New Street Fighter movie might have Jessica Biel as… Chun Li?!

Please excuse me, I must bang my head on the wall. About seven or eight… hundred times.

Okay, none of us at QJ can vouch for the moles LatinoReview.com has in the movie industry. Despite that, there is no way we can understand the “scoop” (most likely only a rumor) they have from one of their people that Jessica Biel is being approached to play Chun Li in the coming Street Fighter movie.

(And if you think that one’s mind-boggling, according to the same source, Keira Knightley and Jessica Alba “already passed” at the role.)

The mind-boggling part isn’t that Jessica couldn’t do a role like Chun Li’s – setting aside for the moment the very idea that they’re doing a Street Fighter movie in the first place. If Biel puts her mind to it, why not? What really could be troublesome are arguments surrounding Chun Li’s in-game heritage, and how people take that, er… seriously. As in debates about portrayal of ethnicity of characters and stereotypes in said visual media.

We’re not kidding. We had that one a bit of a while ago, when David Jaffe suggested that the best guy to play Kratos would be Djimon Hounsou – and then a little debate erupted on that about a few comments down the line.

Ouch. A painful debate, really. Presuming this “scoop” is true, if people aren’t laughing at the (attempted) casting choices (or making a Street Fighter movie in the first place), they must be whetting the blades of their criticisms. Max F. was probably right – Hyde Park would have done better casting John Malkovich as Chun Li.

Please excuse me, I must bang my head on the wall. About seven or eight… hundred times.

Okay, none of us at QJ can vouch for the moles LatinoReview.com has in the movie industry. Despite that, there is no way we can understand the “scoop” (most likely only a rumor) they have from one of their people that Jessica Biel is being approached to play Chun Li in the coming Street Fighter movie.

(And if you think that one’s mind-boggling, according to the same source, Keira Knightley and Jessica Alba “already passed” at the role.)

The mind-boggling part isn’t that Jessica couldn’t do a role like Chun Li’s – setting aside for the moment the very idea that they’re doing a Street Fighter movie in the first place. If Biel puts her mind to it, why not? What really could be troublesome are arguments surrounding Chun Li’s in-game heritage, and how people take that, er… seriously. As in debates about portrayal of ethnicity of characters and stereotypes in said visual media.

We’re not kidding. We had that one a bit of a while ago, when David Jaffe suggested that the best guy to play Kratos would be Djimon Hounsou – and then a little debate erupted on that about a few comments down the line.

Ouch. A painful debate, really. Presuming this “scoop” is true, if people aren’t laughing at the (attempted) casting choices (or making a Street Fighter movie in the first place), they must be whetting the blades of their criticisms. Max F. was probably right – Hyde Park would have done better casting John Malkovich as Chun Li.