For the most part, video game movies have had a sordid past. More often than not, the only thing brought to the table is a really colossal waste of time. Suffice it to say, it is up to the individual and their connection to the franchise being portrayed to decide where a video game film fails. Granted if a movie is just bad, then it’s just bad, but we all have different tastes in our entertainment, and different levels of affinity for particular franchises. Yet as diverse as we are, there are some things we can all universally agree on: Mortal Kombat was awesome, Street Fighter live-action sucked balls, and the Tekken live-action movie was some serious donkey –insert expletive here.
Produced by Crystal Sky, Tekken came out in 2010. It premiered in Singapore with such a bad reception that it went straight to DVD everywhere else. Ouch. Now if you haven’t seen this movie, DONT (unless of course if your like me and love to watch B movies to tear them apart, which of course means your a masochist and love your suffering). The live-action version of the Iron Fist takes liberties with the TEKKEN franchise which are just weird and unwarranted. Set in… I honestly couldn’t tell you for certain. Is it a post-apocalyptic or regress of civilization? That’s never say. Following Jin Kazama… Screw this. I’m not going to bother trying to tell you the movie. As far as plot, character development, and faithfulness to the source material, this things fails and fails hard. You see Jin, Jun, Kazuya, Heihachi, Bryan, Dragunov, Yoshimitsu, Christie Montero, Miguiel, and Nina Williams, plus you get to see some really fun choreographed fight scenes, so I will at least give it that. On the whole, it’s like they tried to out Uwe Boll Uwe Boll. Character relationships are changed and back stories don’t make any sense. It’s a rough movie to try and watch start to finish. I honestly saw it once and skipped some parts. It’s that bad.
So, as big of a flop as the first Tekken live-action project was, Crystal Sky has decided to green light TEKKEN RISE OF THE TOURNAMENT, news that was originally broke in May by the Hollywood Reporter. Rise of the tournament will be a prequel to the first installment, slated as the next installment of a full movie franchise. Yes, they are going to subject us to more of these. I mean, the first movie was so horrible that Katsuhiro Harada, producer of the Tekken games, was quick to verbally distance the games as far from the stench of the film as possible. With Prachya Pinkaew of Ong Bak fame attached as director to the upcoming prequel, maybe this franchise will take a turn for the better, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
