Lee Chaolan

Lee Chaolan (Chinese: 李 超狼 Pinyin: Lǐ Chāoláng, Japanese: リー・チャオラン Rī Chaoran) is a fictional Chinese-Japanese character from the Tekken fighting game series. A Chinese orphan adopted by the Japanese then-head of Mishima Zaibatsu, Heihachi Mishima, at an early age, Lee becomes embroiled in a one-sided rivalry with his adoptive brother, Kazuya Mishima; defeating Kazuya has been Lee's primary motivation for joining the tournaments in the series. He was introduced in the original Tekken and returned for every subsequent game, except for Tekken 3. He has also at times appeared under his alter-ego named Violet, of whom is playable in Tekken 4 and Tekken Tag Tournament 2.

In video games

Lee was born in China and adopted by Heihachi Mishima as a foster child and taught in martial arts to have a rival for his son Kazuya, whom he thought to be too weak to lead his company. Before the events of the original Tekken, Heihachi sent Lee to the U.S. to handle the Zaibatsu's operations there, where he studied martial arts alongside Paul Phoenix and Marshall Law. After Kazuya took the Zaibatsu from Heihachi in the end of Tekken, Lee decided to work with Kazuya as his secretary, where he was also being involved in other projects such as becoming the boss of Kazuya's personal bodyguards and supervising Dr. Bosconovitch's experiments. He joined the second tournament to secretly snatch the Zaibatsu from Kazuya when the time comes. However, Heihachi returned from his supposed demise and defeated both Kazuya and Lee; he threw the former to the mouth of an active volcano and banished the latter from any aspect of his life at the threat of death. While he tried to assassinate Heihachi for a short while, he decided to quit from the world of fighting and went to the Bahamas to set foundations for his longtime ambition: a robotics corporation. Lee was apparently one of the fighters that was attacked by Ogre before the events of Tekken 3, as he had several of his moves, though Lee is shown to be alive and well in subsequent games.

Before the events of Tekken 4, Lee is now a playboy, successful businessman and CEO of his robotics corporation. While he was overseeing the trade stocks online, he saw a huge selloff of G Corporation's stocks; as he eventually learn that the company was attacked by the Mishima Zaibatsu's Tekken Force. Rekindling his fierce resentment of the Mishima clan as well as to test his new robot "Combot", he decided to join the fourth tournament. He changed his appearance and switched his name to "Violet" so the Zaibatsu would not discover his identity too early.^[1] However, in the tournament, Lee was shocked when he saw his adopted brother, Kazuya joining the tournament as he believed that he had died a long time ago. He lost his focus and was quickly defeated by Kazuya.^[2] Sometime after the events of Tekken 4, news reached Lee about Heihachi's apparent death and that someone else had controlled the Zaibatsu. Believing it to be Kazuya, Lee entered the fifth tournament to take the Zaibatsu from him.^[2] However, he soon learned that the person is in fact Heihachi's father Jinpachi Mishima. Losing interest, he dropped out from the tournament to resume his usual business.

After Jin Kazama became the new head of Mishima Zaibatsu, he brought the world to chaos, while G Corporation suddenly became its major opposition. Surprised by its sudden military action, Lee learned through private investigation that Kazuya had taken the company at the end of the fifth tournament. Learning that Kazuya will take part in the sixth tournament, Lee used a shareholder's preferential treatment ticket (as he is a major shareholder himself) and entered the tournament to get close to Kazuya.

In Scenario Mode, he and Julia are friends, then allied with his adoptive half-brother, Lars Alexandersson, and an android Alisa Bosconovitch, due to sharing their motives to stop Kazuya's diabolical evil schemes, and also stopping their nephew, Jin, although both Lee and Lars wasn't aware at first that Alisa was created to served Jin, acting as a mole to Lars. At the end of Scenario Mode after Jin reveals the truth about the war he set and sacrifice his life using the Devil's power to kill Azazel and to get rid of the Devil inside the young Kazama, Lee was offered by Lars to look over Alisa, and revived and reimproved her programming from something that Mishima Zaibatsu had made her for, in which later, the revival of Alisa's programming was a success.

Lee also appeared in the non-canonical Tekken Tag Tournament, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Tekken 3D: Prime Edition and Tekken Revolution.

Violet

Violet in Tag Tournament 2

Violet is a character first introduced in Tekken 4 as a fighter identical to Lee Chaolan and returned as a downloadable character in the console version of Tekken Tag Tournament 2, a non-canonical game. In TTT2, while he is still playable normally, his alterego Violet is the Fight Lab instructor and was released as a playable character as part of a free update for the console version on November 13, 2012.^[3] The reason why he speaks in perfect English is to hide his true identity from Mishima Zaibatsu.

Design and gameplay

Lee Chaolan has brown eyes and a distinctive silver hair which covers most of the top part of his head; it is assumed to be dyed, since Lee has possessed this since he was first introduced, in which he was 25 years old. Lee has been given several different default costumes, most of which are characterized by the color purple and a unicorn motif. The first Tekken features him wearing a sleeveless purple vest (changed to a tank top in the second) and a black tuxedo, the latter of which has been retained in all subsequent games except for Tekken 2 and Tekken 4. The second game retains the former and adds an open black leather vest (exposing his torso) with a unicorn motif at the back and a light blue pants. The fourth game features two entirely different outfits: a frilly light blue dress shirt that is unbuttoned down to the chest and a blue pants, as well as a striped dark blue shirt underneath a white vest and pants. Violet, who was introduced in Tekken 4, wears a violet-colored version of these, plus a violet sunglasses. These are both replaced in Tekken 5 by the tuxedo and a new outfit inspired by the older ones: a fish net shirt underneath a purple vest with a unicorn motif at the back and a black pants. Both of these have been unchanged in recent games so far.

Lee's fighting style is simply stated as "Martial Arts." Throughout the series, Lee has shared several attacks used by Marshall Law, Paul Phoenix and Kazuya Mishima. Over the course of the series though, he has been given his own unique moves to be differentiated from Law's character, such as the Hit Man Stance in Tekken Tag Tournament. Lee employs the use of fast kick-based attack strings. These kick combos do not deal much damage by themselves, but are used by players to pressure opponents into making a mistake defensively, opening them up for stronger moves. Lee is the first Tekken character to possess a move that requires an opponent to be blocking in order for it to deal damage (Mist Trap). In Tekken 5, a few of Lee's moves seem to vaguely resemble to Wushu.

In other media

Lee is featured in the Tekken: The Motion Picture, an OVA based on the first two games of the Tekken series. He is one of the primary villains, and still fills his role as Heihachi's adopted son and rival to Kazuya. In the film, Heihachi plans to hand the Mishima Conglomerate to Kazuya should Kazuya defeat him in the upcoming tournament. However, Lee is not pleased at this, since he wants the company for himself. To rid himself of Kazuya, Lee seduces the assassins, Nina and Anna Williams and hires them to kill Kazuya, although they repeatedly fail due to Kazuya's incomparable skill. At the tournament, where Kazuya is participating, Lee decides to test his new experiments on the fighters: humanoid dinosaurs named Rex (based on Alex), despite the fact that Nina and Anna are still in the field. Anna is subsequently devoured, but to Lee's shock, Kazuya literally tears them to pieces and scares the last one away. In a last-ditch effort, Lee faces Kazuya himself at the doors of Heihachi's tower. Kazuya defeats Lee with one punch, and Heihachi slaps him aside for being worthless. Knowing that he will not receive the company now, Lee commits suicide by setting off the self-destruction sequence and remaining in the tower when it explodes. He is voiced by Shin-ichiro Miki in the original Japanese version and by David Stokey in the English dub.

Lee appears briefly in the 2011 CGI film Tekken: Blood Vengeance as an overzealous, eccentric and often ignored yet extremely wealthy teacher at Kyoto International School. He aids Alisa Bosconovitch, Ling Xiaoyu and Panda during an escape by providing them shelter and seems nonchalant when part of his home was destroyed by Anna and Nina Williams' fight. Lee appears in the Tekken Tag Tournament 2 live-action short film portrayed by Anthony Pho.^[4]

Reception

In 2008, News.com.au listed Lee among the top 10 sexiest game characters, ranking him as third.^[5] In 2009, PlayStation Universe ranked Lee's Tekken 5 ending as the seventh greatest Tekken ending of all time.^[6] In 2012, Complex ranked him as the 39th most dominant fighting game character, commenting "Heihachi's adopted son and the man that invented swagged out martial arts".^[7] GamesRadar listed him as one of the characters they wish was included in Street Fighter X Tekken, commenting "It’s not often that you’ll think "badass" when you see a guy wearing a skintight fishnet tank top under a purple leather jacket".^[8] Complex also ranked "Lee's Awkward Movie Scenes" in Tekken: Blood Vengeance as the fifth craziest Tekken moment.^[9] In the official poll by Namco, Lee is currently the tenth most requested Tekken character to be added to the roster of Tekken X Street Fighter, at 9.72% of votes.^[10]

References