Tekken - The Animation

This movie is about a rich man, Heihachi Mishima, who is obsessed with destroying the devil in order to create a better new world. He intentionally throws his son Kazuya from a cliff creating a devil within Kazuya. However, nobody has ever seen Kazuya ever since. Certain that Kazuya will go for it, Heihachi announces a martial arts competition. The one who get to Heihachi first and the manages to defeat him, wins the prize-money and the title of "King of Iron Fist". Kazuya shows up indeed but as he attempts to kill his father he is consistently stopped by Jun, a girl from his childhood, who was there when Heihachi threw him off the cliff. Now is there at the tournament and she won't stop at nothing to release Kazuya from the devil within him.

Although this Anime is not the exactly best, I think they did a very good job with the story. Considering the amount of Tekken characters in existence (52, including the ones that are not in the game)they managed to get many of the characters in it without harming the continuity of the story. On the other hand I thought there was too little of Devil in it and Jun just doesn't stop talking. 6/10

I was really disappointed and mad after I watched this movie. My expectations were too high. The beginning of the movie was the best part because it was giving the information of the story. Beyond that it started to decline more and more. The thing that really made me mad was why show characters from Tekken 3 at the opening credits if they weren't in the rest of the movie. That's just stupid in my eyes. Once the tournament started, what happened with all the characters? Yoshimitsu, Marshall Law, Paul Phoenix, King, Armor King, all were seen and didn't show them throughout the tournament. Everyone had a story to tell in that game, but they only centered it on Jun and Kazuya. They only thing that was a plus was that it was filled in some of the blanks on Tekken 2 between the two of them. Lee Chaolan was just an idiot on the movie. I understand that in game story he was obsessed about controlling the Mishima Zaibatsu, but he would never go as far to kill himself and and destroy the company so no one else would get it. He's not that insane.

Overall, the movie really let me down. Like I said before the only thing that was good was the information. At least now we know that how Jin came to be born. I just wish we could've learned more about the other characters. That's the only thing that was wrong about the movie. Hopefully, if they do another movie they would get it right, but that's only going on hope.

I'm a huge fan of the Tekken series, as well as of anime movies, so it was only natural that I would see this film eventually. Here's my quick take on it.

The Tekken video games, despite popular belief, have very deep storylines. There are over fifty characters, all connected to one another via relationships, grudges, sordid pasts, and anything else imaginable. The filmmakers decided to crush this level of depth into sixty minutes of screentime. Obviously, only a few of the characters could be focused on, but they made a gosh-darn good effort at trying to squeeze every last character they could in there anyway. Some fighters were touched on, then lost, others existed solely to be killed by the more popular characters. The ones that did last long enough to have a real storyline were horrendously twisted from their video game counterparts', again, all in an effort to fit as much as humanly possible into an hour long movie.

The Tekken part of the movie was mangled, but sadly, also was the anime part, which could have been it's redeeming quality. In true anime style, there were long-winded speeches, sappy emotional connections, over-the-top fisticuffs, and more gore than you can shake a proverbial stick at. However, the movie takes these elements to such a level that they appear to be almost a charicature of anime. The conversations are dull and pointless, punctuated by awful voice-actors and unnecessary background music that mercifully drowns out parts of it. The emotional scenes are overdone and don't evoke any real emotions. The fights, when they do occur, consist of talking mostly, with the occasional bloody beat-down. When dinosaurs get released all over the island...well, things just get ridiculous in that department.

With all the bashing this movie has received from other critics and me, don't think you necessarily have to avoid it at all costs, either. There are some good, action-packed scenes that make it almost worth suffering through the bad ones. All in all, Tekken: The Motion Picture is good, campy fun that should be seen by all fans of the games once...and only once.

From the video game 'Tekken' comes an anime movie, 'Tekken: The Motion Picture'. The story begins the same as the story of 'Mortal Kombat'. As in 'Mortal Kombat' the main villain makes sure another person has to seek revenge, as in 'Mortal Kombat' martial art experts get on a boat to arrive on an island, and as in 'Mortal Kombat' a tournament is the reason to do so. We follow a couple of different persons who all want to kill the villain, all with their own reasons. On their journeys they encounter some strange enemies and of course hidden secrets are revealed.

Although the animation is not as good as we normally see in this kind of movies there still is some energy, especially in the fighting sequences. This is not a very good movie but since it is not that long, less than an hour, it was quite watchable. Although most things are ridiculous, even for anime, I was entertained. Because of its running time it doesn't find a chance to become really boring. There are better movies from the genre but for only an hour there is a good chance you will like it.

Rating: *

In 1993, NAMCO released the fighting video game 'Tekken' about a martial arts contest held by the powerful Mishima corporation. It was extremely successful, and was followed by the greatest fighting game of all time-- named (what else?) 'Tekken 2.' At this point, there have been four more sequels, including a Tag Tournament and a Game Boy version. This anime follows the storyline in the first two.

Let me start off by saying that I think anime stinks for the most part. Only one show, 'Dragonball Z', is any good, and it drags its stories out far too long. This adaptation of the game series, however, has the opposite problem: it is far too short.

The fight scenes are pitiful and don't even start to get thrilling. Of all the characters in the game, only Kazuya, Heihachi, Lee, and Jun get any decent screen time (Lei and Jack-2 are the only others that get any real time at all). And they're not developed nearly enough.

A couple of Lee's scenes are interesting and there is one attempted assassination on Kazuya by Nina that's sort of okay, but otherwise this is a badly written, boring anime flick.

And when a sixty minute movie is boring, you know you're in trouble.

Anyone not familiar with the story line will be utterly confused and find the film completely incomprehensible. Those familiar with it will be disappointed by how poor it is.

The script is so bad that the writers call 'Tekken' a mysterious thing that doesn't make sense. After Lee's two incomprehensible sentences about it, it is completely ignored. What is it-- the Force? A magical fighting style? An underwear style? Who knows.

Tekken means Iron Fights, and the geniuses who wrote this piece of crud don't understand that this is supposed to make just a little bit of sense. Not to mention that what is understandable is extraordinarily stupid and illogical.

Besides the script reeking, the rest stinks, too. The voice acting (I am talking about the English version) is awful, the direction is pointlessly poor, and the music score wanders between okay and really, really annoying.

If you aren't familiar with the games, avoid this at all costs. If you have, you might consider seeing it on TV as a point of interest, but don't waste any money on it. There aren't a lot of films worse than this.

Rating: *