Tekken [DVD]

As someone who fondly remembers the 80's action movie style cheese of Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter, Tekken was a chore to sit through. Simply, it just isn't very FUN. The producers had to get in on that 'dark and gritty' action that helped The Dark Knight cross the $1 billion mark, but the end result is a city (Called Tekken City...) where the sun never comes out and everything is covered in video screens and neon lights. Most of the tournament takes place in a club that has 'Tekken, King Of Iron Fist' written on the back wall, in neon. The fighters themselves aren't fighting to prove they're the best, it's for the sake of the corporations backing them called things like Vectrocorp, shown on video screens in neon colours. And did someone mention Tekken Dollars, in completely serious fashion?

All those exotic environments from the game are referenced by a hologram of the stage that appears for 3 seconds before disappearing. What? Why?
Apart from Christie, all the fights are pretty generic and considering Tekken is about 80% grounded in reality that's very disappointing. I understand the lack of Hadokens in SF and the decapitation free MK, but when most of the fighters have distinctive styles like TKD, Judo, JKD, etc. it's very baffling to see it all brushed aside.

On top of the lack of fun, the guy playing Jin isn't good enough to carry a film, looks about 19 Years Old and the big twist is obvious to anyone who knows who Jin's parents were from reading the instruction manuals.

There's nothing particularly offensive, but it's all been done better in the past by MK and SF.
If you're after flashy fights in modern cinema check out any of Donnie Yen's vehicles such as Kill Zone, FlashPoint or Yip Man.
If it's just Tekken done right then you know where to go.

PS; King, Paul Phoenix, Jack, Kunimitsu (Hahaha, no one misses her), Wang, Feng, Roger, Alex, Devil, Ogre, Mokujin, Lei Wulong, Lee, Julia, Marduk, Kuma, Panda, Asuka, Jinpachi, Gon, Baek, Xyiaou and Hwoarang are all absent. Some for blindingly obvious reasons, others just to spite you.

Where do I begin? Let us first begin by saying that the storyline has not be maintained in the game series. Since Tekken 3 there have been twists and turns which have contradicted the original story. This movie makes no attempt at maintaining accuracy either. The characterizations are poor, the scripting is poor, it is as I feared it would be. It's not worthy to bare the name and is the worst addition to the series to date, far surpassing Tekken 6 in that regard. If you are an ardent fan of the series from the beginning, this will likely not be for you. If you are a newbie this will be more akin to your tastes. Those oblivious to the series? It's a hit or miss. I personally do not recommend this movie at all.

I'm going to make this short and simple. The people who created this movie had no love or understanding for Tekken and it's characters at all. The film is shallow, generic and worst of all the characters are very poorly represented. Jin looks and acts like a little wimp, Kazuya is just a regular evil guy, who uses weapons to fight and Heihachi is just an old man who can't fight at all. Many of the important characters to the Tekken franchise aren't even there at all (Paul, King, Ling and Lei).

This movie will surely disappoint anyone who is looking for a good movie. Even fans will not enjoy this one. The people who gave it 4 or 5 starts are truly biased and don't know what the hell they're talking about.

Do NOT buy it!