REVIEW TEKKEN THE MOVIE 2010

TEKKEN: Live Action Movie Coming In 2010

Earlier this month, “Tekken”, the movie from Crystal Sky Pictures adapted from the NAMCO arcade game, premiered at the American Film Market in Los Angeles, courting possible distributors.

“What?” you may ask?  Another film made from a video game? How good could it be?  We know that the track record for video games adapted into movie format has at best an uneven reputation, but can “Tekken” score one in the win column?

“Tekken” stars Luke Goss (Hellboy II, Blade II) as Steve Fox, Jon Foo as Jin Kazama, Cary- Hiroyuki Tagawa (Mortal Kombat, Elektra) as Heihachi Mishima, Gary Daniels as Bryan Fury, Ian Anthony Dale, Kelly Overton as Christie Monteiro, Cung Le as Kazuya (Pandorum) as Marshall Law, and Tamlyn Tomita (Eureka, Heroes) as Jun Kazama.  The film was directed by Dwight H. Little (Murder at 1600) and written by Alan B. McElroy (Spawn, Wrong Turn, The Marine).  The film adaptation follows “Jin Kazama’s quest for revenge against Tekken Corporation chairman, Heihachi Mishima, the man responsible for the death of his mother. The only way for Jin to get close to Mishima is to enter Tekken’s Iron Fist tournament.” (Images of the characters below were released earlier this year. Top row: Brian Fury, Kazuya, Steve Fox. Bottom row: Marshall Law, Jin Kazama, Anna Williams. Click image to embiggen.)

As it is too early for the press to be able to review the film, the lucky attendees to the “Tekken” afterparty had the opportunity to see the promotional trailer for the film.  From an eye-witness account from IGN, here is a description of this advance look at the “Tekken” trailer:

“The following title cards flash at various points throughout the trailer: “One tournament … decides the fate of millions. … They fight for power … They fight for honor … They fight for pride … But one man … fights for revenge. … Courage fuels him … Rage drives him.”
The trailer opens with a Blade Runner-style flying car soaring over a futuristic city, which has a massive stadium in the center of it. Inside the stadium, a rowdy crowd cheers for the show to begin, their blood clearly up. We see the “Tekken Iron Fist” tournament sign, then shots of fighters in action. We get our first look at goatee-sporting Ian Anthony Dale as Kazuya Mishima, followed by Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa as Heihachi Mishima (whose countenance also graces giant ads for Tekken on the sides of buildings, with the slogan “Strength Through Order”). We then see a montage of the tournament’s different fighters, including Raven, Eddie Gordo, Bryan Fury, Craig Marduk, and Yoshimitsu — all of whom look very much like their game counterparts. Yoshimitsu’s armor seemed like a cross between the versions worn in Tekken 3 and Tekken 6.
Obviously, the emphasis in the Tekken trailer is on fighting, so it’s a lot of action shots from tournament matches. There’s flipping, punching, kicking — all the moves you’d expect. At one point a fighter whips a heavy chain around his opponent’s head to bring him down. Then we meet our hero, Jin Kazama (Jon Foo), as he runs along the ledges of a building and leaps off, parkour-style. We see him fight in a cage match (reminiscent of Wolverine’s introduction in the first X-Men), and his rise up from the streets and into the Iron Fist competition.

Jin meets Steve Fox (Luke Goss), and then the sexy Christie Monteiro (Kelly Overton). Then there’s the making-of-a hero montage of Jin in training, pummeling a wooden dummy. More shots of Yoshimitsu. Steve Fox yelling. Kazuya walking bare-chested with a wall of fire behind him. Then we get our hero shot of Jin, now looking exactly like his game counterpart: no shirt, black pants with flames down the right leg, the gauntlets. His look is pretty much dead-on.
We then see Steve Fox in the ring, followed by hot chicks fighting (it may have been Nina vs. Anna Williams, or one of them vs. Christie Monteiro; it all went by too fast to tell). Then we get a Fast and Furious dance club scene with Christie bumping and grinding, then of her and Jin making out. We see Jin battling Bryan Fury (Gary Daniels), with one of Jin’s blow causing a sort of energized ripple across Fury’s chest. Cut to a shot of guards pulling a distraught Asian woman away (this may have been Jun Kazama, played by Tamlyn Tomita). More fighting shots, now with fighters wielding maces and half-moon axes. It ends with, of course, the Tekken movie logo.

Frankly, the trailer was more impressive than I expected it to be. It certainly looked way better and more polished than Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li and other fighting game movie adaptations. It felt like Mortal Kombat crossed with X-Men and with some of the sexy, hip, urban youth appeal of the Fast and the Furious films. Unlike most other videogame movies, Tekken actually looked like it had something of a budget and that it wasn’t made for TV pilot money. Nothing in it looked particularly cheesy or embarrassing, which is kind of remarkable considering how much of the look of the game and its characters it retained. Unlike the recent Street Fighter movie, these characters actually bear a strong resemblance to their game counterparts, but they also don’t look dumb or campy or out of place in the world the film’s established. (Well, at least as far as I could tell from this trailer.) ”

From the sounds of this description of the trailer, it sounds pretty standard of what you’d expect from a film adapted from a combat video game.  Let’s hope this interpretation will be able to hold up for movie-goers!  From the looks of the “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time” trailer, I’m unsure of how well “Tekken” can keep up.  Since the two games are of completely different gameplay styles, I hope both movies will be able to capture the essence of the characters and gameplay of their respective games.  Fans and movie-goers alike need to be able to keep that difference in source material in mind.

Considering that Dwight H. Little has also directed episodes of “Dollhouse”, “Bones”, and “Castle” and Alan B. McElroy’s experience with “Spawn”, “Tekken” should be able to capture the spirit of the game.  The cast is full of familiar faces to the scifi/fantasy genre so I hope their collective experience will help this cast to pull off this adaptation successfully.

Take a look at the new promotional art has been released with this premiere at AFM (click images to embiggen):

When actor Luke Goss who plays Steve Fox (15 years after his fighting days) in “Tekken” was asked how faithful this adaptation of “Tekken” is to the game in regards to story and gameplay and how it compares to “Mortal Kombat”, Goss answers positively:

“I do feel this movie translates the game to film very cleverly. The game takes place primarily in the ring, the movie mixes story and the fighting in a very cool way. Mortal Kombat is a great movie, I am very proud of what we all did with Tekken, Being a gamer myself and a huge fan of Tekken , I think you are gonna love it!”

No word on a theatrical release date for “Tekken”, but it will likely be in 2010.  Keep it here on SciFiMafia for more news on “Tekken”!

Scifimania.com