Video game movies have become huge in Hollywood lately, right up there with comic book adaptations. But there's a massive gap in quality here. While comics gave us hits like "Batman Begins", "Sin City", "The Dark Knight", and "Watchmen", video game flicks usually tank at the box office and get trashed by critics. Even when you look specifically at fighting games, the track record is pretty pathetic. Aside from "Mortal Kombat", which actually did okay domestically and globally and holds some respect with fans, almost everything else has been a disaster. "Street Fighter" was hyped up as this massive star-studded blockbuster led by Jean-Claude Van Damme, but it ended up being one of the worst movies ever made—and it didn't even make its money back. The sequel, "Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li", was even worse. "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation", "Dead or Alive", and several others were just total flops too.
Now it's the turn of one of the biggest fighting franchises out there: "Tekken". This series has pumped out nine installments already, with the latest, "Tekken 6", dropping in 2008, following a run that started all the way back in 1994. The whole thing is backed by Namco, the legends behind "Pac-Man". For this movie, they brought in director Dwight H. Little, who's mostly known for directing episodes of shows like "The Practice", "Prison Break", and "Bones". Since Namco is producing, the budget sits at a modest $35 million, putting it in that mid-tier category. That doesn't mean the action won't hit, though; they hired French stunt coordinator Cyril Raffaelli. You might recognize his work from "District 13", "District 13: Ultimatum", "Live Free or Die Hard", or his choreography in "The Transporter", "The Incredible Hulk", and "Hitman". The cast features some solid names, including guys who actually know how to fight, like Luke Goss, Jon Foo, Gary Daniels, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, and Chiaki Kuriyama. We don't have an American release date yet, but the dates for Japan and the UK are set. It hits the UK on April 5th, and Japan gets it even earlier on March 20th, 2010. Hopefully, the fans of the game and martial arts movies actually get something decent here.
IMDBOfficial siteTRAILERJAPANESE TRAILERPLOT It’s 2039. After the World Wars tore civilization apart, governments are a thing of the past, replaced by massive corporations—the biggest being the Mishima Zaibatsu. To keep the restless population in check, the Mishima group sponsors the King of Iron Fist Tournament, or Tekken. Fighters go head-to-head until only one remains, walking away with endless fame and fortune. We see this brutal reality through Jin Kazama, a rebellious teen street fighter who jumps into the tournament to avenge his mother. He blames her death on Heihachi Mishima, the ruthless chairman of the Zaibatsu. Jin knows winning the tournament is his only shot at getting close enough to take Heihachi down, but along the way, he starts facing his own demons and uncovering a conspiracy within Tekken that could end humanity itself.
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