>Given that Gryph's a big fan of Police Story, who's to say that
>Inspector Li wasn't Chun Li's murdered father?

Heh. Jackie's character in the Police Story films is in fact Inspector Chan Ka-kui (or "Kevin Chan", as he's called in the English dubs).

Exactly what Chun-Li's name is has always been a matter of some confusion; it doesn't always appear with the hyphen, for instance, which could mean that "Chun" is her family name and we've just never seen the other half of her given name. On the other hand, if it does have the hyphen in it, then chances are "Chun-li" is her given name and we've never been told what her family name is. (If that interpretation is correct, it's doubly weird that her police nametag in Street Fighter Legends says "CHUN LI". It'd be like an American cop going around with a nametag that says "DAVE". :) The only name I've ever seen attached to her father (also in Legends) is "Dorai", but again, it isn't clear whether that's his family name or his given name.

For example, in the live-action film, she introduces herself as "Chun Li Xiang" at one point, but does that mean "Chun-Li Xiang", in Western order, or "Chun Li-Xiang" (or I guess the more modern romanization would be something more like "Lijiang") in Chinese order? It all gets very confusing if you poke at it too much. I'm pretty far out of my depth when it comes to spelunking the secret depths of Chinese naming conventions.

All that aside, I have to say that on the one hand, the temptation to say that "Kevin" Chan Ka-kui is or was Chun-li's father is very strong. On the other hand, her father's documented fate is a bit at odds with Inspector Chan's dharma. Plus, it's been strongly implied that Jackie Chan is an actual actor in the WL universe - Gryphon mentions having met him in Battle 06 (presumably by way of one of his contacts in the martial arts movie business, either Ken or Fei Long). Mind you, there are actors in real-life Hong Kong, playing cops, who actually were cops first (the guy who plays Tequila's boss in Hard Boiled comes to mind), so it's conceivable that he's both, and the Police Story films in UF are kind of metadocumentary, like Buckaroo Banzai always claims to be. But that's getting awfully precious, I suspect. :)

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Admin
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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