Tekken

♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣

No complaints regarding the costume. Whoever is in charge of that aspect has obviously done some serious research and it is nice to see that they have stayed loyal to the characters' looks in the video game. The costumes worn by Nina and Christie are tweaked a little to show more skin but that does not destroy the motif of the original on which it is based. They just become Nina Cleavage Williams and Christie Butt Crack Monteiro, respectively. Understandable. No A-List actors here, need to show more skin. Oops, too late, already went straight to DVD in the US. Fail.

They should have used the yellow/red version of Jin's pants (the one with the flame design on it) instead of the blue one. That is easily identified as his signature look and it matches the red gauntlets. Kudos to Jon Foo's hairstylist, though his hair is not as gravity defying as those of Jin in the video game, it is enough to be quickly identified as his. Kudos to Jon Foo too for trying to imitate every grunt and noise Jin makes in the video game. At least, he tries. Fight scenes are not that bad either thanks to his Wushu background. It would have been better though if only they had incorporated Jun's and Kazuya's moves in the video game to Jin's choreographed fight scenes here.

Anna is weirdly tame here, probably because of the little exposure she gets. In fact, it is Nina who seems to be the slut. Anna playing with Kazuya in bed is a given but Nina joining them is just plain weird, if based on her characterization as an indifferent and cold spy-girl in the video game. All she really wants is her memory back and to kick some ass, and she openly despises her sister. They even shoot each other with bazookas, do they not? So having a threesome with her and Mishima Jr. is just not right.

Where are the other characters? It would have been nice if they included the ones that have been in the game the longest. In that case, Paul is missing. He is like a joke character and really has no bearing on the main Mishima storyline but hey, give the guy some credit. He, along with Heihachi, Yoshimitsu, and Nina, are the only ones which have been present in every Tekken game to date. He probably deserves a cameo appearance, at the very least.

The world of Tekken is full of interesting stories to back each character up, too bad those are not used. Instead, they settle for the post-apocalyptic totalitarian society setting which might have been just the easiest way to weave a coherent story under two hours but unfortunately results in lots of underutilized characters, which in turn might just piss some fans off. Pisses me off. Nina's role is reduced to that of a dolled up whore. Now, who would not be pissed? Biases. My apologies. Nina is my primary character. And Lei, secondary. But he is not here.

So there. Do not watch if you are a rabid Tekken fan. Costumes are amusing. Characterization is bad. Would probably just disappoint you.