Tekken

At least it’s better than Street Fighter!

Lover: Taken from IMDB
“So,i was waiting this movie for years and now i finally saw it.To begin with,if tekken fans wanted a movie exactly like the game they will be disappointed.It has it's differences.Every video game that becomes a movie has differences from the original game.That doesn't mean that the movie can't be good.In tekken's case the movie is very good.I loved it and i am a big tekken fan from the beginning of tekken. The story is simple and although not the same it has the classic,Jin goes to avenge Jun's death which he blames the mishima's and tekken. Most characters look like the game,most outfits look like the game too,the acting is good, the girls are very hot and it has references to the game . Best thing of the movie is the fight scenes and the music.Great battles,too much blood and a classic Hollywood finale.It is a well made movie and everyone who is open minded and don't expect the wrong things will like it.I know i did.This is a great action movie and my favourite video game.THIS IS IRON FIST.Don't forget to see the scene after the credits.Best line ever.”

This person is right the action is very good and well-choreographed, but make no mistake this is not a great action movie.

Hater: Taken from IMDB
“I guess you could rate Tekken based on the video game or as a movie on its own. Either way its as bad as it can possible get. The story feels artificial just to get on with the fights, you feel during the whole movie that the characters are totally out of place. Jin Kazama in this movie has for some odd reason Australian accent and has no martial arts training from what i can see. Marshal Law is not a bruce lee character anymore, he is suddenly a beefed up MMA fighter! Jun (Jin's mother) and Kazuya is enemies for also some weird reason. The only things they are keeping from the game are some of the clothes and hairstyles. If you would review it as a fighting movie it would be bad as well, cause the fighting is non existent. Tekken is nice cause you have fighters with different fighting styles. Here you have mostly MMA fighting which consists of no real proper training behind it.This movie fails on so many levels. How on earth can a director get money to make a movie like this?”

I thought the film was pretty poor, but even this review seems a little harsh, I thought the action and fight sequences were very good. I can’t question the Knowledge about the game itself as I was never a big fan of the Tekken games.

What I thought:
Film makers will reach a point (hopefully) where they will realise that video games just don’t make good movies. Some games could work but they are always stuck somewhere between trying too hard to please fans of the game and trying too hard to please filmgoers. Tekken has it very hard, beat-em-ups are probably the hardest to transport to the big screen. Just think of Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat before it, Street Fighter was an awful mess with little cohesion and no real aim as to what it was trying to do. Mortal Kombat was better, it’s darker tone probably helped along with more exciting fights but it was ruined by hammed up acting and a mysteriously cast Christopher Lambert.

Tekken places itself somewhere firmly between them, the fight sequences surpass both but the story is predictable and un-interesting. Like Street Fighter, it doesn’t really know what it is; production value on par with a TV serial and costumes that are too much like a computer game. Like Mortal Kombat the cast really ham it up and another mystery casting of Luke Goss?

Tekkens biggest problem is trying to fit the round format and levels of the computer game into the context of a film. The fights are in an arena which can change its environment to fit levels of the game, it just feels like a real cop out. The tournament in question restricts the film makers and any other form of story, plot and indeed character development gets left behind. All of this said Tekken is good fun for the fighting and free running and a must for Tekken fans.