Luckily somebody over at the production blog for Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li has finally taken the hint and done away with the MySpace-style writing (I'm not sure how much more of that I could have taken). At least now it's way less annoying to catch up on the latest updates for the video game adaptation. First up is a picture of the newest addition to the story, Det. Maya Sunee, a half-Thai detective in Bangkok's Gangland Homicide division (played by Moon Bloodgood). For dedicated SF fans, the name is not going to ring any bells because Maya is a new character created just for the film. But that is not all; fans now have the chance to submit questions to be answered by cast and crew.

Legend focuses on the story of one of SF's favorite characters, Chun Li. It's the classic revenge tale about her search for her mentor's murderers. Smallville's Kristen Kreuk stars as Chun Li and Robin Shou plays her Tai-Chi master. Even though the story has been modernized slightly, some of Street Fighter's main baddies (including Bison, as played by Neil McDonough, Balrog, as played by Michael Clarke Duncan, and Vega still get to make an appearance. And as an added bonus, the site also gives a glimpse at the storyboard for a fight between Chun-Li and Vega.

Andrzej Bartkowiak is still shooting on location in Bangkok, so there is plenty of time for more updates in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li will arrive in theaters in 2009.

I'll admit that I'm not loving the writing style on the blog for Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li . Believe me, it's not easy to wade through all those descriptions of 'sweet footage' and sign-offs like "I'm out like a sonic BOOM" to get to the news (and I'm not the only one who feels this way). But that is why I'm here; I go through it so you don't have to. The site has just posted the first photo of Robin Shou (who despite a long and illustrious film career in Asia is best known here as Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat) as Gen. Shou plays a Kung Fu master who is also the mentor to a scrappy little gal known as Chun-Li (played by Smallville's Kristen Kreuk).

Legend will be doing away with the story set up in the 1994 film, and instead, Chun-Li is getting her very own origin story. Early reports had the action revolving around Li out for revenge for the death of her master, and there was also talk that the script would be pitting her against Hong Kong gangsters. But don't worry, Bison and some of his cronies are still getting some screen time.

Recently, many remarks have been cracked about running times of movies and the title 88 Minutes. "Is it too much to hope for that 88 Minutes will actually be 88 minutes?" our own James Rocchi asked me not too long ago. 88 minutes is a great running time for a movie, especially for busy critics with lots of movies to see and too many deadlines. You're in an out well before the welcome has worn out. Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons is considered a masterpiece at 88 minutes, even cut down from its original 132. Bill Murray knew the power of 88 minutes when he turned in his final cut of the classic Quick Change (1990). The Woodsman (2004) would have been unbearable at anything longer than 88 minutes. And whatever else you have to say about them, Scary Movie, Sexy Beast, Spy Kids, The Big Bounce, Transporter 2, Wristcutters: A Love Story and Horton Hears a Who! never seemed too long.

But, alas, 88 Minutes runs 108 minutes, and it's too long. Al Pacino (with a poofy, rooster-head haircut) plays high-profile forensic psychologist Jack Gramm, whose testimony was almost solely responsible for the conviction of accused murderer Jon Forster (Neal McDonough). Today, Forster is going to the chair, while maintaining his innocence, and while identical murders are still being committed throughout Seattle. At 10:17 a.m., Gramm gets a call, saying he has 88 minutes left to live. That call comes about a half hour into the movie, and the 88 minutes passes by in an awkward, compressed 70 minutes, give or take, followed by the expected conclusion and credits. Couldn't a cleverer filmmaker have set the movie in real time, and then used flashbacks to do all that boring preliminary stuff? Wouldn't the film have been much better if it just started with a bang, with that phone call?

While it might be interesting to see Guy Pearce and Don Cheadle run around in an espionage thriller without any other characters, that isn't very realistic. Variety is reporting that more have been added to the cast of Traitor -- the big names being Jeff Daniels and Neal McDonough. The former is coming off some higher-cred films like Infamous and The Lookout, and recently completed a role in Mama's Boy -- the slacker romcom with Diane Keaton and Jon Heder. The latter was last seen in LiLo's latest flop -- I Know Who Killed Me, but also flicks like Flags of Our Fathers. (This also reunites McDonough with Pearce -- both were in Antonia Bird's Ravenous.)

As for the rest of the names added to the cast -- there's Archie Panjabi (A Mighty Heart), Aly Kahn (Osama) and Said Taghmaoui (Hidalgo). While it would be nice to see these actors as fellow CIA or FBI agents, methinks you can guess what sort of roles they are getting. If you're foggy on the plot -- Steve Martin (yes, that one) came up with an idea that Jeffrey Nachmanoff has since written and will direct -- a CIA operative (Cheadle) is undercover in a terrorist group and becomes a terror suspect. Pearce plays an FBI agent who investigates terrorist activities. You can imagine where things go from there. The feature will head into production this Monday as TIFF zooms into high gear.

Casting bites for the day:

• We've got one more person to add to the cast of Topher Grace's Kids in America, the flick about the guy who has that one last chance to get with the girl of his dreams during a party in the 80's. Ice Princess Michelle Trachtenberg began filming in Phoenix last week. Her part: a Cure and New Order-loving goth girl who clashes against "the Flock of Seagulls mentality surrounding her." It might seem like a big jump for the actress, but she was half-way there with Gregg Araki's Mysterious Skin, so I bet she'll do just fine. Since MTV News says that the film is hoping to be the Dazed and Confused of the 80's, let's hope it does better than That '80s Show.
• There's yet another movie on the pike for Stomp the Yard actor Chris Brown, who has both After School and This Christmas coming later this year. This one is a basketball drama called Phenom. The 17-year-old is the only person cast so far, and there is no director, but he seems to be pretty active in the process: "I'm trying to get Antoine Fuqua, but there are so many different people we're trying to pitch it to as far as the actors and director is concerned." First step: Grammy nom, second step: stomping, third step: the world!
• Lastly, we've got the rest of the main cast set for Sci Fi Channel's upcoming Wizard of Oz re-imagining, Tin Man. Deschanel, Cumming and Dreyfus are being joined by Neal McDonough (The Hitcher) as the Tin Man former cop, Raoul Trujillo (Apocalypto) as Raw, the Wolverine-like creature and Kathleen Robertson (Splendor) as Azkadellia -- the wicked witch. It's not a bad cast to take on the weird project. My interest is up just to see Robertson as the "scintillatingly wicked sorceress." Do you think she'll don the famous tights?