Fei Long

Fei Long (飛龍（フェイロン）) is a fictional character in the Street Fighter series. He made his first appearance in the 1993's Super Street Fighter II as one of the four new characters introduced in the game. In the series, he is a martial artist and action movie star. Fei Long was patterned after real-life martial arts movie star Bruce Lee; the character's design and moves make reference to Lee and his fighting style.

Often described as an homage to or clone of Bruce Lee, Fei Long has been well received. He has appeared in other Street Fighter media, including the animated films and series, comics as well as subsequent games such as Street Fighter Alpha 3 and the home versions of Street Fighter IV.

Character design
Fei Long was designed as a pastiche of a real-life martial artist and movie star Bruce Lee. The English localization of the original arcade game pays tribute to Bruce Lee by having Fei Long state "there could never be another legend like the great one and his son", a reference to Bruce Lee and his son Brandon, who died shortly before the release of the game, although these references were removed in the revised localization of the Game Boy Advance version of the game. His alternate costume in Street Fighter IV resembles Bruce Lee's outfit in Enter the Dragon. His ultra in Street Fighter IV is a series of flurry punches into an uppercut followed by a flying kick which resembles a signature technique of Bruce Lee. Fei Long has been given a new Ultra combo in Super Street Fighter IV which furthers the homage to Bruce Lee by performing a flurry of punches ending with the "one inch punch."

In video games
In Super Street Fighter II, Fei Long is depicted as an action film star from Hong Kong who enters the World Warrior tournament to test his skill as a martial artist. In his ending in the game, he gives up his film career and forms his own kung-fu style known as the Soaring-Heaven style (飛天流). His stage was inspired by the Tiger Balm Garden (Hong Kong).

Fei Long reappears in the console versions of Street Fighter Alpha 3, where his stage was inspired by Kowloon Park. The game takes place before Fei Long achieved fame as a movie star, as he makes his first hit movie in his ending in the game. He returns as a playable character in the console versions of Street Fighter IV.

As a non-playable character, Fei Long appears as a spectator in Dan Hibiki's stage in Street Fighter Alpha 2 and in Felicia's ending in Super Gem Fighter: Mini-Mix (Ken hooks her up with Fei Long to jumpstart her movie career), in which he also has a cameo in one of the stages, in a ramen restaurant.

In other media and merchandise
In Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie, Fei-Long appears as an opponent who challenges Ryu to a match while taking a break from filming his new movie. He loses the fight with a broken arm, but he and Ryu become friends after Fei Long realises that his opponent was the one who beat Sagat. In Japanese version he is voiced by real-life mixed martial artist Masakatsu Funaki.

In the anime series Street Fighter II V, Fei-Long is portrayed as martial artist and movie star who is a childhood acquaintance of Chun-Li, having been trained by her father, Inspector Dorai. He ends up fighting against Ken, who poses as a stunt actor during the filming of a new movie, and the two become friendly acquaintances along with Ryu. He later fights Cammy, who injured but failed to kill Dorai, in the hospital, where Cammy had been sent by Balrog to finish the job. After Cammy realises that she was fooled, she and Fei-Long join forces to take Balrog down. In the series, Fei-Long looks up to Dorai as a father figure, and tells Dorai's superior that Dorai meant more to him than his biological father.

In UDON's comic adaptation of the Street Fighter storyline, Fei-Long is caught up in Shadaloo's affairs after turning down a criminal movie producer's offer. Eventually, he joins Chun-Li and Gen to bring down the heads of the Hong Kong Shadaloo operation, Xiayu and Yanyu (two of M. Bison's Doll agents). They engage the pair at their Triad compound and fight off a legion of thugs and criminals before they send the duo running.

Fei-Long also appears briefly in the manga Cammy by Masahiko Nakahira. He challenges Cammy to a fight although he is ignored by her, and then is forced to return to a movie shooting. Nakahira depicted Fei-Long wearing Bruce Lee's trademark yellow tracksuit with black sidestripes from the film Game of Death.

The character Captain Sawada replaced Fei-Long for the Street Fighter live-action film.

Reception
The Seattle Times described Fei Long as "the deadliest" of the new characters introduced in Super Street Fighter II. In the 2002 poll by Capcom in Japan, he was voted as 38th most popular Street Fighter character. UGO.com included him amongst the top 50 Street Fighter characters, calling him "super serious competitor is a mainstay in the series and a fan favorite." The Guardian ranked him as the 12th top Street Fighter character in 2010.

IGN ranked Fei Long at number 19 in their 2008 list of top Street Fighter characters, stating "If there's any martial arts star who deserves a videogame homage, though, Bruce Lee is probably the one. Fei Long helped begin a long string of characters inspired by the kung fu icon Bruce Lee". GamesRadar featured him their article "Kickass Bruce Lee clones", noting that his gameplay performance "captured the essence of Lee’s iconic fighting style in his films."