A fun, action movie; you know, if things like good writing don’t matter to you
What They Say:
The year is 2039. World wars have destroyed everything and territories are run by corporations, the mightiest — and cruelest — of which is Tekken. Jin Kazama (John Foo) witnesses the death of his mother Jun (Tomita) by Tekken in the slums known as Anvil. Vowing vengeance, and armed only with his street smarts and raw fighting skills, he enters a dangerous and potentially deadly combat tournament, where he must defeat the world’s most elite fighters to become the “King of the Iron Fist.”
The Review:
Audio:
This release comes in 5.1 surround, and has options for English (for the hearing impaired) and Spanish subtitles. The mix was decent; with the amount of action throughout, they made nice use of all of the channels to help immerse. Dialogue stayed centered, but sound effects came from all over. So, no complaints from me.
Video:
Technically, there was nothing visually wrong with this release. There were no flaws in the transfer, and there was some really nice contrast between the bright lights and the otherwise dark nature of the visuals. Being a modern action movie, though, it relies heavily on quick cuts and fast transitions, so following the action can be a bit tricky at times. Obviously, though, that’s more an artistic choice by the director than a technical flaw.
Packaging:
This movie comes in a standard amaray case with a slip-cover bearing all of the same information. The front has a picture of Jin in his battle pose, with the rest of fighters flanking him in the background. The back is anchored by a large picture of the fight between Jin and Kazuya; bordering that are a few other screen shots, a summary, and all of the technical details. It isn’t a fancy case, but it certainly does its job; it fits the movie well.
Menu:
I really like the menu for this release. The camera zooms through Tekken city, focusing on various big screens which then show scenes from the movie for a few seconds before the camera moves on. All of the selections are offered on a red bar near the bottom of the screen. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is a lot more than I expected, and it does a good job of selling what we are about to see.
Extras:
There’s only a couple extras on this release. First is just a trailer for the movie. There is also a fifty minute documentary on the choreography of the fights and the various other stunts this movie required. It’s a neat idea, though I won’t pretend that I didn’t tune it out after a while.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Based on Namco’s popular fighting game series, Tekken is a tournament-based action movie squarely aimed at the fans of the games. As you might expect, being essentially an attempt to cash-in on an existing property, it is not exactly a watermark of fine writing, but accepting it for what it is, it is a lot of fun.
In the near future, civilization has fallen apart. In the wake of modern world wars, governments have collapsed and have been replaced by corporations, the largest and cruelest of which is Tekken. Society within Tekken’s domain features a sharp divide between the Haves and the Have-Nots, and Tekken enforces that divide with an “Iron Fist.”
While there is growing unrest in the slums known as Anvil, young Jin Kazama has found his own way of playing the system for his own gain. Accepting his fate as a nobody, Jin makes decent money as a smuggler, enough that he can often afford luxuries that others in Anvil would never be able to save for. Trained as a fighter his entire life by his mother, his survival skills are second to none.
It is a pretty good existence, he feels. He has the best life he can find in the slums, and his crimes are too minor for Tekken to really concern itself with. But when he is hired to deliver a piece of contraband Tekken technology to a group of known dissidents ready to bring their rebellion out into the open, he quickly becomes a target. And when his mother is killed in the search for him, he realizes just how cruel life under Tekken’s control is. Using Tekken’s own Iron Fist Tournament as a platform for revenge, Jin sets out to crush Tekken’s control once and for all.
Tekken is a movie with a fairly basic plot. What I described in the previous three paragraphs is all laid out within the first ten minute or so. The rest of the movie centers on the Iron Fist Tournament, and therefore all of the fights that take place in it. And frankly, that’s probably a good thing because the plot has enough holes in it that Dunkin Donuts is suing for copyright violation.
I really have two big issues with the plot (for our purposes here, we’ll ignore all of the other glaring flaws). The first has to do with Jin’s romantic interests. In Anvil, he has a girlfriend named Kara, whom he apparently loves very much. But when he enters Iron Fist, he is immediately attracted to another fighter, Christie Monteiro, ostensibly because she is really precise with her moving meditations. The fact that she’s hot and half naked has nothing to do with it. Really. But that’s fine; my assumption was that he had to leave Kara behind as she would never be able to survive in the dark world he has descended to. Except that they keep showing her back in Anvil watching his fights intently and looking for all the world like she is waiting for him to come home. Considering they never officially broke up (as far as we know), that’s not too far-fetched. But they never get around to actually resolving this little issue, so how are we supposed to accept his honor/sacrifice/whatever if they just pretend everything is fine with everybody?
The other plot issue I have is with the tournament itself. The tournament is where the fan-service for this movie comes in, as it is filled with all of the long-time favorites such as Jin, Nina Williams, Yoshimitsu, Eddy Gordo and more. Again, totally fine as this is a fanservice movie. But the idea behind a tournament is that if twelve people enter, eleven of them must lose. Since this is a movie that is completely based on the tournament, I would not have thought it difficult to see everybody eliminated one-by-one, but instead, people just disappear from the tournament without any real explanation why. For example, we see Christie fight once, which she wins pretty handily, and then she’s never involved again. At another point, Jin wins a quarter-final match, and is apparently so awesome at it that he doesn’t need to bother with the semis, as his next fight is the finals. In all, there are so many details skipped throughout this movie that I am amazed it made any sense at all.
I would care more about it if the plot mattered at all. The whole purpose of this movie is to see everybody’s favorite character mix it up for 90 minutes, and we got that in spades. While I am not a huge fan of all of the quick cuts and transitions that mark modern fighting movies, I would be lying if I didn’t say this movie didn’t deliver in the fighting. One of the things I really enjoyed (and remarked upon in the stunts documentary extra) was how each fight gave us something a little bit different. We were given straight karate, some MMA, a sword fight, and plenty of acrobatics. Every time we started a new action sequence, we got something different from what we had already seen. And that is something I can appreciate.
The other thing I liked was that it was relatively easy to get into the characters. Having not played a Tekken game since the early days of Tekken 2, I pretty much came into this movie blind. But it didn’t take too long to figure out who mattered and why. While I am sure I am probably missing some context in places, I never really felt like I was missing out because I didn’t know the games, and that can often be a problem with movies of this scope. Granted some of the fighters were there as eye-candy and really didn’t do too much other than answer the roll call, but I never really felt lost, and that was nice.
In Summary:
Tekken isn’t a movie that will hold up to any constructive analysis of its plot. But what it lacks in plot technique, it more than makes up for in being just plain fun. From the opening credits, it kicks things into high gear, and doesn’t stop until the movie ends (be sure to watch through the closing credits for a cliff hanger that sets the stage for a possible sequel). As long as you don’t think too much about it, and just accept it for what it is, there is no reason you can’t have some fun with it too. Mildly recommended.
Features:
Content Grade: B
Audio Grade: A
Video Grade: A
Packaging Grade: B
Menu Grade: A
Extras Grade: B
Released By: Anchor Bay Films
Release Date: July 19, 2011
MSRP: $26.98
Running Time: 91 minutes
Video Encoding: 480i/p
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Review Equipment:
Magnavox 37MF337B 37” LCD HDTV, Sony BDP-S360 BluRay Player w/HDMI Connection, Du-rabrand HT3916 5.1 Surround Sound System
