The King of Fighters

Hand on heart, then I am not a fan of movies based on fighting games, but this one topples all the rest. It pretty much sums up the definition of bad movies.

"The King of Fighters" suffers horribly from an very weak and basically non-existent storyline. And whatever little was there just didn't work. Come on, putting in an ear piece and then press a button and you go to an alternate dimension to fight? Yeah, that was perhaps the most epic fail of the entire movie.

Also, the movie suffered from a lack of acting talents. Surely there were some scenes that were alright, but in general the acting performances in this movie was painful to behold. And also the actors/actresses didn't really have much of a solid dialogue script to work with. And also the characters portrayed in the movie never grasped you, they were shallow and had no personalities, so it was hard to relate to any of them or get any kind of emotion for any of them.

Now, what did work for the movie, was the CGI effects. They were actually adequate enough to look at. I especially liked the regular flame and blue flame effects, they looked cool.

Some of the fighting scenes were good enough to look at, and had just the right amount of speed and action. But most of them actually were strenuous to the eyes and came off as half-hearted, forced attempts of making a fight scene.

I wonder what made Maggie Q agree to participate in a movie like this. Usually her movies are somewhat further up the ladder compared to this movie. If for no other reason, at least her appearance is a treat for the eyes.

There are way too many movie versions of fighting games out there, and 99% of them doesn't translate well to a movie screen. And "The King of Fighters" is one of them. I actually fell asleep and was out for 20 minutes during this movie, it was just that boring. I am sure that the director had the best of intentions at heart, but there is no need to make a movie out of a fighting game that has long gone out of date.

If you are into action movies and movies based on fighting games, "The King of Fighters" should be avoided, you are better off watching something like "Mortal Kombat" instead. This movie is not really worth the effort.

I wasted an hour and a half on this (well more like an hour, as I was out for 20 minutes or so), and this is definitely not a movie that I will be returning to ever again.

The King of Fighters is based from a video game of the same name. As far as adaptations go, this film is a lousy one. It is mediocre, lame & cheesy. Except for the CGI who gave this film a little bit of oomph, the other aspects fall flat.

Fans of the game would be very disappointed with this film, as they have expected more than this. The casting is poor, Ms. Maggie Q included. The acting was unbelievable, and lacks any impression.

I expected more from this film, and it is very disappointed to have to watch this mediocre film for the hour and a half I spent which was a waste of time.

Seriously,what the heck those Hollywood guys think?

I mean this story is based on the game that involved ancient japan folklore with obviously with Asian characters as the central story so anyone can tell KYO KUSANAGI is a Japanese,and i can't even see a bit of oriental in Kyo,not to be racist but ,now Sean Farris as Kyo??no offense man but you're not even close,grow some hairy face and cast yourself as Ralf--The most acceptable character for this movie storyline but unfortunately left out--and leave Kyo's casting to any young Asian movie star.

Not just this movie,look at DoA,Tekken,and Dragon Ball,as a fan of those games & anime title it truly hurts me to see kazuya not played by an Asian,hell even goku changed stayed as a super saiyant all the time in the movie version??

And finally : Maggie Q as Mai Shiranui,google for Mai Shiranui and you'll see there's no physical resemblance apart from the long hair and slim legs.

Definitely this is one of the most horrible adaption movie.

Please don't waste your time watching this movie!! Its horrific to see how low budget movie production houses and poor unprofessional directors try to make a movie from a franchise and twist the original characters and story and fan support into a pathetic show of a movie which is nothing but a complete joke.

I mean I was speechless once I was able to finish this movie after keeping myself in the chair in hope that the director would come up with something better. But Alas, it was the same joke again n again.

You could tell at every step of the movie that its a low budget movie with directions so horrible that the actors are stiff, dialogues not in place, the tiny bit of special effects being forwarded to make it faster. Like for gods sake, you couldn't make the Orochi ball into a little bit better display??? If you can't make a good movie, then please don't screw up the original story board and the KOF name.

Anyone with the slightest taste in movies should stay a million miles away from this movie. The whole production house and director should be ashamed of what they have done. Me, a proud fan of KOF, disgusted beyond saying to see this movie.

If there's one video game that I suck at big time, it will be The King of Fighters. Already I was struggling back then with mastering all the Street Fighter character moves, then this game came along, where one has to master 3 characters as a group and face them off either with some artificial intelligence (now programmed to be smarter at your neighbourhood video game store), or with another human challenger who finds it easy to cream me with one character in full energy left to spare.

Things have been relatively low key for the film version of the video game, and perhaps rightly so since it's not automatic that films from Japanese video games, manga and animation make that dignified live-action leap onto the silver screen, most falling short in the process – last year's disastrous Dragon Ball Evolution and the lacklustre Street Fighter Legend of Chun Li being very recent examples of the bad aftertaste left at the box office. Audience these days demand a lot more, and the in-built fan base no longer representing a ready market, but a base of high expectations that are difficult to meet even as they are aware some tweaks to characters and story lines are necessary for the change of medium. This Gordon Chan directed effort however, is expected to fall short given the extremely flimsy, cookie cutter storyline that reeks, and for an action film, the cardinal sin of having limited action, almost all of which are left to the last 30 minutes.

Maggie Q marquees this film as Mai Shianui, working undercover for Terry Bogard (David Leitch) of the CIA (I hear yawns already) to hook up with Iori Yagami (Will Yun Lee) who teaches her the background myth of having a necklace and a mirror combined to open a door to another dimension. There's a sword in the picture as well belonging to the Kusanagi clan, but one rumored to be lost, and required by chief villain Rugal Bernstein (Ray Park) in order to reign supreme in the King of Fighters MMORPG since he's stolen the other two items and tweaked the system so that his rules apply in the virtual world and is working to combine all dimensions and realms into one. That's basically it, with the heroes trying to convince the Kusanagi clan heir Kyo (Sean Faris who plays a half-Japanese, that explains his Caucasian looks) to cough out the legendary sword, and stop Rugal from destroying civilization.

What's neat is how Rita Augustine and Matthew Ryan Fischer managed to fuse the fantastical elements of the fights that nods at the Matrix experience, with combatants jacked in through bluetooth-like earpieces in order to fight in the virtual MMORPG dimension complete with superhuman powers from the game, though the fights during the first hour had just a very little glimpse of what the finale would promise. The King of Fighters then is a tournament where combatants rise in the ranks through each victory, though with the compromise now by Rugal, death in the dimension also means death in the real world.

What didn't work, happens to be a lot of things. For starters, we have the usual cardboard characters (OK, so this is based on a video game) with CIA agents, hokey Japanese philosophy talk, and just about every situation, setting and background of the characters being extremely contrived. As mentioned the first hour of the film is talk, talk and more talk on the usual genre themes like responsibility and destiny, Then you have heroes who are reluctant and blur, and how one gets transformed from zero to hero is absolutely baffling based on pep talks from memory. The quest for the Kusunagi sword also happens in the most roundabout fashion just to bloat the film's runtime, and amongst all the characters, Terry Bogard happens to be the most carelessly designed on screen with that out of place jacket and baseball cap (keeping to the game I know), with a really obnoxious, ignorant attitude, and a CIA dimwit a-hole to boot.

The fight sequences happened to be a mixed bag, though Hong Kong influences are very heavy in the way the fisticuffs are designed. Special effects inspired by the game are also limited, which is most unfortunate as the game is famed for the various combo-moves that the characters can execute, which is all but lost in the film version. Even then, whatever effects all seemed to be reserved for the extended battle sequence at the finale for an all-out duke out, and audiences will have to be patient with all the talk for the first hour before things start to get remotely interesting since all the money shots get concentrated toward the end.

Naturally movies of this nature will have an ending primed for sequels to continue where it left off especially when the box office response is positive, but my money's on the "Nay" list. If I have to compare, then this is ahead of Dragonball and The Legend of Chun Li, but only just.