Watching King of Fighters recently made me recall that I had never seen the Tekken movie. As we all know, it is the moral and cultural imperative of every fighting game franchise to make a really terrible movie about itself (Soulcalibur, we're waiting). This particular one uses a pretty standard formula for the mini-genre, in which the Good Guy Main Character Underdog must battle the Bad Guys in the Tournament, random pointless romantic interest without much chemistry, but then the Bad Guys Cheat and blah blah blah, you know exactly how this goes. I will say that Bloodsport already demonstrated that you really don't have to abandon the tournament halfway in for an escalation! But that's just not how these ones ever go, of course. It does, unlike King of Fighters, at least give lip service to the "fighters of different styles" fighting it out, but then it doesn't really pay it off, either.
What is actually notable about this film? Not the casting, acting, special effects, or martial arts! Other than the wild pronunciations of character names (only half of them appear to have any clue how to say "Heihachi" for instance, and why do they keep pronouncing Rojo with an A?). Very little. But I guess it did cause me to consider something a little longer than usual...
It's amazing exactly how many sci-fi/dystopia/cyberpunk type movies, as this is, start with the same specific scene or set of scenes: the main character lives in squalor, misery, oppression, whatever, but he is willing to submit to that and degrade himself (almost always a him) in the stance of the Reluctant Hero. He usually has the ability to fight, in this case literally, but just chooses not to use it. Then, the metaphorical or occasionally literal State still won't tolerate the apparent willingness to continue existing, and commits even more heinous acts of traumatic violence against him or his family; no shred of dignity can be allowed to persist, even though he was willing to go along with almost total subjugation and live within the authoritarian system. Finally, this excess violence means that even he must finally act; he is essentially forced into revolutionary violence against his will, because there comes a breaking point where it is just not possible any longer to bear the constant theft of your rights, self-respect, and property. But enough about the plight of Palestine. Oh, wait, there is one key distinction - the average Western audience fully understands and empathizes with the movie character, but in real life they are much more likely to simply kiss the ring of power.
Score: 3/10
IMDb: Tekken
PS: I cannot believe how shameful it is to make this movie and not include King. I mean, if you put me in charge it would have all the best characters, whether they are bears, robots, dinosaurs, etc. Instead I just get a bunch of loser humans. But leaving out KING?? He is one of the iconic Tekken characters. At least it had Yoshimitsu, even if it was a bad and boring version of him.
PPS: If I was the Intellectual Property Holder of Tekken, there is a 100% chance I would pay John Carpenter whatever amount of dollars he requested to make my movie. Although that's probably true of almost any Intellectual Property.
