All Aboard the Seoul Train!

Mobile games don’t get a lot of attention on this website, but a lot of effort went into Asura Cross. The Korean-developed fighting game was a follow-up to an MS-DOS oddity called Rage of Tiger 2, and it was apparently in development for over a decade. Asura Cross takes obvious cues from Capcom and SNK classics, and its characters are surprisingly well-developed thanks to a story mode that plays out like a visual novel. There are a couple of Korean characters in the game, but I’m recognizing Hanin Kang for the sake of variety. Whereas JinSu Jeong is your typical Taekwondo expert, Hanin Kang works as a Christian youth consultant when he’s not fighting on the streets. Nearly 30% of South Koreans are Christian, so I think it’s important to recognize spirituality instead of focusing entirely on martial arts.

Growing up, Grace “Dokkaebi” Nam made a concerted effort to soften her image in order to shake her reputation as a troublemaker. She went so far as to buy fake glasses and adopt a “geek girl” persona in order to manipulate the people around her. She eventually landed a National Scholarship at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, but she decided to join the ROK Army instead. She was recognized for her asymmetrical thinking, but she clashed with her superior officers and wasn’t able to show her full potential. Against the wishes of her commanding officer, she joined an elite international counter-terrorist unit known as Team Rainbow. In Korean folklore, Dokkaebi are supernatural creatures that trick people into making fools of themselves. Grace fits this description to a tee, and it’s easy to see how she got her nickname.

Han Daehan is a Taekwondo master and a big-time action star who famously performs his own stunts. His achievements seem even more impressive when you take into account the fact that he only has one leg. Incidentally, he lost his right leg during a movie shoot in the Middle East after he was engulfed by a mysterious cloud of black smoke. An artificial leg allows him to perform at a high level, and his fighting style is centered around flurries of kicks and vicious strikes. He also has the uncanny ability to use his fake leg as a makeshift missile launcher. Taekwondo was adopted for use by the South Korean military in the 1950s, and Daehan takes this venture to its logical extreme by shooting homing missiles from his lower extremities. For reasons I don’t fully understand, the adorning public is blissfully unaware that Daehan’s leg is artificial.

A Korean warrior who can apparently sense the smell of evil, Hae-Ryeong Kim wants to follow in his father’s footsteps and fight for justice. When he’s not training, he’s likely looking for criminals to fight. He’ll even travel to other countries to stamp out evil. It’s hard to decide whether Hae-Ryeong is fighting in the name of righteousness or in the name of self-righteousness, and he gets flustered when his enemies are able to justify their actions. In battle, Hae-Ryeong wields a double-edge pike and overwhelms his opponents with spinning attacks and dazzling combos. Like many Korean characters from SNK games, he also relies heavily on kicks. On that note, Hae-Ryeong’s style and personality were inspired by Kim Kaphwan from the King of Fighters series. Maybe the folks at SNK think all Koreans look the same.

The Fighters History series was heavily inspired by Street Fighter II, and Capcom even filed a lawsuit claiming copyright infringement. The similarities were fairly blatant, but there was nothing derivative about Liu Yungmie. Introduced in Fighter’s History Dynamite, Yungmie is a teenage Taekwondo expert and the daughter of two martial arts masters. She fights exclusively with her feet, and she even performs kicking attacks when the game’s dedicated punch buttons are pressed. She blocks with her legs, she throws her opponents with her legs, and she’s one of the few fighting game characters to launch projectiles from her feet. Token Taekwondo trainees are not especially rare in the world of fighting games, but few characters embrace the kick-centric spirit of the martial art more than Yungmie.

Hwoarang is a hot-headed Taekwondo master who cut his teeth as a street-fighting hustler. By concealing his strength and luring weaker opponents into fights, he raked in large sums of money through dishonest gambling wagers. After encountering an especially strong opponent, Hwoarang put his hustling days behind him and began participating in fighting tournaments. Through it all, he never lost his independent streak. He was inclined to break the rules, and this trend continued even after he was drafted into the Korean military. Although he completed a number of spec-op missions, he longed to return to his street-fighting days. Baek Doo San deserves credit for being the first Taekwondo practitioner in the Tekken series, but Hwoarang is more dynamic and flashy than his master and he has appeared in more games.

Most Korean characters in fighting games practice Taekwondo, but SoulCalibur subverts this trope since it takes place 400 years before Taekwondo was developed. I guess there’s no need to emphasize kicks when you’re armed with a pointy stick. Seong Mi-na’s father was the master of his own dojang, so she grew up around weapons and became especially proficient with the woldo. Although she eventually surpassed her father, she had to work extra hard for recognition. All the boys wanted to bang her and her father wanted her to to marry, but Mi-na wanted to serve her country against Japanese raiders. She was denied entry into the newly-formed coast guard on account of her gender, so she decided to prove herself by seeking out the fabled “Sword of Salvation.” Mi-na reflects the fierce independence that South Korea is known for.

The Street Fighter series has a huge following in South Korea, so it’s hard to believe it that it took until 2010 before a Korean character was added to the roster. Capcom considered hundreds of character designs before finally settling on the ruthless femme fatale we all know and love. The female combatants in the Street Fighter series can hold their own against the world’s strongest warriors, but none of them enjoy the thrill of battle more than Juri Han. Like many of the characters on this list, the provocative assassin is a Taekwondo expert who fights primarily with her legs. She puts a perverted twist on all of her moves, however, and it’s clear that she enjoys inflicting pain on others. Juri was criticized in the media for not being stereotypical enough, but I dig her unconventional style.

There are several South Korean characters in the King of Fighters pantheon, but Kim Kaphwan was the obvious choice for this list. Known as the “Crown Jewel of Taekwondo,” Kaphwan is a sports icon and a national hero in South Korea. He fights in the name of justice, and the authorities even let him take custody of criminals in order to rehabilitate them. Kaphwan’s impact on SNK fighting games cannot be overstated. His children, his students, and even his master were subsequently added to the King of Fighters series, and characters from unrelated SNK fighting games were clearly created in his likeness. Kaphwan takes himself very seriously and strives for excellence in everything he does. He can be overbearing at times, but it’s hard not to be impressed by his ability to chain kicks together in quick succession.

Hana Song (better known as D.Va) is a professional gamer who went from playing StarCraft II to defending her homeland from hostile robots. Incidentally, her eSports background gave her the competitive instincts that were required for war. More importantly, her gaming sessions allowed her to develop the reflexes that were needed to pilot a state-of-the-art mech. D.Va’s character is a nod to South Korea’s competitive gaming scene, and she also reflects our ever-changing celebrity culture. While still in her teens, she became a burgeoning global icon after she started streaming her combat operations to her adorning fans. We’ve seen a meteoric rise of video game streaming in recent years, and D.Va takes this concept to its logical extreme. Her backstory is essentially a power fantasy that was specifically designed for pro gamers.