By Christina Radish

Kristin Kreuk at the Spike TV Video Game Awards held at Sony Studios in Culver City, Calif. on December 14, 2008.

In the 20^th Century Fox action adventure Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, powerful forces are converging on the streets of Bangkok. The forces of darkness are led by Bison (Neal McDonough), a crime boss of seemingly limitless power, and whose past holds a shocking secret. Bison’s syndicate, Shandaloo – which includes the massively built enforcer and killer, Balrog (Michael Clarke Duncan), and the masked talon-wielding assassin, Vega (Taboo of the Black Eyed Peas) -- is taking over the slums of the Thai capital. Meanwhile, the half-Caucasian/half-Asian beauty Chun-Li (Kristin Kreuk), who gave up a life of privilege to become a street fighter, battles for those who cannot fight for themselves, along with her kung fu master, Gen (Robin Shou), who was once a feared criminal. Equally determined to stop Bison is Interpol cop Charlie Nash (Chris Klein), who has tracked the crime boss all over the world, and Nash’s partner, gangland homicide detective Maya Sunee (Moon Bloodgood).

Best known for her role as Lana Lang on the hit television series Smallville, 26-year-old Canadian actress Kristin Kreuk spoke to MediaBlvd Magazine about working in Thailand, her martial arts training and the emotional journey that her character goes on.

MediaBlvd Magazine> Are you a gamer at all?

Kristin Kreuk> I’ve never been a gamer, but I’ve seen a lot of “Street Fighter.” It was really popular when I was in late elementary school into high school, so I’m very familiar with it. I’ve seen a lot of people play it.

MediaBlvd> Your character is a bit more pear-shaped in the game than you are, don’t you think?

Kristin> I’d say she’s hour-glass shaped. She has ginormo thighs. I don’t have ginormo thighs.

MediaBlvd> Can you talk about the emotional journey that your character goes through?

Kristin> She starts off very young, and she loses both of her parents. She loses her mom around 20 years old, and becomes very angry and wants to go get revenge on the guy who took her father, when she was just a young girl. And then, she ends up on this spiritual path, where she seeks out a master, and she learns to let go of her attachments, so that she can see a greater good because her attachments are blinding her sight. That way, she can go out and actually fight for something, and understand what it is she’s fighting for.

MediaBlvd> How seriously do you take a film like this, so that you can still be earnest with your character?

Kristin> I think it’s really important, at least in this story, to be earnest with the characters because you want people to relate to them while they go through the movie. It’s really important that the fighting is really good, but you want to be able to root for the individual, and that means that the character has got to be relatable, in some way. And, if they’re really over-the-top, it’s harder to relate to them, in this style of a movie.

MediaBlvd> Can you talk about working with Robin Shou? How helpful was he with your training?

Kristin> I don’t think we talked about anything to do with fighting, but Robin and I had a lot of fun. He’s the one I spent the most time with, on set. I felt like we were two little kids. Robin is 48, but I felt like we were both 7 years old, goofing around together. I had a really good time with him. He’s great! 

MediaBlvd> Were there any injuries during training or filming?

Kristin> Nothing serious. I got punched and thrown into a couple of things, and I had a sore jaw, but it was nothing that was lasting and permanent.

MediaBlvd> Did your work on Smallville help you with this at all? You had done wire work there, hadn’t you?

Kristin> Yeah, but only minor, and I only had seven hours to really practice that stuff on Smallville, which is nothing. Five weeks even felt like nothing, for what we did in Street Fighter. Doing wires well, isn’t easy. I think that all the hand-to-hand stuff is challenging as well, but to make the wire work look good and natural, it takes a whole different way of figuring out how to make your body move. I learned so much on this, that I only got bits and pieces of on Smallville. Normally, with Smallville, I would get the choreography and they’d be like, “Okay, action!” There was no time. It was just like, “Okay, here I go!” And, it was somewhat different on this.

MediaBlvd> What kind of film scripts had you been looking at? Was action something you wanted to get into?

Kristin> It probably is not the genre that I was really going, “That’s what I want to do!,” but it made a lot of sense for me, and where I’m at in my career. Coming out of Smallville, it was a really good move for me to take on a character who was very pro-active. That’s something that I wanted to do. I want to help empower young women, and I thought this was a really great role to do that with.

MediaBlvd> With all of the fun, over-the-top action sequences you got to do, did you have a particular sequence that was the most fun for you?

Kristin> I think the alley fight sequence was really fun, as well as the crane fight. That was really scary and fun, at the same time. Those two were my favorites.

MediaBlvd> What about Bangkok was what you thought it would be, and what was a big surprise?

Kristin> I knew Bangkok would be busy. That’s all I knew, going into the city. What was a surprise for me was the size of the malls. Bangkok’s malls are so big and elaborate. And, there were movie theaters I went to where I was like, “Woah, this place is crazy!” The malls there are insane! The food there is amazing. I expected the food to be amazing, and I thought it was really good.

MediaBlvd> What’s next for you?

Kristin> I’m building a company for teen girls, called Girls by Design, which is an online social network and content creation site. That’s been my focus. I’ve got a weekend retreat coming up in March, down here in L.A., so I’ve been prepping for that.

MediaBlvd> What is the website for?

Kristin> It’s not about giving advice. We’re in the process of building beta right now, so what we have out there isn’t what the site will be. But, it’s project-oriented, and it encourages teen girls to go out in the world and create, and then come back together and share those experiences.