The actress bringing Capcom’s Chun-Li to life in the upcoming Street Fighter movie reboot has opened up about the extreme lengths she went to ensure accuracy in her performance.
Callina Liang revealed that she subjected herself to an intense workout regimen and grew her thighs by 6½ centimeters to play the iconic character.
Fans shared mixed reactions to the trailer, which was released in April, with many praising the movie for its realism.
Actress Callina Liang has given a peek into the grueling workout regimen she endured to ensure she accurately delivered her role as Chun-Li in the upcoming Street Fighter movie.
Dubbed the “First Lady of Fighting Games,” the character is world-renowned for her lightning-fast kicks, powerful physique, and thick, muscular thighs.
First introduced in 1991’s Street Fighter II, Chun-Li quickly became famous as one of the world’s first prominent female playable characters in a fighting game.
Her distinctive silhouette, defined by hyper-developed leg muscles built for her signature “Hyakuretsukyaku” (Lightning Kick), has been a central element of her character design over the years.
Callina Liang Grows Her Thighs By 6½ Centimeters
For Liang, embodying Chun-Li meant she had to consume a protein-heavy diet and undertake a rigorous physical transformation by adding 6.5 cm (2.5 inches) of muscle to her thighs during pre-production training.
The change was so extreme and intense that she almost fell ill.
“Chun-Li is all kicks. So we did a bunch of Taekwondo training, Muay Thai, and Wushu (Kung Fu). I did two hours of that a day and strengthened my legs a lot and changed my diet drastically,” Liang said in an August interview with Empire Magazine.
She continued, “When I was bulking, I ate 12 eggs a day. Every two hours I had to have a meal, and I was on the verge of throwing up. But it worked. By the end of the shoot, my thighs had grown six-and-a-half centimeters each.”
Street Fighter Star Studies Chun-Li’s Every Move
What’s more? The 26-year-old Canadian actress took her research a little deeper by downloading every single Street Fighter game onto her PlayStation 5.
In doing so, she was able to record and mimic all of her character’s moves in slow motion to ensure her fight scenes came out as accurately as possible.
“I downloaded every single version of Street Fighter onto a PS5, and I recorded all of Chun-Li’s moves during fights on my phone in slow-mo, so I could play them back and study them,” she said.
David Dastmalchian Goes Deep For M. Bison Role
The upcoming live-action film also features several top Hollywood actors and wrestlers like Andrew Koji (Ryu), Noah Centineo (Ken Masters), Jason Momoa (Blanka), Roman Reigns (Akuma), Cody Rhodes (Guile), and Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson (Balrog), to name a few.
The plot sees the estranged Koji and Centineo’s characters thrown back into combat when Chun-Li, played by Liang, “recruits them for the next World Warrior Tournament: a brutal clash of fists, fate, and fury.”
However, there’s a deadly conspiracy in play that “forces them to face off against each other and the demons of their past. And if they don’t, it’s GAME OVER!”
Actor David Dastmalchian, who plays the series’ villain, M. Bison, also went to great lengths to research his character and deliver the role well.
“I don’t want to be just another one of these bad guys, cut from the typical cloth,” he said in an interview with IGN’s Tom Jorgensen at San Diego Comic-Con. “How do you have all of these people willing to go into battle for you, die for you?”
“We dug in and studied really insane dictators over time, thinking about everyone from Saddam all the way back to fascist Italy in World War II, and looking at not just movie characters but real, historical characters,” he added.
Fans React To Street Fighter Reboot Trailer
The film, which would be distributed by Paramount Pictures as part of a three-year deal with Legendary, is slated for a release on October 16, 2026.
Back in April, when its trailer was released, fans took to social media to share their mixed reactions.
“It’s ridiculous. Like, wildly ridiculous. Goofy, over the top, completely unserious… and I’m obsessed,” an X user wrote, while another added, “The costume design is 10/10. Thank god they didn’t go ‘gritty tactical’ and kept the colors.”
Someone else said, “I spent an insane amount of time playing Street Fighter 2 as a kid. Love this. Looks way better than the original.”
