Okay, who decided that the world needed a Tekken movie?
Tekken
U/A; Action, Video Game Adaptation
Dir: Dwight Little
Cast: John Foo, Kelly Overton, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Ian Anthony Dale, Luke Goss
Rating: *
Okay, who decided that the world needed a Tekken movie? Even fans of the extremely popular Japanese fighting game will tell you that Tekken, which is now in its sixth iteration, is a brain-dead franchise only about fighting and nothing else. Yet director Dwight Little and writer Alan B McElroy try their level best to spin a hopelessly overstuffed plot involving world domination and evil corporations around a story concept that could easily be described in a small paragraph.
Now, whether video-game movie adaptations are a good idea at all is a debatable point (exhibit A: the Mortal Kombat films), but even so, the least we can expect from any movie is a certain standard of screenplay, acting and execution, right? Well, it is my sad duty to inform you that Tekken fails miserably in that regard. The hokey back-story, told to us with the aid of a voice-over and a background score that are both overly dramatic, involves a somewhat post-apocalyptic world where nations have fallen after the war on terror (Bush-bashing never gets old) and everything is now controlled by corporations, the largest of which is Tekken.
Tekken hosts an annual fighting tournament called 'Iron Fist' every year, and young Jin Kazama (John Foo, sporting an accent that wavers between British and Boston), a resident of a slum named Anvil, enters the tournament to avenge his mother's death. Meanwhile, there are family problems between Heihachi (Tagawa), the owner of Tekken, and his cruel son Kazuya (Dale), who is anxious to gain control of the company.
Fans of the game will be heartened to know that the characters, ranging from Brian Fury to (my personal favourite) Yoshimitsu, have been accurately represented. They will, however, be disheartened to learn that between all the fight sequences (which are fairly well done) is a lot of bad dialogue and even worse acting (Dale takes the cake for his embarrassingly bad soliloquies directed straight towards the camera).
The only bright spot is Overton as the sexy Christie Monteiro, who plays Jin's love interest. She has precious little to do but does possess a passable Natasha Henstridge-like presence. Also, she sports butt cleavage throughout the movie. Yes, target audience member (my guess: male gamer between 12-18 years old), this is for your benefit. Watch it only if you're a hardcore fan, but be warned that even Katsuhiro Harada, producer of the Tekken game series, has publicly slammed this movie.u00a0
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