen appearance distinctly similar to Mike Tyson in the original Street Fighter II. Of course, everything had to be switched around for Western release to prevent legal issues so there ya go...
Chris Klein of American Pie fame has managed to land the role of "Nash", who could potentially be referring to the character of "Charlie Nash", who you might remember as the long-lost war buddy of All-American hero "Guile" (my personal favourite character next to Cammy).
Dodgey blonde hairstyle ahoy!
Other casting include Rick Yune (the henchman from Die Another Day) as old dude master assassin "Gen", with Moon Bloodgood, Cheng Pei Pei and the Black Eyed Peas ninja-dude Taboo all joining the cast in unspecified roles. The film will be directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak (who did the under-rated Romeo Must Die) and will begin filming next month.
Anyone want to speculate what other SFII characters the cast will be filling out? Do it here.
Source: Variety
February 19, 2008, 09:59:28 PM
