Apr 21 2008First Look at Gen from 'Street Fighter', Dude
My favorite radical dude blogger, Aaron, has a new post up on the Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li production blog. If you aren't familiar with Aaron, he's super awesome, and he's not above flaunting it. His hip, young vocabulary is incomprehensible to old squares, with words like "dude", "ya" (replacing "you"), "flippin'", and "wicked" dotting his writing with the same intense attitude as the pattern on his Skidz.
As you may recall, last week Aaron went "all 'American Idol' on [our] asses," nearly revealing who was going to play Gen only to coyly hold back. This week, he not only divulges the actor, he provides an image! It's Robin Shou, who previously played Liu Kang in Mortal Kombat, and is apparently taking the Uwe Boll route of building a career from horrible video game movies. My knowledge of Gen is limited to just now looking at an image of the character on Wikipedia, but Shou seems to be too young for the part. Hopefully someone with better street fighting knowledge can confirm or refute that. And now, in the immortal words of Aaron, "I’m out with a sonic BOOM!"
Week 2 [Aaron's Sweet Production Blog]
Reader Comments
1. PB&J - April 22, 2008 12:31 AM
Hmm...Gen has psoriasis. He should have that examined.
2. J. Williams - April 22, 2008 3:24 AM
"Shou seems to be too young for the part. Hopefully someone with better street fighting knowledge can confirm or refute that."
In most depictions, Gen looks really old (and white-beardly.) Thats how he looks during the Street Fighter Alpha (SFA) series. Chun Li born in 1968, and the events in Street Fighter II, the game most people remember, took place in 1991, but the events in Street Fighter and Street Fighter Alpha, the games Gen is in, take place between 1987 and 1989. If the movie takes place during SFII, that makes her 23, if it takes place during SF/SFA, 20-22. The "duh" about this is...the further back on the timeline the movie is, the more accurate this portrayal might be, but go back too far, and Chun Li would need to be a whole lot younger. (Kreuk is 25.)
...Honestly, Gen should look more like Pai Mei, the old master from Kill Bill 2. Even generous estimates put Gen around 60-70.
That being said, he doesn't look too off, and we should be glad there's at least ONE person in the cast who actually knows martial arts.
(Did casting forget to look for that part, on the resume? This is gonna be Dead or Alive, all over again. Or that terrible Sonya Blade/Kano fight from the first Mortal Kombat. I like Bridgette Wilson in a sports bra as much as anyone else. Maybe more. But, come on.)
3. jesse - April 22, 2008 2:53 PM
#3
So, he's not old enough, but just right, and he knows martial arts. See how much time I just saved there?
4. oishii - April 23, 2008 12:04 PM
he was also in the Matrix as the Guardian (or Janitor, with all those keys) -- the guy that protects the Oracle (not the original one).