Chun Li Finally Has an Asian American Voice Actor

When voice actor Jennie Kwan started out in the 1990s, she auditioned for a video game that wasn’t released yet. She recalls going to the engineering producer’s home studio in Laurel Canyon, a mountainous neighborhood in Los Angeles.

As it turned out, Kwan was recording for Chun Li, the martial artist and Interpol agent who debuted in 1991 in Street Fighter II: World Warrior. Kwan would be the sample voice for her. While she ended up not being the final voice for Chun Li way back then, she’s now the new official English dub voice for the role in the upcoming Street Fighter 6. “It's really a full-circle moment that I get to voice such an iconic character,” Kwan says. 

Street Fighter 6 is the latest entry in the fabled fighting game series, set to launch on June 2, 2023. And Kwan is now the first Asian American to voice Chun Li in a mainline Street Fighter game. WIRED sat down with her to discuss her history with the franchise and her approach when it came to voicing the character.

Kwan is taking over the role from Laura Bailey, who has voiced the character since 2008’s Street Fighter IV and 2016’s Street Fighter V. She knows she has big shoes to fill: Chun Li is one of the best-known characters in video games. Previous iterations of the character are iconic because of the life that voice actors brought to them—the audience has become accustomed and attached to the character that they love.

Bringing Chun Li to life isn’t a solo effort, but a collaboration between Kwan and the folks at Capcom, she says. “We formed this new super amazing Chun Li, but I'm not the only one who has a say,” Kwan explains. “There's the whole team, producers, the director, and engineer. So it's interesting what the beginning product is to the very end of what we see in the game.”

Kwan says she didn’t base her performance on Bailey’s. Instead, she took her own approach to the character. The only reference she used was the original Japanese voice track and guidance from Capcom on how it envisioned Chun Li in Street Fighter 6.

In the latest entry, Chun Li takes on a more mature, mentoring role with Li-Fen, her adoptive sister. In the previous game, Street Fighter V, Li-Fen is a small child and Chun Li takes her under her wing to train her in martial arts. In Street Fighter 6, Li-Fen is a teenager and can be seen sparring with Chun Li.