Several hours ago I attended a showing of Tekken Blood Vengeance, the full length 3D CG movie that will be part of the Tekken Hybrid Blu-Ray being released this coming November. It was a one day "special event" running in theaters across the United States. I honestly didn't want to put my hopes too high for this, but as a fan of the series for well over a decade I couldn't help but at least hope for a good show.
Tekken Blood Vengeance's plot doesn't involve any of the King of Iron Fist tournaments at all, so you really don't see much of the extensive cast of characters that fans of the series have gotten used to seeing over the years. The story follows Ling Xiaoyu as she's sent to keep an eye on her mysterious former classmate, Shin Kamiya. She later finds herself paired up with Alisa Bosconovitch, who has an odd, yet hilarious fascination with Shin.
It's a fairly straightforward story with some twists thrown in along the way. A few other Tekken characters make their appearance(I'll list them at the end of this blog), but for the most part the cast of characters remains small throughout the film. As such, unless your favorite character is female, or a Mishima, you probably won't see them fight in this movie.
The CG is certainly top-notch, and 3D effects(although sparsely used) are generally well done. Most of the battles were entertaining most of the time but there were some scenes that I felt could have been done better. Some characters provide comic relief(particularly Lee Chaolan), though there are times when this is not intentional.
The story really wasn't that interesting, and seemed to drag at several points throughout the film(which is particularly bad for a 90 minute film that's dubbed in English). Dialogue came across as hokey and forced at times. Some things were painfully explained by the characters and just had me shaking my head. For example...
Ling: I can't make out part of this photograph.
Alisa: Perhaps if I scanned it I could find something useful. What do you think?
Ling: Yes!
Now I'm paraphrasing, but that's pretty much how the scene went down.
One reason for this could be that the film is, as mentioned before, dubbed in English. Not only is it dubbed, but many of the voice actors aren't that great, or flat out just don't fit the character. You take that and the dialogue("You're like my refrigerator!") and you have some laughably bad scenes. I honestly considered getting up and walking out at one point, and I went there wearing a Tekken 4 T-Shirt that I've had since that game hit the Playstation 2 back in 2002 (it's clean and it still fits, sue me).
But I can't sit here and say it was all bad. Panda was genuinely funny and involved in many of the cooler scenes. Lee Chaolan had the funniest lines in the film. The Nina vs. Anna battle at the beginning was nicely choreographed. While most of the fighting game cast doesn't make it into the film, some of them are still referenced, at least.
After the film ended, there was an interview with Katsuhiro Harada from Namco Bandai, and the director of the film, Yoichi Mori. The interview is in Japanese with English subtitles. Reading the subtitles and keeping an eye on the people on screen isn't anywhere near as easy as it is on a small screen, so in that regard I'm glad they dubbed the film.
The interview gives some insight into why the director made certain choices regarding the story and selection of the characters, which I won't delve into here because they'll ruin some of the plot. This will be on the upcoming Blu-ray for sure.
Overall, I can't say I enjoyed this film as much as I would have hoped, but I still appreciated seeing it on the big screen. If there's ever another CG Tekken film, I hope they go with less story and more action.
List of Characters:
Nina Williams, Anna Williams, Jin Kazama, Kazuya Mishima, Ling Xiaoyu, Panda, Ganryu, Shin Kamiya, Lee Chaolan, Alisa Bosconovitch, and one more.
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