Tekken (2010)
Survival is no game.
Hey, I found the movie I was going to do last week before getting distracted! Get pumped for a rival franchise movie coming out this week by watching a different fighting game movie! Look, the video game is a weird soap opera of things - and I’ve only played one of the things, so I can’t much speak for it, but I do know one thing it’ll probably deliver on: fights. Pump those muscles and try not to bust a vein from the strain, tonight we jump-kick into Tekken.
As indicated before, I didn’t really follow the story of Tekken - fighting games weren’t really my jam. I know there was a lot of soap opera drama with people dying and coming back and all that sort of stuff, but as far as the movie is concerned my knowledge pretty much is just cosmetic. The movie decides to give us a post apocalyptic style future, where the world has gone to crap and Corporations have arisen to rule over things. At the top end of this is a fighting-sport where various corporations send their top-tier fighters to engage in a big old brawl. When a security team blows up his mom, one low-down and dirty slum-rat of a kid decides enough is enough and enters the tournament for a chance at the Tekken corporations head man - whom he blames for her death, what with controlling the security teams and all. Within the Tekken corporation a power struggle is about to occur.
Come for the fight, get an overly complicated yet surprisingly simple story for you reward. Is it the best story to ever exist, well I wouldn’t go that far. Still, it’s more in line with that Soap Opera feel that I would think the game would have, with all these little back stabbings and double crosses floating about. There’s plenty of characters thrown in from the game, although also most don’t have a ton of screen time. Our main finds himself a lady friend, and outside of her and the Tekken heads, most the other characters are relegated to simply being fighters. This helps add in the fan service of “X character is in it!” without turning into a overly-complicated mess like Mortal Kombat: Annihilation ended up being.
Yes, you could try to dive into all those little elements as discussion points, but if I’m being honest I’m not watching a movie based on a fighting game expecting any kind of deep philosophy past perhaps a cursory thing about “honor” and “discipline” since those tend to be tied to martial arts. There’s stuff there, sure - but I’m just letting someone else call in on that stuff because it’s not what I was there for and therefore I was doubled-down on not paying attention to that sort of thing. Still, at a quick glance you could say stuff to say about family, stuff to say about human nature, and stuff to say about greed. I wouldn’t go as far as to say a lot of it goes into deep input on it, but if your looking for stuff to read into I guess it is there technically.
Ken-do like.
Actors do a decent job here. I mean, if I’m being honest it can be rather cheesy at times. I mean, a lot of the characters frequently are played quite serious, but there’s certainly a few where it’s just so one-note that it’s almost comical. For example, the Corporate son who wants to take over is one mustache twirl away from a cartoon villain. Some of the fighters are just a fighter - no actual character at all. In turn, it almost feels more appropriate to treat most the characters as stunt people - in which case it’s less about acting and more about selling the fights and the physique required to sell the fights happening. That being said, don’t expect any real knock-out performances on this. It’s not quite as cheesy as a lot of TV movies, but it’s also not quite the grade of performances where you are totally invested and impressed the entire time.
The real star, as you may have guessed, in my opinion is actually the fights and costumes. Specifically let’s hit the fights first. Part of this ties into choreography and part into the editing. On the choreography side the one on one fights really allow for some mixing of styles in the fights - although honestly the most different feeling is the first, where we get the capoiera fighter and plenty of smooth flips and rolls. The second part of this is the shots themselves. There’s a good number of wide and in close shots, from various angles to keep the action feeling more action-like. The cutting is where things get good or bad, all depending. Sometimes, it works really well - changing levels of zoom or angle without confusing, and really just adding some extra oomph to things. Sometimes, it works not as well - it can jump around quite a bit at times, cutting in the crowd or non combatants for effect when you really just want to see the fighters fight. It’s a bit of a wrestling match in how it presents the fights honestly, and that’s fine.
The other star I mentioned is the costumes. Yes, some of the hair isn’t exactly perfect for the game - but that’s something that happens when real hair doesn’t work like fake polygon hair. Still, I see someone on screen and I can recognize them by their costume, having really only played one Tekken game at that. It also makes it really easy to know who a character is by just their on screen appearance, regardless of how many are on it. The main characters power gloves in particular I love the look off, but even non-fighter types can get some fun costumes. The security force looks very reminiscent of a Kendo practitioner’s safety gear, just slightly more armored for the whole security thing. The settings also get quite a bit in there - as silly as it might be to keep changing the arena with scenery props to make a “new location.” The exterior city is classic post-apocalypse city, but it’s fun enough to look at despite the darkness.
They will fight.
It’s a fun enough movie, and gives you what you want out of it. I can’t speak to authenticity of the story to the games from which it spawned, but there’s plenty of character costumes or general looks that are close enough you can figure out who it is. If you just want a fight movie that happens to be set in a post apocalyptic city that boils down to a story of revenge and greed, then it’ll probably be time well spent.