Retsu Kaiou is a Chinese Kung-Fu master—called "Kenpo" in Japanese—who trained extensively in China and eventually inherited his temple's fighting style. He's best known for his mastery of traditional martial arts and his later willingness to bridge different disciplines.
Early on, Retsu was pretty rigid about his approach. He wasn't interested in learning from other styles, convinced that his Kung-Fu lineage was complete as-is. That changed after the tournament though. His friendship with Katsumi Orochi seemed to open his eyes, and he started genuinely interested in both teaching and training at the Shinshinkai Dojo—a pretty significant shift in mindset for someone so rooted in tradition.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
