Smallville’s Kristin Kreuk Gambles on Role as Street Fighter’s Chun-Li
Written By: James Lincoln     Posted On: January 5, 2009

I’ll start by reluctantly admitting that I’m a huge Smallville fan and that even though she’s a little petite for my personal taste, Kristin Kreuk (Lana Lang) is definitely a hottie.

With that established, I’ll say that I am somewhat excited that I’ll have an opportunity to see her on the big screen as she shows off her kung-fu chops in “Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li”.

However, I do believe taking this role could end up being disastrous for her career. In my opinion, taking a starring role in any fighter related, Japanese video game, adaptation flick is the equivalent of going ‘full retard’. If you haven’t seen “Tropic Thunder” yet, the reference basically means it is career suicide.

The fact is those movies never do well. At least they don’t do well here in the states. As an example I’ll list the only 3 flicks that come to mind immediately and maybe you’ll start to see what I mean: “Street Fighter”, “Mortal Kombat” and “DOA”. Ugh!

Honestly, it’s hard to remember any of the people who acted in those movies Jean-Claude Van Damme. And, I’m not sure Van Damme would want anyone to remember he did “Street Fighter” anyway.

I don’t know if Kristin was having a hard time finding feature roles or if she was simply offered an ungodly amount of money (highly unlikely). But, she needs to fire who ever talked her into taking this role.

Fighter adaptations are fools gold. They‘re usually adaptations of a super popular Japanese games that have huge fan followings. That sounds great but the problem is they translate to the big screen as movies with bad stunts, worse special effects and cheesy punch lines. In fact, right now the only trailer available is in JAPANESE!!! (http://streetfighter-movie.gyao.jp/)

That’s a very bad sign if you ask me. I wouldn’t want to be there when Chun-Li wakes up and smells the tempura.

There is the outside shot that the film will be moderately successful in Asian markets. It may even experience minor success in the U.S. (mostly because game geeks love to watch people crash and burn).
But, when Kristin Kreuk walks into her next casting call does she really think the casting director is going to say “I loved you as Chun-Li”? I doubt it.

Again, in my opinion she would have been better off doing a dirty sex scene with Billy Bob Thorton. It got a Halley Barry an Oscar.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope the flick is bad ass and the trailer didn’t do it justice. But, we’ll have to wait until the movie is released here in the states on Feb 27th to see how things turn out.


The film’s Cast:
Michael Clarke Duncan (Balrog), Chris Klein, Rick Yune, Moon Bloodgood, Taboo (Vega) , Edmund Chen, Cheng Pei Pei, Josie Ho, Neal McDonough (Bison), Andrzej Bartkowiak