Leifang

Lei Fang (レイファン, Rei Fang) is a Chinese college student and T'ai Chi Quan prodigy from the Dead or Alive series, who made her debut in the first Dead or Alive. She is one of the first females to appear in the series, alongside Kasumi and Tina Armstrong.

A girl who grew up in a wealthy family, Lei Fang is a woman of justice and bares a very independent spirit. Throughout the series, she seeks to fight Jann Lee, who is thought to have saved her life at one stage in her past, to prove herself to him that she too is a strong individual. However, Lei Fang had lost to Jann in almost every tournament, but she managed to defeat him in the last one.

History
Six years before the first tournament, Lei Fang was saved from a bunch of thugs by a martial artist, Jann Lee. Although she was very grateful for being saved, she felt that she could have handled the situation herself. After that incident, she mastered the art of Tai Chi Quan and sought to prove her strength to Jann Lee.

Dead or Alive
Lei Fang joined the first Dead or Alive Tournament in order to fight Jann Lee, to prove her worth to him. During the tournament she faces him. However, she is defeated by him. This doesn't damper her spirits, however, and she goes on to train herself for the next tournament.

Dead or Alive 2
During her matches of the second tournament, she forms a philosophical rivalry with Tina Armstrong, who believes that the meaning of power comes from physical strength. Lei Fang disagreed, arguing and demonstrating that power originated from the mind, and was channeled into and through the rest of the body.

When she finally faced Jann Lee, she tells him that her martial art was perfected and that she was ready. However, Lei Fang loses again, resulting in Jann Lee retorting that she was far from ready.



Dead or Alive 3
Now known to many as a young genius of T'ai Chi Quan, Lei Fang continues to train to defeat Jann Lee. She enters the third Dead or Alive tournament, telling herself; "This time... This time, I am going to beat him!" She once again fights her way to Jann Lee. When she finally reaches him, telling him it was time for her to defeat “the dragon” within him, despite her best efforts, Lei Fang once again loses the fight.

After the tournament is over, she returns home. While out in the city, she rescues a young boy from getting kidnapped, easily defeating the kidnappers with her martial art skills, reflecting the time when she was saved by Jann Lee.

Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball
Lei Fang was invited to Zack Island, believing it was an invitation to the fourth Tournament. However, she finds that she, along with the other girls who had shown up to fight, had been tricked by Zack. Instead she spends the two weeks on the island playing volleyball, shopping and relaxing, making friends with fellow high-spirited prodigy Hitomi. However her rivalry with Tina from the second tournament is still evident.



Dead or Alive 4
Lei Fang enters the tournament to once again fight Jann Lee. She is defeated by Hitomi in a match over a simple cabbage and later defeats Bass Armstrong after he began attacking bystanders over losing his money at the casino. After these matches, she finally reaches Jann Lee, who is not really surprised to see her. The two combat in the DOATEC Tritower, which begins to fall apart due to the attack by the Mugen Tenshin Ninja Clan. However, the two start their match anyway. The outcome of the fight turned out to be Lei Fang as the winner, finally defeating Jann Lee at long last.

After the tournament, Lei Fang returns home again. While traveling on the train, she becomes involved in an embarrassing incident; when the train suddenly stops, an old man falls over and grabs her breasts. Humiliated and enraged, and despite it being an accident, Lei Fang loses her temper and literally kicks the man through a window, out of the now moving train into a lake below the bridge. The other passengers applaude her stunt, but Lei Fang likely thinks that they are mocking her due to the fact that the buttons on her shirt came undone, and she tries to cover herself.

Dead or Alive Xtreme 2
Invited once again to New Zack Island for a holiday, Lei Fang was looking forward to a vacation.

Character
Also see: Lei Fang's Outfit Catalogues

While Lei Fang has always had a slender build, pale skin, purplish-brown eyes and a heart-shaped face, her appearance has changed considerably since the first Dead or Alive. In the first game, her hair was short and tied back in a high ponytail, which made her look somewhat masculine. Since Dead or Alive 2, her facial features have became more round and softer, and her hair much longer, normally tied in two braids which are looped round and pinned on either side of her head. Her hair color has changed often in the series: first it was light brown, then very dark blue, then black, to finally dark brown.

Her outfit has also become more feminine; in the original game, her clothes consisted of trousers, shorts and flat shoes with simple detailing. Later, she started to sport high-heels and long, formal-looking body-hugging Chinese dresses called. They are normally embraced with Asian-inspired patterns of birds and flowers.

Personality
Lei Fang is a spunky, intelligent and cheerful college student. Practicing martial arts has given her a strong dedication to self-improvement, both mentally and physically. She hopes that by honing her own skills, she can eventually help others to do the same. At the same time, her young age and general inexperience with the world around her can sometimes keep her from fully thinking things through.

Along with a strong motivation for self-improvement, Lei Fang is also somewhat prideful and becomes angry if she feels she is being taken advantage of or being looked down upon. This may be the core reason for her fixation and need to prove herself to Jann Lee after he rescued her.

Etymology
"Lei Fang" is created from two Chinese names: Lei, meaning "flower bud", and Fang meaning "fragrant, sweet smelling". Altogether, Lei Fang's name means "fragrant flower bud", relating to her beauty, and either her youthfulness or her blooming talent as a fighter. The name is a common name for Chinese girls in, so this can imply that Lei Fang is from the area.

Jann Lee
Jann Lee is Lei Fang's primary rival, target, and obsession. Ever since Jann Lee, then known to Lei Fang as "Gi", saved her from a group of thugs, she has aimed to perfect her fighting skills so that she could prove herself to him, and become "a part of his world". It is unclear on what Jann Lee’s feelings are exactly about this rivalry obsession. However, he doesn’t seem to have made any major attempts to stop her from continuing in its pursuit (unless he thought that defeating her time and time again is some kind of attempt in stopping her.)

Some fans believe that this obsession runs deeper than just a rivalry, but nothing in the series has suggested that they have romantic feelings for one another.

Hitomi
Hitomi and Lei Fang are friends, as well as martial art rivals. Both being young, somewhat naïve, and baring cheerful personalities, they can be playful with each other one minute, such as during their visits to Zack Island, and then become engaged in a heated battle the next over something as trivial as a cabbage.

Tina Armstrong
Stemming from a disagreement on the philosophy of martial power, Tina and Lei Fang have since become rivals of a sort, if not for any other reason than for their difference in opinions.

Helena Douglas
Lei Fang seems to be friendly with Helena, as shown in her Dead or Alive 2 cutscene, as well as their tag team poses.

Dead or Alive
Lei Fang is a very technical character, focusing on powerful holds and parry maneuvers to expose the enemy for counterattacks. She also has an excellent air-juggling game. A common combo starter is the Renkan-Sho-Kinda, which hits 3 times in succession, and depending on the terrain height and launch duration, can hit up to 6 times in succession. Her kicks, similar to Gen Fu, are also excellent combo starters (such as Sanren-Kyaku) and have an excellent execution and recovery time frame.

Due to her varying attack string levels, she can be very difficult to counter against. She is most compatible in tag-team battle with Helena Douglas and Jann Lee; particularly Helena, for "Power is not always the answer" and thus their combination of intricate techniques highly complement one another.

Dead or Alive Xtreme
Lei Fang is very easy to befriend, because she likes everyone, although she seems not to like Tina Armstrong as much; this can be changed with a few good gifts. Lei Fang herself can befriend almost everyone, too.

In beach volleyball, like Kasumi, Lei Fang is not the strongest character in terms of power, resulting in poor spikes, and a high chance of being knocked down by stronger players. However, she can quickly get back on her feet after a fall. She also has good technique, jump and defense stats, thus making her an ideal defensive character in returning the ball and counter-attacking. She is best suited as playing defense for Kokoro, as both girls are nearly well-balanced, and Kokoro has the strength Lei Fang lacks, but needs the technique the other has.

Dead or Alive Ultimate
Lei Fang is also a playable character in the compilation collection, Dead or Alive Ultimate. In Dead or Alive 2 Ultimate, she has a total of twenty costumes, in which eighteen need to be unlocked by replaying her Story Mode - costumes 3 through 7 can be unlocked on easy mode, 8 through 14 on normal mode, and 15 through 20 on hard mode.



DOA: Dead or Alive
Lei Fang was played by Ying Wang in the movie, DOA: Dead or Alive. She makes several appearances in the beginning of the movie, until she got knocked out by Gen Fu. She also can be seen far away in the beach scene.

Dead or Alive Paradise
Lei Fang also appears as a playable character in the Dead or Alive Xtreme spin-off, Dead or Alive Paradise. Like other Xtreme titles before it, the game features the girls enjoying a two-week vacation on a tropical island, playing volleyball and exchanging gifts with one another.

Dead or Alive: Dimensions
Lei Fang is set to appear in the up-and-coming Dead or Alive game, Dead or Alive: Dimensions, in development for the. Her role in the game is currently unclear.

Musical Themes

 * The Fist of Taikyoku Blows Up - Dead or Alive
 * Concentration - Dead or Alive (Playstation Version)
 * Grand Style - Dead or Alive 2
 * Mayflower - Dead or Alive 3
 * Flowerbed - Dead or Alive 4

Trivia

 * The T'ai Chi style Lei Fang practices is a mixture of the Yang and Chen styles.
 * In Dead or Alive 4, it is revealed that she wears glasses; pressing 360 Y Button.png when selecting her to play will result in her wearing said glasses.
 * Lei Fang's default hairstyle changed from braids to straight hairstyle in Dead or Alive 4. In the previous games having her hair loose came as an optional costume accessory, much in the same way as Kasumi.
 * Throughout the series, Lei Fang's main tag partner has been Jann Lee.
 * IGN featured Lei Fang in their "Videogame Babe of the Day" series in 2006.
 * When Lei Fang served as a sub-boss for Hitomi and Bass, her theme doesn't play. Instead, Hitomi's and Bass' themes play.