With Street Fighter out and in theaters, the cast and director are free to go full spoiler mode.
In the case of Chun-Li, actor Callina Liang spoke with the Hollywood Reporter about many a thing, including what didn’t make the final cut. The most important is when she’s branding herself with the Shadaloo mark to swear fealty to Bison: originally, the plan was she’d chop off her pinky. Capcom went “very back and forth with the script” on this, and for good reason. THR noted editing out a finger can be time-consuming and expensive, and this could also create some synergy issues: they can’t take that back in a sequel, and it’d be “deforming” to the character, in Liang’s words.
Still, they shot that scene for the camera test, which she called “a lot.” According to her, director Kitao Sakurai wanted to “see [the fear] in her eyes, she’s almost shaking,” to which she replied: “‘Alright, say less.’ On the day, I mentally channeled whatever pain I could into what was happening physically.” The hand branding, she…