Tekken

In the future, Corporations rule a desolate world.  Only by becoming champion of the King of the Iron Fist Tournament can one rise above and achieve wealth and status.  When his mother is killed by a death squad from the Tekken Corporation, Jin Kazama swears revenge against the Corporations master, Heihachi Mishima.  The only way to get close is to enter Iron Fist itself.  With his only allies being a washed up former boxer and a beautiful mixed martial artist, Jin enters a world more dangerous than the one he’s lived in his whole life, not just against the deadliest fighters in the world…but against his own family as well.

Before we reached the new heyday of good Live Action Video Game movies that began with 2019’s Pokemon: Detective Pikachu, we had that period from the 90’s to early 2010’s where they were either so bad they’re funny or just plain bad.  Examples of the latter can be any Uwe Boll movie in existence.  Examples of the former pertain to todays review.  1994’s Street Fighter is a helluva fun mess thanks to its campiness and the amazingly committed final performance of Raul Julia.  1995’s Mortal Kombat lacks the franchises bloody violence but has good style, action, iconic performances and a still kick ass theme song.  Tekken, the live action adaptation from 2009, at least gets the action part right.  Everything else about it is pretty terrible and borderline boring and generic.  From the poor casting choices to the non existent story to taking itself way too seriously, you have to really work hard to mess up something like Tekken…or just not try at all, that works too.
 
I had to consult a couple of friends who are better Tekken experts than I am to confirm whether or not the post apocalyptic setting is connected to the games and…surprisingly it kind of is (starting around Tekken 4 of 5 during the 2000s).  Regardless of whether its true or not, the setting is such a tired trope, done to death by dozens of Terminator and Mad Max wannabes and long before The Walking Dead would resurrect the dead corpse of that trope for an entire franchise.  Thing is, compared to those other examples, we don’t see much of how the world of Tekken came to be outside of stock footage from Godzilla 1998, Vin Diesel’s xXx and I believe another post apocalypse flick called Doomsday.  Yeah you’re movies off to a bad start when a film buff can spot this poor attempt at world building.  It certainly adds to the air that this was never meant to be a major theatrical release but instead comes off more as a better than usual Syfy movie of the week, which now that I say that explains why most of Tekken is so poorly made.
 
If the world looks generic and played to death, the casting isn’t making up for it.  Jon Foo’s Jin is a constant whiner.  He isn’t so much acting as he is complaining when delivering is dialogue and does nothing to make the audience root for him.  Instead he makes one of gamings most iconic bad asses into a brat with issues of vengeance.  My biggest gripe with the casting though is Kelly Overton as Christie Monterio.  There’s no denying Overton is a gorgeous lady and she more fun than Jin…however, in the games Christie is a dark skinned Brazilian Capoeira fighter.  If they weren’t going to cast properly, why not make Overton a different character altogether?  And then there’s the casting of the legendary Cary Hirokyuki Tagawa as Tekken’s mega popular Heihachi Mishima.  There’s only one reason why Tagawa was cast and that’s simply because he’s best known for playing another major Video Game big bad with Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat.  To be fair, Tagawa brings his usual menacing gravitas to the role but he isn’t given nearly as much to do besides sit and observe things.  Oh and his haircut looks less like Heihachi and more like Shredder from Ninja Turtles if he didn’t have his mask on.  There are also appearances from other Tekken favs like Nina and Ana Williams, Marshall Law and Eddie Gordo but theyre little more than wasted cameos.  But hey they’re all wearing their iconic costumes so that means its good right, right?

Ok so the world and story and pretty bland (the story btw is a typical revenge through a fighting tournament romp) and the characters are the cast of Tekken in name only mostly.  I will give credit where credit is due, the action is pretty good and that’s also the films biggest flaw.  It’s clear from the beginning that this is the element the filmmakers wanted to put major focus on and you can tell the stunt choroegraphers did their research to replicate the diverse fighting styles of characters like Marshall Law or Eddie Gordo.  In this regard, the film does surprisingly well.  From knocking opponents hard against cages to intro and outro taunts, this is where the movie is having the most fun with itself.  Which is why everything outside of the action feels so serious and dull by comparison.  Ok, I get it, you don’t need a super deep story to go with a movie that’s about people beating the crap out of each other, once again see Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter.  But that super serious tone and Jin’s attempts to be edgy and dark are the movie working way too hard to be as cool as the source material without properly honoring it.  Even Ian Anthony Dale’ portrayal of the psychopatchic Kazuya feels bland despite his attempts to ham things up.
 
Is Tekken better than that 0/10 OVA I looked at earlier this year?  Yes but it’s not by much.  If you skip from fight scene to fight scene then you can get the film done in about 20-25 minutes out of this just under 90 min feature.  Everything else is just recycled tropes and filmmaking styles that feel suited to cash grabbing direct to video projects and less about doing right by the source material from one of the most prominent fighting game franchise in history.  Good action can only get you so far and Tekken has good action.  But it’s less of an Iron Fist and more a series of less than enthusiastic punches and kicks from an opponent anyone in the Mishima family would put down in a second.
 
3.5/10
 
So that’s two Tekken projects that didn’t make the cut.  What happens when Bandai Namco takes direct control and tries their hand at Tekken with a CG feature film that looks closer to the games than anything so far?  Our little Tekken Double Feature continues/concludes on Next Monday with Tekken: Blood Vengeance over at the Gundam Anime Corner.