There are some good fight scenes and it's not a bad film... but some of the incidents are not very convincing. I guess casting a fully Chinese actress wasn't a possibility for an American audience so they went half-way with Kristin Kreuk (I always thought she should have been called Lana Ling on SMALLVILLE). She does have a good screen presence and can carry the movie. The problem is with the script and direction. A big deal is made that she had experienced "living on the streets" of a Chinese ghetto. Yet, this entire sequence doesn't seem dire enough....she already knows all the kung fu moves so she's really in no danger. She just has dirt smudged on her face to show the hardship. Of course, she manages to get revenge on her father's killer and there's a happy, trite ending.
Neal McDonough (TIN MAN, STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT) is great as the villain Bison. Chris Klein (ROLLERBALL) is horribly miscast as this government agent who is interested in her. I was mostly bored while watching CHUN-LI, so I can't recommend it except as an aid for sleep.
There are some good fight scenes and it's not a bad film... but some of the incidents are not very convincing. I guess casting a fully Chinese actress wasn't a possibility for an American audience so they went half-way with Kristin Kreuk (I always thought she should have been called Lana Ling on SMALLVILLE). She does have a good screen presence and can carry the movie. The problem is with the script and direction. A big deal is made that she had experienced "living on the streets" of a Chinese ghetto. Yet, this entire sequence doesn't seem dire enough....she already knows all the kung fu moves so she's really in no danger. She just has dirt smudged on her face to show the hardship. Of course, she manages to get revenge on her father's killer and there's a happy, trite ending.
