Video game to live action film adaptations are a touchy subject.The characters and storyline already exist both visually and audibly and pulling off a decent execution is very difficult and rarely happens. More often than not (see: every video game movie that wasn’t Prince of Persia) it ends in absolute fail.
That being said…
Being a Tekken fan I wouldn’t let myself get away with not seeing the live action movie that came out during some recent timeline.
I should probably go easier on myself.
The movie was awful. I yelled. A lot. I wanted to rage quit.
There were just so many crucial elements I couldn’t get over.
Mostly the characters, everything was just… wrong. Understandably the current Tekken roster is huge and you can only fit so much water in a shallow pool of a storyline. The characters in the movie included:
- Jin Kazama
- Jun Kazama
- Steve Fox
- Marshall Law
- Heihachi Mishima
- Kazuya Mishima
- Christie Montero
- Yoshimitsu
- Raven
- Eddie Gordo
- Nina Williams
- Anna Williams
- Miguel
- Dragunov
- Bryan Fury
- Jack-5
I could go on for days on the flaws of each character, but to spare you the wall of text I’ll make a few call outs.
- Jin had a slight British accent. Enough said.
- Marshall Law made no exaggerated sounds, in fact no sound at all and was lacking his Bruce Lee hairstyle.
- Steve Fox was a street rat with a buzzed head, where was the arrogance and long slicked back hair?
- Christie was way too white American and not Brazilian.
- Raven…. was spot on.
That being said… I feel that they spent their entire film budget making Raven look like Raven for all 3 scenes he was in.
So poor casting and character development aside, what about the fighting? Yes there were some decent fight scenes. Pretty standard movie fare, but I was looking for that Tekken style fighting flare. I wanted to see Law hopping around making the exaggerated sounds. I wanted to see the capoeira style that Christie and Eddie are notorious for. I WANTED TO SEE BRYAN FURY LAUGH! So fighting style accuracy? Wasn’t there.
But wait! Maybe the plot could save this monstrosity.
Nope. Chuck Testa.
The storyline was a loosely knit rebel-seekng-revenge-against-totalirian-future-society. Somewhere in the midst of all this the tournament was turned into a deathmatch, in which we saw 2 deaths. Not even any real blood or gore. I believe the appropriate slang term is “weak sauce”. Maybe there was more to it, but I was simply overwhelmed with angry at all the inaccuracies piled into something called the Tekken movie.
Unless you have low blood circulation and need to get the blood flowing I suggest that you stay away from this movie. If you don’t heed my warning? Be prepared to rage quit.