Reviewed by Alicia Glass

Rating: 7 Spinning Back Kicks

In a bleak post-world-war future where territories are run by corporations and a fighting tournament is offered to placate the masses, peace-loving Jin finds his destiny.

Yes yes, I know, another movie based off a video game, and a fighting one at that. It’s actually not bad. Only minimal efforts are made at an over-arcing plotline for the movie, and frankly I think that was the best decision they could’ve made – it’s just insulting and annoying to try and burden an action movie like this with a doughty plot. Instead, like the video game, we have one on one fights between masters in flashy costumes, shifting background scenery, lights and announcers and fans oh my! It kind of reminds of a, and pardon me here, I loved this movie too, more campy and flashy version of Mortal Kombat. And speaking of MK, the actor who played Shang Tsung in there, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, is here in Tekken as, oh shock and surprise, another bad guy. He does pretty well, though those tufts of white hair sticking straight up make me laugh.

The fight scenes are really where we want to concentrate, it is after all that kind of movie. And I rather liked the stop-motion photography they used for the fight scenes, along with the fact that a good deal of these actors are martial artists themselves and did a lot of these action scenes together. They manage to make some of the more rather unlikely VG moves look plausible in real life, just ignore the vinyl in fluorescent green.

We have Tamlyn Tomita of Heroes fame as Jin’s mother who taught him to fight, man she’s awesome. Jon Foo of The Protector stars as Jin himself, yum. Kelly Overton of The Ring Two stars in as Christie Montiero, the inevitable love interest. Darren Henson, a famous choreographer for groups like N’ Sync, shows off his moves as the fighter character Raven. Luke Goss of Hellboy II: The Golden Army as Prince Nuada even, bet you didn’t know that, brings boxing power as an English fighter.

Although I still can’t for the life of me understand why the movie gods keep insisting on making movies from video games, this one is alright. Good for a night of martial arts camp and mayhem, Tekken the movie gets 7 spinning back kicks!