Tekken Tag 2 Trailers (Bikini Trailer Included)

-GJ

Tekken: Blood Vengeance 3D (Movie Review)

Caught the one night showing for the CGI movie Tekken: Blood Vengeance 3D which was presented by Fathom Events on July 26, 2011.

First reaction..."It was good, but not great."

However, I do believe that I enjoyed this film a little bit more than the live-action movie (Click Here for that review).

Ok so for those that have no idea what Tekken: Blood Vengeance 3D is here's the trailer to give you a little taste...



SYNOPSIS

Several years ago an entire class disappeared from Mishima Polytechnical School; where they went and what happened to them no one is quite sure. However one student named Shin has resurfaced, and now Jin and Kazuya are in a race to retrieve him.

To help locate and gain Shin's trust, Jin has Nina Williams send in Alisa; while Kazuya has his right-hand "man" Anna Williams force Ling Xiaoyu into assisting them.

Ling and Alisa end up becoming friends, just believing that they are competing for Shin's love.

But when Shin is mysteriously kidnapped, that friendship dissipates momentarily and Ling and Alisa will battle each other after they realize they are actually spies for Jin and Kazuya respectively.

When all the players finally catch up to Shin, there is an interesting surprise waiting for them. Heihachi Mishima, father to Kazuya, and grandfather of Jin, has nicely laid a trap for his bloodline, and now they are to fight; a fight that could spell disaster for the world depending on who is victorious.

CHARACTERS

There are actually fewer characters appearing in this movie than the live action one, but for the most part the most important characters of Tekken are represented; Jin, Kazuya, Heihachi, Nina, and Anna.

The actual lead characters for this film though are fighters that didn't appear in the games until Tekken 3 (Ling) and Tekken 6 (Alisa).

Also making appearances are Lee (Tekken 1) and Panda (Tekken 3).

Of course again I say it would be nice to see a movie that featured KING and PAUL PHOENIX!!!

ACTION

Being that this movie was completely done in CGI, we got to see all the fantastic moves and combos that we see on a regular basis from the video game franchise.

This movie is also missing one thing that you would think had to be in a movie based off a fighting game...there is no tournament! The removal of a tournament from the film was planned all along though, Namco was hoping to put more substance and more emotion into characters and they believed that was best accomplished without a tournament.

DID I MISS SOMETHING???

So mentioned in the synopsis was the fact that Jin was hunting down Shin, but yet there is a scene with Shin in the shower, and Ling and Alisa are watching him through the door. After they run off, Shin turns around and walks into Jin who says "You're playing them off one another, good."

Well it seems to be Jin anyways. In the shot all we get to see are Shin's bare legs and another pair of legs in jeans and boots. But the voice sounds like Jin's.

So if Jin is with Shin in the shower (yes that's weird) then why are they so shocked to see each other later in the film just before the final showdown?

Unless I was supposed to believe that that was Heihachi, which makes a little bit more sense but not a lot since Shin wanted to kill Heihachi for what he had done to him.

CONCLUSION

Tekken: Blood Vengeance 3D was not bad in the end. The story was good; there was a good mix of humor and action throughout, and the most important thing, the writers kept to the characters' storylines and characteristics that were already in place.

Were there cheesy moments? Yes. Were there times when you wanted to smack Ling and Alisa for being over emotional teen girls? Yes. Did you enjoy watching Panda fly? Heck YEAH!

If you missed the opportunity to see Tekken: Blood Vengeance 3D in theaters on July 26, 2011, then the only thing we can suggest is to pickup a copy of Tekken: Hybrid when it comes out. Tekken: Hybrid will not only feature the movie but the newly redone in HD Tekken Tag Tournament 1.

For those that caught the film, what did you think?

-GJ

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

FIGHT!!!

The fighter genre for video games is back at war on the big screen. If you recall back in the 90's there were movies for both Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat, with the winner apparently being MK since it got a sequel. (We preferred Street Fighter)

Well, here we are several years later and the war has begun once again. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, released back 2009, was round one. To counter attack this, rumor has it 2010 will feature the release of Mortal Kombat: Devastation.


The best news however, is that the long anticipated TEKKEN movie will also be making its way to the US. Although if the movie will be straight to DVD or make a run through theaters is still to be seen.



Which fighter do you hope to see on the big screen? - GJ

Sci-Fi Video Games + Big Screen = ?

For the most part video games that have been made into movies have done quite well. However it should be pointed out that though they have done well making money, hardly any of them have been worth the ticket price.

What makes a title a great video game is usually the player's interaction when helping to move the story along, but in a movie, we have no control over what takes place, everything is already 100% predetermined.

Sometimes a studio makes a game based movie well. Some examples of this are Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat 1, Super Mario Brothers, Resident Evil 1, and Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.


Other times we wonder what the heck were they thinking. Movies that fall into this category include Mortal Kombat 2, Resident Evil 2 and 3, Hitman, and DOOM.

Feel free to disagree with the categories these movies were placed in, it's your right.

In the end, to the studios it doesn't matter if a movie is terrible or not, as long as it brings in money. So the trend of video games to the big screen is probably not going to see an end anytime soon, in fact there are several games either already in production, or being discussed as a possibility to be made.


Some of the bigger titles being discussed are Halo, Metal Gear Solid, Zelda, Max Payne, Prince of Persia, and Tekken. Hopefully one or more of these turn out to be worth the ticket.

Also we want to hear from you about what video games you want to see on the big screen. Personally us here at the post would love to see Star Ocean or another Final Fantasy film.