Tekken: Blood Vengeance

I got to see this at the special premiere event held at select theaters across the US, and I'm glad I did! After one lackluster animated film and one downright disappointing live-action one, a film adaptation of the celebrated fighting game hits it out of the park. Rather than trying to force-feed the viewer as many of the 44-to-date major characters as they can while explaining the history of the King of Iron Fist Tournaments to people who may or may not have played/loved the games, this movie takes a different track. Focusing on a very limited cast of characters--yet a cast drawn from all the way across the history of the games--this piece tells a story which falls squarely within the universe of the games (as opposed to one merely "based on" them). Occurring between the events of Tekken 5/Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection and Tekken 6, this follows popular character Ling Xiaoyu as she is recruited by a powerful corporation to do some undercover investigation of a handsome high school student. Along the way, she encounters and befriends the quirky Alisa Bosconovich, unaware that she is on a similar mission--not to mention unaware of some other secrets Alisa is keeping. As the two work their way closer to the truth, dirty secrets, both little and big, about their employers are uncovered, and plots within plots lead inevitably to a generational confrontation which could potentially alter what it means to be human.

This movie has a fair amount of depth and character development. Thanks to the small cast, tightly focused story, and an understanding of what makes a good game as opposed to a good movie, the audience is treated to something special--learning who these people we fight with in-game truly are, and how they got that way. Characters were clearly selected because relationships which already existed between them could heighten the drama, or because they were foils for each other, allowing new relationships to form while informing the audience of important plot points. Don't get me wrong: There's plenty of action, and plenty of fights. Characters even use those wonderful combos players are so familiar with. The Nina/Anna encounters provide a deeper understanding of their relationship than we can get in-game--yes, even while they're fighting!--and avoids being reduced to cliché. And near the end is the battle royale that gamers all wished we could have seen at the end of Tekken 4, but the consoles lacked the power to make happen. It's glorious.

There are moments when it gets a bit campy, of course, but overall, the nice mix of characters, the nice mix of action and development, and the crisp, true-to-the-game visuals make this movie the unicorn of gaming: A game-based movie that's actually good!

I am not a fan of Tekken and have never played the games. The only thing I have done is watching the live-action movie in 2010 and animated movie. And that's all I know about Tekken. But the visuals in the trailer has attracted me to watch this. The visuals are pretty and realistic like in Final Fantasy: Advert Children and Resident Evil: Degeneration.

The story: Yeah, as what the other reviewers complain, the story is dead simple and is probably an excuse to string various fight scenes together. But the beautiful visuals and cool fight scenes make the movie more watchable. You can marvel at the detailed animation and fight scenes are almost flawless like in a live-action movie. The few fight scenes for an CGI movie are top-notch. Although action fans will have to patiently wait for the action-packed third act which features one of the best fight scene in animated and CGI movies. The story in fact is not too bad. It has a bit of the spy stuff. Music wise is good. Best to be viewed with the Japanese voice-over. The English one sounds weird.

Overall: It is supposedly a Tekken movie for the fans who are enraged by the live-action movie. I guess the fans will enjoy this better than the live-action movie. The hybrid Blu-ray is interesting. It plays the 2D and 3D version on Blu-ray and 3D Blu-ray players plus the game on Playstation 3.

apart from the nude scene from Shin Kamiya, kinda miss that guy since he was awesome in the film, even though this was a girly film its also better than the other 2 rubbish Tekken film this one was actually better. But they should make a sequel because they didn't explain how Alisa ended up in a cell when Lars found her in Tekken 6 scenario mode, and namco should put shin in the future Tekken game also i recommend that this film won't be a let down to a Tekken fan because the final fight scene was epic and thought how would Jin fight in a Tekken film. the voices were not too bad to me anyways. finally a film with a plot line related to the Tekken franchise

Before I do this review, I will skip all casting information because most of casting is unknown in the west. I only can say that Katsushiro Harada involves as a executive producer in this animated movie since he is at the bandai namco from begining of Tekken video game series so his presence was a positive sign for this movie on paper but his involvement couldn't save this animation. Honestly, I didn't find what I expected from this animated movie because it doesn't represent Tekken Series as whole. Only %5 percent of the characters from Tekken universe has been used so it is a kind of spin-off but if you are shooting a spin-off you should have an animated series before this movie or maybe a trilogy but it just a spinoff. In this respect, this animated movie mostly can reach to the game series' fanbase because the characters won't make sense even for hardcore anime/animation watchers. Also I dissapointed with some character models but overall visual quality was so not bad. One way or another if a person was not familiar with Tekken game series, then s/he should stay away from this animated movie, but Tekken fans can see the movie either way the movie is quite mediocre and I can say that Tekken 7(game)'s story was more compelling and better than this animated movie.

Ever since i played tekken on the original playstation i was hooked, the ten hit combos, power moves it was all there the best 3d fighting game ever, i used to watch the intro's movies and wonder to myself why don't they make a movie like the intro's as they were mini movies in themselves, tekken 2, 3, 4 and the rest all came with the best intro movies i'd ever seen, now 20 years later and finally, finally i get what im asking for, anyone who played tekken and knows the moves will instantly recognise the special moves each character has, after that disastrous movie which tekken was with its characters that look nothing like the actual game characters i am at last happy, i cant see any tekken fans honestly not liking it, they should use these methods for all game to movie franchises because it works, they don't have to find lookalike actors everything is already spot on, i liked res evil anime too, and final fantasy also as far as im concerned this is the way to go, now all they have to do is make mortal kombat, killer instinct and streetfighter like this and ill be a happy bunny indeed, this is how it should be done, 20 years too late but hey better late than never.