9 Fighting Video Game Characters With The Craziest Backstories

8. Kim Kaphwan (King Of Fighters)

Kim Kaphwan
SNK

Kim looked built to become the traditional hero of King of Fighters, like Ryu and Liu Kang had been for Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, respectively. He's a taekwondo master and self-described "fighter of justice", which is so boring that it physically hurts to type.

But along with his self-righteousness and willingness to help his fellow man, we also learn about a more interesting side of Kim's personality. He's a secret alcoholic who avoids confronting his own inner demons by "rehabilitating" others.

Over the course of many King of Fighters tournaments, which groups competitors into teams of three, we discover that Kim's teammates, Chang and Choi, used to be criminals until Kim tracked them down and beat the ever-loving hell out of them. Rather than turning them into the authorities, he uses his status as a national hero in Korea (because of course he is) to convince the police that he can personally rehabilitate them with training.

His methods actually do seem to work, though as soon as Chang and Choi become respectable members of society and his "project" is over, he hits the bottle, hard. After one particular tournament, he sits at a bar, alone, for hours pounding drinks until the bartender begs him to leave.

How does he fix himself? Does he re-dedicate himself to his own training or seek help from his new friends Chang and Choi? No, he adopts two other criminal-types to reform in his dojo. Because apparently that's the only way the demons will go away.

 
First Posted On: 
Contributor

Jacob is a part-time contributor for WhatCulture, specializing in music, movies, and really, really dumb humor.