Customer Reviews

Tekken [DVD]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

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!

One of the most unfortunate facts of film is this. Movie adaptations of computer games don't work. Most of the time, they vary from dire to downright abominable, dishonouring the very source material from whence they came, and doing a great disservice to fans. The less said about atrocities such as Super Mario Bros, Street Fighter, Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation etc...THE BETTER.

Though, mind you...there HAVE been some surprises. For instance, some of these films have provided decent entertainment, such as DOA: Dead or Alive. The Tomb Raider Films were successful and actually very good (thanks to Angelina Jolie), Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within and Mortal Kombat (1995) I actually thought were excellent and Disney's recent Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time was an enjoyable romp that proved there might actually be hope for movie adaptations of computer games.

Which now brings us onto Tekken; Namco's HUGELY popular fighting series. I'm one of the legion of fans who love the series, for its strong storyline, colourful cast of characters and its excellent beat-em-up mechanics that has made the Tekken series such a hit at both Arcades and at home.

Unfortunately, this movie adaptation is yet another cliché of a film based on a popular game that just doesn't work. A lot of it is due to differing greatly from the deep story that helped make the original game so appealing, but there's also an iffy screenplay, terrible acting for the majority, highly flawed directing, and production values that would just make you shake your head in disbelief.

The plot is one we've all heard before. In a dystopian future where governments and countries have fallen, and the world is now ruled by corporations, Rebel teenager Jin Kazama seeks to avenge the death of her mother Jun by entering the King of Iron Fist tournament. Now, long-time fans of the series will NOT be blown away by any of the `revelations' here, seeing as how they originated from the games' plots. In fact, there's little to actually get excited about.

Because the film is only eighty-seven minutes long (nothing compared to films these days which go on from two-to-three hours), it all feels so rushed and shallow. The cast of characters is mostly unappealing here, with radical changes here and there that (again) don't feel true to the spirit of games. For instance, Jin Kazama's personality has been altered from a lone, tragic, damaged human being...to a thieving, mouthy punk (with a SEX life!), who at times feels awkward, and dislikeable. And this, along with other drastic re-workings of story elements, left a bad taste in my mouth.

There are a few things that Tekken DOES actually get right, such as the fight scenes (using actual martial artists, dancers, athletes and stunt choreographers). There are some entertaining moments such as Christie Monteiro vs. Nina Williams, Jin Kazama vs. Marshall Law and Jin vs. Bryan Fury. But all the match-ups are ruined by bad direction and camerawork which is ALL OVER THE PLACE! The filming is terrible, and really could've benefited from studying the fight scenes in Mortal Kombat, which were so much more seamless and better directed.

Even though there's some excellent martial arts talent on hand for the action i.e. Roger Huerta (Miguel Roja), Cung Le (Marshall Law), Lateef Crowder (Eddie Gordo) and Jon Foo (Jin Kazama), their showcases are again squandered by the appalling production, and most of the film's acting, which borders on god-awful. Ian Anthony Dale is so wooden as Kazuya Mishama and Jon Foo - despite being highly skilled as a fighter - is too green for the lead role as Jin, and acts like an inexperienced child. The rest of the cast (with some exceptions) fail to impress, which only sours the viewing experience.

However, kudos must be given to the likes of Luke Goss (Steve Fox), Kelly Overton (Christie Monteiro), Gary Daniels (Bryan Fury) and the legendary Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Heihachi Mishama), who clearly understand their characters and provide exceptional performances. Goss (from films Blade II, Hellboy II & Silverhawk) in particular carries every scene he's in as the British Boxer, delivering hilarious wit and expressing a gritty demeanour. Daniels (from The Expendables) is utterly terrifying, fierce and believable as the infamous cyborg, and his martial arts prowess makes him ideal for the role. And Overton displays grace and confidence as Christie, with Tagawa showing just as much aptitude for Heihachi as he did for MK's Shang Tsung.

Sadly though, it's not enough. The film is just riddled with faults and embarrassments, as other reviewers have mentioned. "Tekken City"?! "Tekken Dollars"?! Never ending night-time?! No King, Paul Phoenix, Devil, Ogre, Hwoarang, Xyiao, Craig Marduk or Julia Chang?! Yoshimitsu criminally reduced to thirty-seconds of fame?! It's no wonder why the makers of the games were ashamed of this mess.

If this film was something OTHER than Tekken, than it would be more enjoyable. If it was a rental, than perhaps more fun could be found watching this film. On the whole, it is mildly entertaining, but it's NOT WORTHY of the name Tekken. It fails to be what it's based on, and that's unpardonable.

No subtitles or commentaries here. For extras, you have a trailer, interviews and a behind-the-scenes look of the film. Not bad special-features (admittedly), but alas I can't recommend Tekken. If you're curious, then check it out. Just don't expect something that lives up to the greatness of the fighting series we all know and love.

You dont need to be a fan of the game to enjoy this, its a fast paced quality action movie full of cool fight scenes and great characters, the cast was great and all the fighters where done well, the story was good too, personally I thought as a game movie it was done very well and fans shouldnt complain it could have been allot worse, im a street fighter fan and the last movie they made about that was rubbish beyond belief, Tekken is twenty times better and watchable and is worthy of spending a night in for a bit of popcorn fun, check it out if you love a good fight movie!!!

This film is just fantastic, can't really put it in to any other words I could watch it a million times, but don't want to ruin it ;)

This film is watchable, if you like the tekken, street fighter or mortal kombat
and reasonably follows the tekken game storyline although die hard tekken fans may be left
feeling the film needs more substance and with a few questions.

The action is ok, the fighters are up to scratch, but not even close to "Ip Man", "Ong Bak"
it is only the story that dissapointed me, some key characters like "Paul", "Hworang" & "Ling" were absent
and the background to the other fighters could have gone into more depth.

Watchable, but certanly not unmissable

The best word to describe it is badass. The reason for this is that it is badass. It stays pretty true to the story of Jin but grounds it in a sense of realism so there is obviously no ogre or devil. The fight sequences are pretty cool and the gritty tone of the film suits it. The soundtrack is also pretty badass. The acting could have been a tad better for some of them and some characters were a bit under used but that isn't enough to stop this film from being badass. So if you like badass films buy this.

When games like this get made into films, it usually goes one of two ways. Terrible or pretty damn good. I am so, so happy to say that this falls into the second category. The Mortal Kombat films are probably my favourites in this genre of film but Tekken measures up extremely well. Of course, it doesn't comapre to the likes of Resident Evil but it can still hold its own very well. This was a film made to be as close to the game as possible and here it does a great job.

Jon Woo was a great male lead. He was everything that his type of character should have been and portrayed Jin extremely well. He was strong, confident and charismatic as well as very likable due to his circumstances in the film. I thoroughly enjoyed Woo's performance in every aspect but mostly his skills when it comes to martial arts. I have no idea whether or not her performed all of his own stunts but he obviously shows that he knows what he is doing and was very impressive. He packs in a lot of power and strength in his scenes of fighting and his body also looks amazing while he does his stuff.

Even the other cast members impressed me a fair bit. Sometimes in these films, you get one or two people who give great performances but here, it was the majority rather than the minority. With a colourful range of characters from the games, all having different skills and talents, each actor was able to show off different things and bring something exciting to the film. While there aren't any massive names in Tekken, it didn't matter to me. In fact, I quite liked that the cast was a bunch of relatively unknown actors because I wasn't expecting anything from them.

While there are some great characters featured like Nina, Anna and Sergei Dragunov, I was quite sad to see that some of the great game characters weren't involved. I don't know if this was due to the film makers trying to stick as close to the game as possible, therefore, characters from later films not being used. Personally, I would have loved to have seen Lili kicking some ass (she's who I always use in the game now) or some of the animal characters. It is probably unlikely that further films will be made due to how much money this one made but if they were, I would love to see some of these characters doing their thing.

Tekken is, surprisingly, a good game to film conversion and a film that I enjoyed thoroughly. It is exciting, action packed and has something for everyone, even the girls!

This film definitely lives up to my expectations; a very gripping and exciting movie. Not the best film but one of the best of it's type. 5* and definitely worth watching!