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[This story contains spoilers for Street Fighter .]

When Street Fighter star Callina Liang was cast as Chun-Li, one of her all-time favorite video game characters, she understood the fans’ skepticism. In fact, she shared their concerns that her physique didn’t yet match that of the beloved martial artist, whom many consider the most iconic female character in fighting games. She didn’t take the criticism personally, but she still used it as bulletin board material to hopefully win over her doubters.

“A lot of the comments I read online motivated me even more to prove them wrong. But I agree that, physically, where I started wasn’t where I would ideally want Chun-Li to be,” Liang tells The Hollywood Reporter .

From that moment on, Liang went all-in on becoming the beloved fighter, putting herself through an intense physical transformation to embody the undercover Interpol agent.…