Why Violet From The Misfits Looks So Familiar

The summer movie season is officially upon us, and said season's first full-throttle actioner is already delighting fans who've been starved for such fare in the age of the pandemic. Said actioner is called "The Misfits." It was directed by '90s action movie auteur Renny Harlin ("Die Hard 2: Die Harder," "Cliffhanger," and "The Long Kiss Goodnight"). And it finds the great Pierce Brosnan portraying a famed international thief who's enlisted by a band of modern-day Robin Hoods to pull off a near-impossible gold heist.

Fronting equal parts "Fast and Furious"-tinged bombast and "Oceans 11"-style swagger, "The Misfits" is being hailed by some as both a distinctly modern action flick, and a loving callback to the unabashedly over-the-top fare Harlin was renowned for in the 90s. It's fitting then that the film is also fronting one of the decade's biggest stars in Brosnan. Odds are you'll recognize the faces of his co-stars too, including Tim Roth, Nick Cannon, and the actor portraying The Misfits' fiery femme Violet. Her name is Jamie Chung, and you've almost certainly seen her somewhere before. Here's why Violet from "The Misfits" looks so familiar.

You may not realize it, but Jamie Chung has been working in and around Hollywood for well over a decade now, earning her big break by appearing in the 14th season of MTV's reality series "The Real World." She's gone on to deliver memorable work on screens big and small in the years since. Many might agree that few of her roles were quite as memorable, or overtly weird as the one she played on HBO's audacious sci-fi horror fantasia "Lovecraft Country."

That series made its 2020 debut on the cable TV titan under the guidance of producers Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams and found Korean War vet Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors), who returns to his Chicago home and becomes embroiled in a fantastical adventure too wild to delve into here. The series got weirder than any might've anticipated when Chung's Ji-Ah entered the fray, however. That fateful moment came midway through its first season and found Chung portraying a seemingly naive Korean nurse who falls for Atticus even though she's keeping a seriously twisted secret that puts his life in imminent peril. We won't spoil that twist for those who have yet to experience "Lovecraft Country", but trust us that it's a real doozy. Trust as well that Chung has rarely been better.

Over the course of its five-season run, Fox's shamelessly over-the-top superhero camp-fest "Gotham" was frequently the silliest show on television. It was just as frequently the most fun, too, with the series' producers delivering a clever, grotesque, and marvelously stylized revisionist take on Batman lore that had to be seen to be believed.

"Gotham" was often hard to believe even for those who did see it, of course. That was especially true of the series' third season, which saw The Dark Knight's hometown overrun with powered psychopaths recently escaped from an underground facility where they were experimented on by mad scientist Hugo Strange (BD Wong) and transformed into literal monsters. Season 3 of "Gotham" also found a disgraced Jim Gordon (Ben McKenzie) working as a bounty hunter bent on rounding up the baddies. 

The first episode of that season saw Gordon enlisting the help of his old flame, Gotham Gazette's crack journalist Valerie Vale. Yes, that was Jamie Chung portraying the impetuous Vale in season 3 of "Gotham." And though she was only around for six episodes, Chung's time on the show was pretty unforgettable, particularly in regard to the way she exited the action.

As it happens, "Gotham" wasn't the only small-screen series Jamie Chung appeared in that took a revisionist approach to famous fictional characters. Prior to her stint as Valerie Vale, Chung had indeed portrayed a legit Disney icon, who you might've forgotten made her live-action debut on ABC's gonzo fairy tale mashup "Once Upon a Time."

That character was none other than the fearsome warrior woman Mulan, whose mystical tale of bravery (based on a Chines legend) was made famous in Disney's lauded 1998 animated feature bearing her name. Chung made her first appearance as Mulan on "Once Upon a Time" in its season 2 premiere, and it's safe to say she was not exactly the same Mulan fans of the animated film had come to adore. It's soon made clear that Chung's Mulan is not the same one depicted in the movie, and is instead the woman whom the original legend is based upon.

Chung would go on to appear as Mulan in 12 episodes of "Once Upon a Time" between seasons 2 and 5. And the series' creative team had as much fun re-working Mulan's mythology as they did with every other character who appeared on the series. They even cheekily mentioned the animated film on several occasions, with Chung relishing every devilishly meta moment throughout.

Jamie Chung has actually kicked her fair share of ass on both the big screen and the small screen over the years, by the way. But it's safe to say she's rarely kicked as much as she did in one of her biggest early roles, which happened to come in Zack Snyder's box-office bust turned cult hit "Sucker Punch." 

Released in 2011, that film found Emily Browning portraying an unjustly institutionalized young woman nicknamed Babydoll who seeks to avoid the harsh realities of her new life by escaping into intricately woven, action-packed steampunk fantasies beyond belief. Joining her in those fantasies are several of her fellow inmates (including Jena Malone, Abbie Cornish, and Vanessa Hudgens), all of whom take on wild personalities of feisty, weapon-loving femmes with specific skill sets they utilize in overcoming their enemies throughout every adventure. Jamie Chung was indeed one of Babydoll's closest allies, portraying the group's fearless pilot Amber in the film. And even as Chung's Amber met a shocking end a touch earlier in the "Sucker Punch" action than fans might've wanted, the actor made a lasting impact in the role.