Tekken (Movie Review)

Finally got around to purchasing and then watching the live action Tekken movie; my impression "eh it's not fantastic, but it's not awful either."

To get your juices flowing here's the film's trailer...



SYNOPSIS

The synopsis for this one is pretty simple; years in the future the world has seen a great devastating war which leads to seven major corporations taking over the divided territories from the world's governments. Tekken, the largest and more powerful of the corporations, holds an annual Iron Fist tournament that invites the other corporations best fighters to participate. The fighter that wins awards their corporation with more control over the others.

Enter the people's champion, Jin Kazama (Jon Foo). Jin lives just outside of Tekken City and is basically a thief. After stealing some important piece of hardware from Tekken, Tekken's chief security officer Kazuya (Ian Anthony Dale) takes extreme measures to make sure the thief is brought to justice. This action however leads to the death of Jun Kazama (Tamlyn Tomita), Jin's mother, which causes Jin to decide that he will enter the Iron Fist tournament and kill Tekken president Heihachi Mishima (Cary-Hiroyki Tagawa) whom he believes is responsible for his mother's death.

ACTION

The fight scenes were well choreographed and the story seemed to move smoothly from scene to scene. The one disappointment in this area was the fact that the rounds seemed to move without all the fighters participating in each round, which got us to the championship round rather quickly.

CHARACTER APPEARANCE

Many had complained online that the actors chosen to play their respective roles didn't look anything like the video game character they were chosen to represent.

In my opinion I believe that casting did a respectable job. Now I don't think they got everyone right but a good job nonetheless.

The biggest complaint was over Kazuya, because he never appeared in any of the games with a goatee, but yet Ian Anthony Dale's portrayal did. Not a big deal, things get adapted of course when going to the silver screen, but in my opinion the goatee is just a small problem for me; my issue lies with the fact that Ian Anthony Dale doesn't look like Kazuya facially at all.

The rest of the appearance complaints lie mainly on hair styles not being accurate with the game as well; mainly Jin's.

But if you can get past these minor flaws, you can see casting did well.

Twisted Sisters

Appearing in the movie are sisters Nina Williams (Candice Hillebrand) and Anna Williams (Marian Zapico), who in every video game version absolutely hate each other and are often attempting to kill one another.

Yet in movie form the sisters work together in an attempt to remove Jin from the tournament. It appears that they have no animosity towards each other whatsoever.

Now Nina Williams is a main stay from the beginning of the Tekken video game franchise so of course any movie would have to of included Nina, but Anna didn't come in until Tekken 3 and as far as the movie was concerned, she didn't do anything all that important. Anna was not essential to helping Nina attack Jin, and she never participated in a single round, so ultimately this character was just wasted space.

Who Should Have Appeared

So some of the bigger hitters from the games did make casting, however there were several big franchise names that were missing.

• Paul Phoenix - Paul was briefly mentioned by the Iron Fist announcers during one of the pre-fight commentaries, but never seen. Paul has been one of the mainstays since the first Tekken game and a fan favorite.

• King - Like Paul, King has been around since game one and is another fan favorite. King being a wrestler would have brought a different fighting style to the Iron Fist tournament as well.

• Hwoarang - Makes his appearance in Tekken 3, Hwoarang became a very popular character because of his fighting style. Hwoarang's back story would have allowed for him to be a unique asset to this film; he could have been Jin's best friend, or one of Tekken Corp's prized fighters.

All in all, if you can get past the minor changes from video game to film, the few missing fan favorites, and the fact that there have been many of these types of movies of late, then you will really enjoy Tekken.

Seen Tekken? Let us know your thoughts and opinions.

To learn more about the Tekken movie, Click Here.

-GJ