
Release Date:27 February 2009 (USA)
The film begins with a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge, as Chun-Li (Kristin Kreuk) does a voiceover about her childhood. We see the young Chun-Li (Inez Yan) playing the piano, while her father Xiang (Edmund Chen) encourages her. Adult Chun-Li talks about how all parents have dreams for their children, and that her father's was for her to be a concert pianist.
Chun-Li and her family move to Hong Kong, and she reflects on how she knew her father did important work, but never really knew what it was. One day, she sneaks up on her father practicing martial arts in the yard, and he offers to teach her Wu-Shu, which then becomes a passion of hers. Through a montage, we see her age (now played by Katherine Pemberton) and become a skilled fighter.
One night, her father returns home from work and is ambushed by Balrog (Michael Clarke Duncan) and some goons. He does a decent job of fighting them off, until Chun-Li comes downstairs, and Bison (Neal McDonough) arrives. In exchange for the safety of his family, Xiang agrees to go with Bison, and the audience is left to assume he is killed.
Skipping forward again, Chun-Li is now an adult, and an accomplished pianist, having studied at Juilliard. After a concert, she receives a mysterious scroll, but temporarily ignores it to return to Hong Kong and visit her mother, Jeanne (Emilze Junqueira), who is dying of illness.Meanwhile, Bison has moved to Bangkok, where he grew up in the slums, and hosts the criminal bosses of the city for dinner. He calmly announces that he is taking over Shadaloo, the criminal enterprise, and suggests the bosses recognize his authority to make things easier. The bosses are offended, and storm out angrily, where Vega (Taboo from the Black Eyed Peas) is waiting to kill them. Bison eats his dinner and shows no emotion, hearing the sound of the bosses being killed. The next day, the heads of all the crime bosses are found, arranged on a dinner table, by a Thai police squad led by Det. Maya Sunee (Moon Bloodgood), who is met by Interpol agent Charlie Nash (Chris Klein). Charlie flirts with Maya, and then tells her she's inherited a huge problem (Bison), whom he's been tracking but has never been able to catch.
Chun-Li's mother dies, and after the funeral she goes back to the mysterious scroll, taking it to a woman who can translate the ancient Chinese it is written in. The woman tells her that she needs to seek out Gen (Robin Shou), former criminal who now defends the poor and defenseless. The emblem of Gen's organization is the spider and its web. In order to find Gen, Chun-Li needs to go to Bangkok and live like the poor people who live in the slums.
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